Interview With Tom Woods On Nullification

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – First of all, you wrote the book Nullification.  I’m sure you saw that yesterday the Oklahoma House voted by a vote of 72-20, pretty overwhelming, to nullify Obamacare.  Even here in 2013 and about three or four years after nullification came out, it seems like some of our fellow citizens and countrymen are still pursuing nullification.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Kevin Gutzman Interview – NSA, IRS, And American Apathy

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  That was John Taylor of Caroline, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson plotting to write the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.  I played that as the perfect introduction to our next very special guest, the one and only Thomas E. Woods, who just happens to be the esteemed author of a book by the same title called Nullification.  Then I played “Sultans of Swing” so that Tom could recall that moment in Houston, Texas when Kevin Gutzman stood up and lip-synced the song as the band played it.  Tom, how are you?

Tom Woods:  Ah, memories.  What glorious memories those were, Mike.  Glad to talk to you.

Mike:  Did that conjure up a visual image that you had not anticipated this morning?

Woods:  I don’t think it makes Kevin or any of us dorky at all.  It makes us cool, Mike.  That’s the way I’m looking at it.

Mike:  I want to know what you did with the video.

Woods:  I captured about 30 seconds of it on my phone, but the quality of that is pretty poor.  I sort of feel like Kevin deserves better.

Mike:  You did write the book Nullification.  I have some pope and Catholic stuff I’d like to talk to you about, too.  First of all, you wrote the book Nullification.  I’m sure you saw that yesterday the Oklahoma House voted by a vote of 72-20, pretty overwhelming, to nullify Obamacare.  Even here in 2013 and about three or four years after nullification came out, it seems like some of our fellow citizens and countrymen are still pursuing nullification.  What do you think?

Woods:  Well, it impresses me because they’re sure not being encourage in it by the big conservative so-called small-government organizations like the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute.  They won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.  Other than Mike Church, I don’t see anybody right of center on the radio who touches nullification, who has a national audience, who anybody has actually heard of.  They won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.  They keep saying: Stick to the old strategy, citizen.  Wait for the Supreme Court to put things right.  That’s done a lot of good for us up till now.  Let’s keep pursuing that strategy.  It amazes me that there are enough people out there who they’re not being told this by any of their political leaders.  They’re not being told this by any of the people they listen to on the radio by and large.  Yet, somehow, they’re still finding out about it and still pursuing it.  That’s amazing to me.

Mike:  It is.  It’s amazing and it’s encouraging.  It ought to be equally amazing that by a vote of 72 to 20 — that is a super veto-proof majority should Mary Fallin, the governor of Oklahoma say: I don’ think that’s a good idea, boys.  I’m going to veto that bill.  That is equally encouraging.  Since Nullification has come out, I know you’ve spoken all over the country, including the last time you and I spoke together, which was in Cleveland, Texas at Liberty County, you get asked this question often, I would imagine.  Tom, what can you tell me about nullification?   How do you go about this?  How does it work?  What would you or what do you say to inquisitive souls that want to try this in their state or encourage their legislators to try?

Woods:  I think there are all different ways it can be done.  There are different ways it can work out and has worked out in the past.  There were popular referenda that amount to nullification, we’re not going obey this particular law and people vote and agree not to do it.  It can be the legislature.  It can be as in the 19^th century.  You have a special convention you call.  Then the issue is we’ve nullified but what does that actually mean?  What it would have to mean is the people of the state would be willing to stand by what they’ve done.  I rather suspect that when we’re dealing with issues like the Second Amendment, which, even more than the Obamacare issue, the Second Amendment and the perception that Washington is hostile to the Second Amendment has done more to alert people to nullification than anything else.  The past couple of months, there’s been a huge spike in interest in it.  This is coming from the Glenn Beck audience and audiences who are not being told about nullification.

When it comes to the Second Amendment, my view is that Washington knows it’s not going to win that issue.  For example, Harry Reid has stayed away from all attempts to move against guns.  He knows this is a failure.  The constituency is just not there.  The constituency for guns is everywhere and growing.  When you have an issue like that, where the intensity of the opposition is so great — not every person in the state agrees with you on the gun issue.  The people who do are so intensely committed to that issue that I would think almost no president would want to say: I have limited political capital; let me spend all of it in a showdown with the states on an issue where I am bound to lose.  That’s the type of issue that I think you ought to choose with nullification, where you can really make a stand.  It’s highly unlikely the tanks are going to start rolling.

Mike:  I guess you’re referring — I can’t remember his name — to the legislator in Florida who when this came up in their legislature said: That to me sounds like you’re not protecting and defending my Constitution.  That’s what causes armies to form, guns to be pointed and tanks to roll.

Woods:  Anybody who does anything against the federal government naturally has to be worried what the consequences are going to be.  We can’t know, but it’s highly unlikely, especially when you have so many states and so many sheriffs saying we’re not going to do something, that the U.S. government will just try to posture as the champion of democracy around the world, let’s remember, and it’s highly unlikely they’ll start shooting at their own people.  For one thing, they don’t want to rule like this.  They prefer to rule by propagandizing your kids at school into thinking it’s good to be ruled by people who don’t care about the Constitution.  This is the American way.  They don’t prefer to rule by actually firing at people.  They want you to fasten the chains to your own ankles.  That’s how they operate.  I find it highly unlikely that they’re actually going to — they may try to withhold the highway money or things like that, but so far they haven’t.  With the marijuana issue, they haven’t withheld highway money and things of that nature.  At some point, one way or another, the states are going to have to wean themselves off that anyway.

 

End Mike Church Show Transcript