The Tom Woods Show

With various websites (not all "white nationalist") seeing various Internet services withdrawn from them, and given that our media and political classes are not exactly known for their ability to make fine distinctions, could ever more sites and groups, more or less innocuous, find themselves subjected to this kind of treatment? Lew Rockwell and I discuss this and a heck of a lot else, including the controversy about libertarians and fascism. Show notes for Ep. 986

In this episode I talk to Katie Wells of WellnessMama.com, in a conversation ranging from entrepreneurship to education, homeschooling, history, the Federal Reserve, nullification, and more. Show notes for Ep. 985

By popular demand, popular (and iconoclastic) strength trainer Mark Rippetoe joins me to discuss strength training and fitness (and what so many people get wrong), as well as his libertarian views -- and how it all meshes together. Show notes for Ep. 984

The "happiness" literature purports to speak about levels of happiness in various countries. Popular journalism then purports to explain why the happiest places are happy -- and it's always because of the state. Is there anything to this research? Show notes for Ep. 983

Well, this was bound to happen. Brandon Navom of Software Engineers for Liberty was fired from his job for planning to take part in a free speech rally that had nothing to do with anything other than free speech. Hysterics tweeted at his employer that Navom was a Nazi and got him fired with no severance. He is an ordinary libertarian with no unusual views to speak of. Show notes for Ep. 982

The brilliant Scott Horton, a one-man libertarian foreign-policy think tank, joins me to discuss the Trump policy in Afghanistan, the real history of the war, and why the only sensible approach is to get out. Show notes for Ep. 981

Peter van Buren returns to the show to discuss his novel Hooper's War, set during World War II. Beneath all the casualty figures and the news reports is something profound and lasting that damages us during war, and the author brings it out even in the context of the "Good War." Show notes for Ep. 980

The small country of Liechtenstein is run by Prince Hans-Adam II, who is a friend and correspondent of the libertarian economist and philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In today's episode we tell the untold story about this extraordinary place. Show notes for Ep. 979

Keith Preston, whose writing I always find interesting and challenging, wrote an excellent overview and analysis of what happened in Charlottesville last weekend. He does the impossible here: this is as dispassionate as it gets. Enjoy. Show notes for Ep. 978

In the wake of the events in Charlottesville, Paul Gottfried returns to the show to discuss the present state of the American ideological spectrum, from Antifa to the alt Right. Show notes for Ep. 977

Today's episode takes a brief look at economic downturns dating back to the 19th century, and argues that they weren't spontaneous occurrences of the free market. Fun!    I delivered this talk at a Mises Institute event in 2009.   Show notes for Ep. 976

Patrik Schumacher, a prominent architect in London, stunned the architecture world last year when he came out against housing subsidies and state-funded art schools, and in favor of privatizing, parks, streets, and other public areas. Instead of groveling and apologizing, he's sticking to his guns. Show notes for Ep. 975

Antony Sammeroff, who co-hosts the Scottish Liberty Podcast, joins me to discuss how he's taken a personal passion and begun to monetize it online. Show notes for Ep. 974

Glenn Jacobs, best known as the enormously popular WWE wrestler Kane, is also a Misesian and a fixture of the liberty movement. He's currently running for mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, and he joins us to discuss the campaign. Show notes for Ep. 973

As you likely know by now, Google fired James Damore after he wrote an internal memo questioning the assumption that all human differences are due to social conditioning. There is no "libertarian position" on this per se; Google obviously may hire and fire as it pleases. But man was there a lot of libertarian confusion about this.   Some said his firing was "the market" speaking. Some called me a "thick" libertarian for being critical of Google. Some appeared to suggest that libertarians aren't allowed to criticize private entities.   In this episode I clear up all of these unfortunate (and persistent) confusions.   Show notes for Ep. 972

Dennis Fusaro, a longtime political consultant and grassroots activist, found himself in a legal battle for over a year because of what he considers the erratic application of unjust laws that curtail freedom of speech. The jury found him not guilty, in what appears to have been a case of jury nullification. Show notes for Ep. 971

George Orwell has been a mystery to a great many readers. What did he truly believe? Was he a thoroughgoing socialist yet anti-totalitarian? David Ramsay Steele, author of a new book on Orwell, joins me to get to the bottom of it. Show notes for Ep. 970

In this episode I review the history of rights theories in the West from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Expect to hear about the medieval canonists, the late scholastics, John Locke, Murray Rothbard, and Hans Hoppe, among others. Show notes for Ep. 969

You'd think "I want to free you" would be an easy message to sell -- and yet it isn't. Why is that?   This episode is the talk I gave at LibertyFest 2014 in Brooklyn, New York.   Show notes for Ep. 968

Peter van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams. When you hear what the U.S. government -- which had destroyed much of the country and completely undermined its civil society -- expected him to do, you won't know whether to laugh or cry. To make things worse, the State Department came after him when he released We Meant Well, the book we discuss in this episode. Show notes for Ep. 967