• "Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued.... Woods has opened up an area of historical analysis that should invite further study."
    -Journal of American History

  • "During these times that challenge our freedoms there is no one more qualified to make U.S. history relevant to the fight against big government than Thomas Woods."
    -Barry Goldwater Jr.
    Former Member of Congress

  • "I strongly recommend Woods's work."
    -The Honorable Ron Paul,
    U.S. House of Representatives

  • "Written with great clarity and fluency, making the complex philosophical and theological concepts approachable."
    -Journal of American Studies

  • "A must-read."
    -Barron's

  • "An excellent reading source for anyone interested in financial markets, and much more so for anyone interested in learning about capitalism without all the misinterpretations being thrown about in the financial media."
    -Asia Times

  • "Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read."
    -Catholic Historical Review

  • "An engaging and important contribution to scholarship on the history of American Catholicism."
    -Journal of the Historical Society

  • "Woods and [co-author Kevin] Gutzman appeal to both left and right in this constitutionalist jeremiad…. The authors' exegeses of the Constitution and court decisions, heavy on original intent arguments, are lucid and telling."
    -Publishers Weekly

  • "A marvelous read. Every chapter taught me something new and unexpected."
    -Tom Bethell, senior editor,
    The American Spectator

  • "The hottest book today is Meltdown, by my friend Tom Woods."
    -Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst,
    FOX News Channel

  • "Should be required reading."
    -Economic Affairs (London)

  • "Woods, one of the best classical liberal [libertarian] scholars of his generation, has once more placed us in his debt with this lucid and tightly argued book."
    -David Gordon, The Mises Review

  • "Tom Woods is one of my dearest allies in the struggle against wrong-headed and dangerous economic policy."
    -Peter Schiff

Iowa Governor: Ignore Ron Paul Caucus Win

And these are the people who want to “spread democracy” around the world.

“People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third,” Governor Terry Branstad told Politico. “If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states.”

Has Ron Paul broken any rules? Has he cheated? No one even pretends he has. Yet his victory, which the Establishment now seems to expect, is still suspect.

How dare he not want to stampede the country into another war promoted by the same propagandists who gave us the Iraq fiasco!

How dare he think prison rape might not be the most humane solution for someone struggling with drugs! (And of course, if these people cared about the Constitution as much as they pretend to, they would agree with Ron Paul that drugs aren’t a federal issue in the first place.)

How dare he dissent from the (Republican and Democratic) Establishment, which has wrecked the economy, saddled us with unpayable debt, and given us a fiasco of a foreign policy that has made Americans more hated and isolated than ever before!

Note what they don’t say. They don’t say a Romney win would hurt the caucuses, even though Romney said “my views are progressive” just five years before running for president the first time. I won’t bother listing all of Romney’s offenses.

As for Ron Paul being to the “left” of Obama on foreign policy, this is a total misconception. See the foreign-policy resources on this page (below the section on war powers) for an elaboration.

So here’s the message: the candidate the elites least want you to vote for is Ron Paul. The newspapers, the cable news people, the politicos. They are dying for you to support Romney, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann — anyone but Paul. That is another great reason to support him.

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  • SRG

    Agreed.  This is trouble if it isn’t dealt with this time around…

  • jen

    Romney as 2nd in Iowa is a Romney and establishment strategy.  Getting Newt out of Romney’s way is not the way to go while at the same time not doing anything about Romney.  Media is now focusing on Romney and helping him to seal the votes with what they call his “closing remarks” with voters.  And media is focusing on Romney’s comments on Obama as if he is the nominee already.  On the other hand, all other candidates are busy quarreling so they can’t focus on Obama or Romney to make news.

    Newt coming in 2nd would be the best thing for Paul and not a good scenario for establishment.  Romney’s win as 2nd place gives him steam in NH over Newt and Paul. 

    Not good for Bachman to come in 2nd either, then she can there is enough steam in her campaign to keep going.  Her coming in any place does not do anything much for Perry or Gingrich.  Perry has millions to keep going.  Gingrich is strong on a national level. 

  • Mb Logan

    interesting commentary, I think Ron Paul would be a very good president and I am voting for him. I fear Bauchman, Romney, and the other canidates would keep us in a war minded state for a very long time. I wonder if they ever think about the men and women in uniform whose blood would be shed just so they can boast how great they are.

  • Maurice

    MBC

  • Anthony Biermann

    Yeah, from what I’ve heard, there were words spelled incorrectly and used out of context in the letters. After reading Liberty Defined, I highly doubt a writer of Ron Paul’s capabilities would make that many mistakes. As for Lew Rockwell, I think based off of reading from his website, he is just as good of a writer so I doubt it was him.

  • Mauryc99

    If anyone of the candidates other then Ron Paul, becomes president, either Republican, Democrat or Independent, with there stand against Iran, obtaining an atomic bomb, it would be an act of war.” Think about it;  if you cornered like a mountain lion, with everyone threatening him , wouldn’t he want a means of fighting back?  Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Russia, China does, and so do we. All fear they wil attack someone else with them. Even if Iran was destroyed we have no business interfering in their sovereignty and their personal affairs. They claim to want only atomic energy, and are not building a bomb.  Do you actually feel they dare launch an Atomic bomb, even if they did?  They would be destroyed immediately by all of these other countries.  Starting WWIII?    

  • dennis

    Does anyone really know who did write them?  As much as I like most of what Murray Rothbard did, the mid 80s alliance with the paleo-conservatives has probably hurt libertarianism more than anything.  This whole newsletter thing might be the bitterest outcome of that misguided endeavor.

  • http://profiles.google.com/ken.egervari Ken Egervari

    I agree with everything you said, but it took 30 seconds to answer this whole “I am not to the left” part. I think Ron actually answered it just fine as is. The republicans are too stupid to understand the “what is left” and “what is right” – they have no idea. They’ve been brainwashed.

  • http://profiles.google.com/ken.egervari Ken Egervari

    I agree with everything you said SRG!

    As an aside about Sports, I started watching Starcraft 2 tournaments, and that’s actually a really great “sport” because there is no team mentality. It is just individual vs. individual, and the community is really quite great.

    The point of the tournament is to watch awesome games. Many of the “fans” are fans of the game, and fans of watching it being played at a mastery level. A lot of the time, the audience roots for both players.

    It is actually pretty remarkable how different competitive gaming is compared to Sports. The nerds actually got it right ;)

    Anyway, I don’t suspect my article convinced anyone at Steve Deace’s website. In fact, I was banned from posting there after I linked this article ;)

  • Dan

    I don’t know what everyone is panicking about. These issues are some of his easiest to deal with. I live in Los Angeles and a bunch of coworkers were standing around and one guy said Ron Paul is a racist and anti-semite. Every turned to me and after I finished my quick laugh, I asked this guy to explain why Ron Paul idolizes Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard if he is anti-semitic. Why is he good friends with David Gordon, Walter Block, and Murray Sabrin? I then asked this guy to give me just one quote where he made a derogatory statement about Jewish people. When he came back with silence I said ok, now that everybody sees how bizarre that claim is lets take on the racist charge.

    Why would a racist want to end the wars and end the war on drugs which disproportionately hurts minorities? What kind of racist says he stopped supporting the death penalty because it was immoral and used almost exclusively on minorities? Why would a racist say he would pardon all non-violent drug offenders?

    It seriously took me about 2 minutes to completely discredit these absurd charges. In fact, the guy who made the charge followed up by asking me why Hannity, Levin, and Rush would accuse him of this then. When I told him they probably don’t like when people see what a real conservative is supposed to stand for. They only support the constitution when it is convenient to do so and Ron Paul exposes them for their hypocrisy. He laughed and said that makes sense.

    When the media gets this bizarre with their attacks it is a great opportunity to show people that the establishment hates Ron Paul because he wants to take away their power and return it to the individual. Did you think the powerful elite would welcome a guy like Ron Paul with open arms? If this is all they got then they got nothing.

  • jen

    Very good and persuasive arguments.

  • jen

    The problem is that although voters pretend to denounce bailouts, they go along with it just as the politicians they support.  The only difference is that the politicians win and the voters lose. 

    Until they accept and understand self-respect and self-responsibility among other things, they will continue to support those candidates that support bailouts in order to support and give passes to the military establishment.

  • Silence Dogood IX

    Dear Tom!

    No matter what happens during this election, and if we make it another 4 years, please promise me you will run for President in 2016!

  • Mauryc99

    IF YOU ARE SO SCARED OF IRAN GETTING AN ATOMIC BOMB, CONSIDER WHAT RON PAUL SAID.  IF YOU BACK ANY WILD ANIMAL INTO A CORNER HE IS LIBEL TO ATTACK WITH WHAT EVER MEANS HE CAN MUSTER.  FOR EXAMPLE, AS PAUL SAYS, THEY WOULDN’T DARE ATTACK WHEN THERE ARE AT LEAST 5 NATIONS WHO WE KNOW HAVE ATOMIC BOMBS, ARE POINTING THEIR GUNS AT THEM.  THEY WOULD BE DESTROYED INSTANTLY, AND THEY ARE NOT ABOUT TO COMMIT SUICIDE.
    FOR EXAMPLE ISRAEL HAS STOLEN THE SECRETS OF OUR ATOMIC BOMBS AND NOW HAVE DOZENS OF THEM.  THEY SOLD THEM TO CHINA, PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, YET NEITHER OF THEM HAS DARED USE THEM FOR FEAR OF ATTACK BY US, IN RETALIATION.  DO YOU REALLY THINK IT IS WORTH STARTING WWIII? ATTACKING IRAN IS AN ACT OF MORE WAR, WHICH IS AGAIN UN-WINABLE. 

  • Mauryc99

    IF YOU ARE SO SCARED OF IRAN GETTING AN ATOMIC BOMB, CONSIDER WHAT RON PAUL SAID.  IF YOU BACK ANY WILD ANIMAL INTO A CORNER HE IS LIBEL TO ATTACK WITH WHAT EVER MEANS HE CAN MUSTER.  FOR EXAMPLE, AS PAUL SAYS, THEY WOULDN’T DARE ATTACK WHEN THERE ARE AT LEAST 5 NATIONS WHO WE KNOW HAVE ATOMIC BOMBS, ARE POINTING THEIR GUNS AT THEM.  THEY WOULD BE DESTROYED INSTANTLY, AND THEY ARE NOT ABOUT TO COMMIT SUICIDE.
    FOR EXAMPLE ISRAEL HAS STOLEN THE SECRETS OF OUR ATOMIC BOMBS AND NOW HAVE DOZENS OF THEM.  THEY SOLD THEM TO CHINA, PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, YET NEITHER OF THEM HAS DARED USE THEM FOR FEAR OF ATTACK BY US, IN RETALIATION.  DO YOU REALLY THINK IT IS WORTH STARTING WWIII? ATTACKING IRAN IS AN ACT OF MORE WAR, WHICH IS AGAIN UN-WINABLE. 

  • Mauryc99

    Is there anyone out there that understands what is at stake here in this coming election?  
        First of all, Ron Paul has made an entensive study of the Constitution, and right off he discovers that 99 years ago, Congress passed a bill called the “Federal Reserve Act”.  Now every dollar in circulation is a debt, to the U.S. government and thus to the people.  That is, the government owes this illgal banking cartel interest on it.  Which now, the interest alone amounts to over $1.6 TRILLION, And Which was not only unconstitutional, but was illegally ratified. Article 1, Section 8, spells out in detail, the full answer to the U.S. was supposed to manage the Monetary system of these United states, with a “Credit Money” System, where the U.S. treasury “coined money and regulate the value thereof”.  This way the Government could create money (out of nothing, for expansion of the GDN product)  Spend it into circulation, thus keeping up the the expanding Gross Domestic Product. The government could now spend this money for government purposes, interest free, loan it to the commercial banks, who could then increase the interest for their own profit.  A “CREDIT MONETARY SYSTEM”. Even loan money to the States for their spending, interest free. 
         Instead, upon passing this unconstitutional “Federal Reserve Act”  they now created a private corporation, owned and completely controled by the Commercial banks and some three hundred, or more elite private wealthy families throughout the world.
    (Even the King and Queen of England are part of that Elite organization).
         So, here is our, (the United States’ ) problem:
         There is no where in this Constitution where congress is granted the authority  to delegate this power to a private banking cartel.  This is like locking a fox in the hen house and throwing away the key.  The Federal Reserve Is no more federal then FEDEX, aircouriers, Federal Trucking, nor Federal Can company.  It is a private corporation, even listed in the phone book along with other commercial businesses.  And is FEDERAL in name only.  There is no way we will ever pay off this huge national debt unless this privately owned and privately controlled, “Federal Reserve System”  is abolished and we get back to this “CREDIT MONETARY SYSTEM”  asspelled out in Article 1, Section 8, 
          So, the answer to this great debate of $15- $17 trillion and rising, is right there in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8.  And there are only two Congressmen who are trying to do something about it.  Ron Paul, Our Republican candidate for President, and Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio. Both have sponsored legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve system.
          Those two congressmen seem to be the only congressmen or the Senate, who understands this. 
           Of course there is much more at stake here in this election year the needs Ron Paul’s understanding of the Constitution.  Not a one of the other candidates have even mentioned Constitutional issues.    

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