• "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

The Hysterics Meet Their Match

Jacob Hornberger goes after the hysterics on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as the claim that you must be a “racist” to oppose it.  At this point, with the Tea Party “racist,” the GOP “racist,” libertarians “racist,” constitutionalists “racist,” nullifiers “racist,” and opponents of Obama “racist,” and with Keith Olbermann warning that people driving pickup trucks probably have sinister intentions and whites who call Obama “arrogant” are using a “racist” code word, presumably we are reaching saturation point, when people finally figure out this Orwellian smear is meaningless.

Leftist obsessions aside, the number of losers who sit around thinking of ways to do gratuitous harm to people for arbitrary reasons is vanishingly small.  Leftists know it, too, or otherwise they wouldn’t favor mass immigration.  How, in good conscience, could they invite so many vulnerable people from all over the world into a country still on the verge of segregation after decades of legal and moral penalties?

  • Gint

    Hornberger, in the end, makes his case for Libertarianism… so, i assume that you, Thomas, are suggesting that we consider it. Where can an Roman Catholic go to read more about Libertarianism from a conservative Catholic point of view? What are your views on that philosophy?

    -g.

  • Charles

    Here is another way of conceptualizing this issue.

    In 1940, Ghandi wrote a letter to the British people, then at war with Germany, urging them to unilaterally cease hostilities:

    “You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them …”

    Now, nobody in his right mind would say that Ghandi was pro-Nazi. Rather, Ghandi embraced a philosophy of nonviolence, in which violence is never permissible. According to this philosophy, the threshold at which violence becomes an acceptable response or course of action is never to be reached.

    The libertarian philosophy adheres to a different threshold for the employment of violence. The libertarian may not employ violence except defensively — that is, to repel an initial act of aggression against man or the property which is an extension of his life.

    This is why libertarians advocate freedom of speech, including the expression of ideas which they find repulsive. Freedom of speech arises from the free employment of one’s property — be it the printing press, the lecture hall, or blogging software.

    A business owner who refuses to serve customers on the basis of race is doing something most people — to include most libertarians — find repulsive. But he is not committing aggression against person or property. He is not violating anyone’s rights. Therefore, he has not crossed the threshold at which, according to libertarian principles, violence may be employed against him.

    Leftists and, indeed, mainstream Americans, are so inconsistent in their determinations as to when violence is justified that such determinations are near-impossible to predict. But we may safely say that their threshold for the employment of violence is very low.

  • http://www.thomasewoods.com Tom Woods

    There is a whole section on Catholic social teaching on the Articles page of this site that does just that, not to mention my book The Church and the Market.

  • Tim

    Banking deregulation is politically incorrect at present. But a relatively recent NBER paper (See http://www.nber.org/papers/w14273) has this to say:

    “…We find that bank deregulation reduced the racial wage gap by spurring the entry of non- financial firms. Consistent with taste-based theories, competition reduced both the racial wage gap and racial segregation in the workplace, particularly in states with a comparatively high degree of racial prejudice, where competition-enhancing bank deregulation eliminated about one-quarter of the racial wage gap after five years.”

    One quarter of the racial wage gap after five years??

    How many years ago was the Civil Rights Act enacted?

    If any piece of social legislation did as well the liberals and progressives would wet themselves with publicity.

    Competitive markets create a disincentive for discrimination. And unlike civil service agencies they don’t take long lunch hours. They are, in short, a color blind anti-discrimination agency that never sleeps.

    Modern liberals and progressives by pushing for statist policies that wrap the economy up in cartel friendly and cartel promoting regulations (i.e. almost all of them) do far more to promote and protect discrimination than the K.K.K. ever did. The few anti-discrimination policies and laws they favor are mere crumbs from the masters’ plate.