Scott Horton Interviews Thomas E. Woods

Scott Horton, August 18, 2009

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Thomas E. Woods, author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, discusses the debt some progressive causes owe to states’ rights, vintage 1812 war propaganda that sounds alarmingly like the run-up to the war in Iraq, state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws and the undue respect given to the Supremacy Clause.

MP3 here. (36:05)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books. A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

9 Responses to “Thomas E. Woods”

  1. D.Milam
    August 19th, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    Excellent interview. For more on centralization and its socialist background, check out this interview with Alan Watt:

    http://www.mystreamingserver.com/Archives/AlanWat…

  2. Claus-Erik Hamle
    August 19th, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    According to former Trident missile engineer Bob Aldridge-http://www.plrc.org-the Pentagon aims to achieve a disarming and unanswerable first-strike capability. And according to Bob Aldridge the US Navy can track and destroy all enemy subs simultaneously. Minuteman-3 and Trident-2 D5 linked to NAVSTAR obtain a CEP of 30-40 metres, enough to destroy any hard target. Please see the article by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, "The Rise of US Nuclear Primacy" in the 2006 March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. A First-Strike Capability won´t be complete without the missiles in Poland to shoot down any surviving Russian missiles. Even if it´s only for blackmail, the Russians may have no choice but implementing Launch On Warning. Bob Aldridge resigned because a disarming and unanswerable first-strike capability is suicidal.

  3. John D.
    August 20th, 2009 at 2:30 am

    Claus-Erik – the Russians have planted nukes in every major American city. There is nothing to shoot down.

  4. Claus-Erik Hamle
    August 20th, 2009 at 9:11 am

    The bloody fools in the bloody Pentagon aims to achieve a disarming and unanswerable first-strike capability and that´s suicidal.

  5. Glenn
    August 20th, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    Very cool to know: the states have reserved powers, not rights; individuals(of the biological kind) have rights.

    Excellent. I'll start using the phrase "reserved powers."

    I think it would be worthwhile to start using the correct terminology.

    No time to get lazy, guys.

  6. Alex
    August 20th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    David Frum was on Bill Moyers recently and he described the left-right political priorities. He said that traditionally the Democrats are the party of equality and the Republicans are the party of liberty (you wouldn't have guessed that from the Bush era). To me the Libertarians are the party of liberty and the Republicans use it when it's to their advantage. Similarly the Democrats use equality rhetoric but only the progressive movements have really espoused it and tried to put equality into practice. Since Democrtats and Republicans are only cheap copies or diluted versions of the true believers of liberty and equality, I have a question that occurred to me during your conversation with Mr. Woods.

  7. Alex
    August 20th, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    I would like to believe Libertarian ideals of liberty as Scott and Thomas discussed (you do what you want and I do what I want as long as you're not hurting anyone). My question on that principle is to what extent do you allow for hurting others. I ask about environmental issues. What you do on your property may not be hurting me directly but through the common environment of air, water (including ground water), and other shared resources needed for survival it may be limiting my ability to survive (my liberties). If your activities pollute the groundwater under my property, is it appropriate for me to try to reduce your liberties so that we can have equally clean groundwater?
    I don't want to limit your liberty but I also don't want your activities limiting my ability to survive. Where do you draw the line in allowing liberties that supercede equality, and when do you draw the line at permitting equalities that may infringe on some more reckless liberties?

  8. Tom Woods
    August 21st, 2009 at 4:49 am

    On the environment, I highly recommend this classic treatment: http://mises.org/story/2120

  9. » SCOTT HORTON interviews TOM WOODS
    December 2nd, 2011 at 8:35 am

    [...] SCOTT HORTON interviews TOM WOODS [...]

Leave a Reply