• "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

‘Skeptical Libertarians’ Are Not Really Skeptical

There’s a group of people on Facebook calling themselves “skeptical libertarians.” What enrages them most, it seems, are people who question the official version of events (in other words, they are most annoyed by actual skeptics) or who think the pharmaceutical-industrial complex might not in fact be an infallible priesthood. You’d think these would be views that would resonate with, you know, skeptics.

Unlearn the Propaganda!

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  • Anonymous

    I take issue with conspiracists who believe governments; while employing various public relations stratagems, willfully scheme and plot with the unequivocal purpose of duping the public and achieving some specific purpose.
    I generally reject this idea. I think governments, like individuals, engage in calculated deception because they believe it is good.
    Democratic governments act under virtuous circumstances, as do psychopathic dictatorships. Have you ever engaged in subterfuge at all? -Was it because you thought it was bad or not advantageous? -Nobody does. (Rhetorical question really)
    The topic is a good segue into criminology and why people do things patently wrong, despite the punishment they’ll receive.

  • Anonymous

    Example -global warming research which supports a strong anthropogenic signal gets rewarded in grants.
    Do you think the IPCC boffins are scheming ways to withhold proxy data from McIntyre and employ statistical fallacies etc, for the exaltation of UN centralised government, or because carbon mitigation is a salutary plight?
    -I’m going to suggest the latter.

  • Anonymous

    Interesting, In reference to the first section, The Kosovo
    inetrvention was also along similar lines. -Anything to depose the
    genocidal Milosevic and make way for the EU bloc

  • AE Hall

    I’m sorry that not all libertarians are Christians, Tom.

  • AE Hall

    It’s not your lack of faith but the evidence you refuse to acknowledge.

  • AE Hall

    And just how do you reconcile this superstition against the need for herd immunization? Whether or not there is vested interest in achieving this end for specific individuals, whether it be through profit or government grant of privilege, don’t you even trust a bit of science like this? Certainly you, of all people, are not as gullible as Hoppe?

  • AE Hall

    It was the causal realist approach to economics that opened my eyes to causality as apodictic. When you take a causal approach and extend effects beyond steps one two three four five and so on, you begin to see the chaos of reality itself, let alone human existence, and can easily see why conspiracy theories are easily products of pure conjecture.

  • Mase Molina

    skeptical libertarians aren’t enraged by people who *question* – they’re annoyed by people who *assert* their explanation for things without almost any evidence at all. Skeptical libertarians don’t believe that Big Pharma loves us all – merely that positions should be based on science rather than emotionalism. Mike Lorrey’s comment below is excellent. Makes the point I’m trying to make except his post probably did it better.

  • Alexander

    You have a misguided view of what it means to be a skeptic. It doesn’t mean that you don’t accept anything as truth. It means you demand reasons to believe, and if there is good reason to believe something you should defend that truth.

  • http://www.facebook.com/davekyte David F. Kyte

    Sporadic Fires?
    FDNY Fire Chief Dan Hayden was there and had this to say:

    “By now, this is going on into the afternoon, and we were concerned about additional collapse, not only of the Marriott, because there was a good portion of the Marriott still standing, but also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.”

    I have lost count how many times I have posted this here and on conspiracy theorist sites and it gets ignored by the truther. Hayden was there, he saw a 47 story building that was leaning and measured the lean with a “Transit” He saw a three story bulge in that same building! And truthers wonder how they knew the building may collapse?

  • http://www.facebook.com/davekyte David F. Kyte

    SO the fact Richard Gage was nothing more than a third rate architect before 9/11 does not impress me. When Leslie Earl Robertson the guy who actually was the structural engineer for the WTC says it was fire and NOT a controlled demolition. Recently the AIA disavowed any support of him.

  • http://www.facebook.com/davekyte David F. Kyte

    Oh By the way, when you try and support your conspiracies with YouTube, you have lost. If you like I can post links to real papers written by real structural engineers in real engineering journals who describe how fire brought the towers down.

  • http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

    Of course, a lot of stuff on YT is nonsense. But quite a lot isn’t. I linked to YT for convenience. Go to AE911Truth.org if that makes you feel better.

  • http://plenarchist.wordpress.com/ plenarchist

    So somehow your ad hom on the guy is supposed to be an argument? And I suppose the other 1700 people in AE911Truth are all crackpots also? How is he 3rd rate? And what does “AIA disavowed…” mean? You’re making assertions here without any backup. Provide backup because I’m interested in their credibility. He (and AE911Truth) seem credible to me.

    And Roberton’s testimony should be considered but he was also one of the engineers of record and is too close. There are many other issues. And then WTC7 was not struck by a plane…

  • Anonymous

    Sigh!…..

  • Tim

    The Fire Chief might have said that but that doesn’t explain WTC 7′s free fall symmetrical collapse which would have been impossible if it was caused by sporadic office fires and asymmetrical damage, which is what the Fire Chief appears to be describing. You’re not addressing the questions raised by 9/11 skeptics. It doesn’t matter how many times you post your remarks if they are irrelevent to the question at hand. Nor do you address the eye witness accounts that conflict with the official conspiracy theory. The fact is there many anamolies that cannot be reconciled with official narrative. It is only logical then to raise these questions, regardless of how disturbing they may be.
    As I commented previously, both FEMA and NIST have failed to explain the collapse of WTC 7 in their reports. Of course, they avoid the only rational explanation, which is controlled demolition, because that would raise too many disturbing questions.

  • Anonymous

    What else need be said? Expand upon that. Curious minds want to know.

  • Tom

    One could be a fourth rate architect, or not even an architect at all and understand that a symmetrical free fall collapse cannot occur in a building suffering asymmetrical damage and is being driven down by simple gravity. The building would slump over in the direction of the path of least resistance.

  • Perry Mason

    What a ridiculous trope. “AIDS denialism”? Really? Your reasoning is no different from the common Soviet tactic of attacking someone’s sanity instead of addressing his argument. You are also only regurgitating the idiotic (and vile) refrain given to Peter Duesberg.

    Frankly, if you are familiar with the literature, I find you would have to be fairly gullible to believe (1) that AIDS exists as described by Gallo et al. and (2) that HIV causes AIDS. But this isn’t a website to argue these points.

    I have no ideological axe to grind, whatever that means. However, your “there is no essential moral difference” comment implies it is you with the axe to grind.

    The “denialism” mentality is a sick and dangerous one. Some thoughts are apparently so terrible they cannot even be mentioned, apparently. Welcome to the brave new world. I am sad to see such opinions on Tom Woods website of all places.

  • Perry Mason

    Augusto Daniel Odone. They made a movie about him.

    And there are outsiders to the enfranchised community, oh like Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. The guy who was hated by everyone who was “respectable” in the “scientific community” because he told doctors to wash their hands.

    But the above is less important. Rather, I am befuddled by your overall mentality. You say hit me with examples “in the field of science.” What does that even mean? History is replete with amateurs making scientific discoveries. Are you really being so pedantic as to ask me to list them?

    And what is the scientific community today? If you have any familiarity with the history of science in the West, surely you would know that it has become dominated by government investment and direct and indirect government control, and in influential groups that control economic activity (including in research) that are, like the AMA, enfranchised by government. Have you read some of the key thinkers in the history of science?

    Sheer economic logic tells me that the product produced by a monopoly or oligopoly is substandard and unresponsive to consumer needs. Are you telling me that the stew of missing market incentives, and fractured insulation from profit and loss, that is the hallmark of the modern “scientific community” is going to give me a good product (i.e., good science)?

  • Perry Mason

    The big problem I see with skeptics is an entitlement mentality. Someone makes a claim that skeptics deem, quite subjectively, as “extraordinary”, and then demand extraordinary proof.

    Look, not everyone is here to meet some guy’s subjectively determined burden of proof. Most people who subscribe to popular conspiracy theories do so out of a desire to find the truth. A skeptic should just be zealous in pursuing the truth, rather than demanding that others prove them wrong.

    And frankly, we need to get back to common civility in such discussions in our culture. I am tired of the defensive insults hurled back and forth as a substitute for argument.

  • James Redford

    Divine revelation is a great tradition in Christianity, continuing after the events recorded in the New Testament to the present. Jesus Christ founded Western Civilization in these sense in which moderns think of it (i.e., in the modern sense, “Western Civilization” is pretty much an exact synonym for Christendom).

    So what is your point, N. Stephan Kinsella? Your point is that God cannot possibly exist and anyone who thinks He does is insane–or at least anyone who thinks that God can communicate with man.

    But it is you who is truly insane. Because your whole program of libertarianism is logically of no importance if God does not exist. For the details on this, see Sec. 8.1.1: “The Dysteleology of Life without God” of my article “The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything”, doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708, http://archive.org/details/ThePhysicsOfGodAndTheQuantumGravityTheoryOfEverything

  • http://www.facebook.com/paul.copeland.7796 Paul Copeland

    Being a skeptic means you do not believe a claim without evidence. The “actual skeptics” that question the “official story” often do so without a shred of real evidence beyond a perceived anomaly or carefully edited footage. Equivocating anomaly hunting conspiracy theorist with people who let actual scientific knowledge determine their believes is insulting to anybody that tries to use their mind instead of being a reactionary.

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