Wed, 3 May 2017
Nathan Dunn had been working as a police officer in southern California for years when he first encountered libertarianism. At first he asked to be removed from the narcotics detail. Over time, he decided he would need to remove himself from the entire profession. |
Tue, 2 May 2017
Gonz Trevino grew up in Mexico, and has created half a dozen successful businesses before age 30. (He also works with Jason Stapleton, the libertarian podcaster.) He says politics hasn't played a major role in his life. Just creating half a dozen successful businesses. Perfect for episode 900. |
Fri, 28 April 2017
In the early twentieth century, some 1.5 million Armenians perished in the Armenian genocide, at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. This blood-curdling episode in world history largely vanished from public awareness for much of the twentieth century, and is still unknown by most people. We examine its origins, its progress, and its ensuing disappearance. |
Thu, 27 April 2017
Toby Baxendale, an entrepreneur in the UK, comes back to the show, this time to explain that the media has created a false impression about the meaning of Brexit. The Leave campaign was run by libertarians, he says, not protectionists, but the latter have more effectively spun the media machine. |
Wed, 26 April 2017
Cato Institute Vice President for Research Brink Lindsey launched an attack on Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard days ago, and it needs to be answered. Even more fun are my stories about my own treatment at the hands of these delightful people. Here's en episode you may pretend not to want to listen to, but let's face it, you will. Before you say, "Woods, you shouldn't engage in this kind of tit-for-tat," listen to the episode. I have already answered your objection. |
Tue, 25 April 2017
Thaddeus Russell was raised in Berkeley, California, by parents he describes as professional Marxist revolutionaries. His experiences with the academic establishment at Barnard College (the women's college at Columbia University) have become legendary. He's hard to pigeonhole ideologically, which makes him a compelling guest. We discuss a wide range of topics: labor unions, the Protestant work ethic (he's against), Donald Trump, what's missing from university life, and how Thad went from genuinely not understanding how anyone could be a conservative or a libertarian to being a regular listener of this very podcast! (But still not a libertarian.) |
Mon, 24 April 2017
![]() Eric Brakey is a 28-year-old state senator from Maine. We discuss how Eric got elected against a longtime incumbent, what he's accomplished in the legislature, and his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2018. Not to mention some stories from the past two GOP conventions. |
Sat, 22 April 2017
During the presidential election season, the prolific libertarian scholar Walter Block headed up an organization called Libertarians for Trump. At the time, financial analyst and libertarian blogger Robert Wenzel debated him on the subject on this very show. Today, with the end of President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office just around the corner, we revisit the subject in a very lively discussion. |
Thu, 20 April 2017
This is a great discussion with Brett Veinotte, host of the School Sucks Podcast, that starts off about university shenanigans, then turns to my writing (which some have considered too harsh) on the left, then turns to my insane workaholism, its roots, and how I conquered it. |
Wed, 19 April 2017
With confrontation brewing between the United States and North Korea, Michael Malice joins me to lend his insight into what's happening, and whether there's anything to the North Korean threats of nuclear war. |
Tue, 18 April 2017
The March 2017 report of the Congressional Budget Office paints a grim picture about the fiscal future of the United States -- but don't we hear a lot of grim predictions, and don't things usually carry on as before? Gene Epstein explains what's really going to happen. |
Mon, 17 April 2017
Under both Donald Trump and Barack Obama, the U.S. government has supported Saudi Arabia in a savage war that is leaving a humanitarian catastrophe in its wake, with (according to recent estimates) some 462,000 in danger of starvation. Where is the moral outrage of our media, which is so touched by human tragedy when doing so suits the regime? |
Wed, 12 April 2017
Paul Gottfried takes delight in skewering the historical profession and the biases that lurk beneath their pretensions to impartiality. We cover Otto von Bismarck, World War I, Germanophobia, and a lot more in this punchy episode. |
Tue, 11 April 2017
New Jersey State Senator Michael Doherty, who was co-chairman of the Donald Trump for President campaign in New Jersey, has condemned the strike on Syria and wants to know what happened to the "forget all these wars, we have to rebuild our own country" rhetoric from the campaign trail. |
Mon, 10 April 2017
Eric July, the frontman of Backwordz, a rap/metal band, returns to discuss Veracity, the band's debut album, which debuted on the Billboard charts at #5 for hard rock (not to mention #2 on the Heat Seekers chart and #1 on the Alternative New Artist chart). And guess what: it's full of libertarian and Austrian messages. You'll be blown away. |
Fri, 7 April 2017
As if his warnings to Barack Obama about intervention in Syria had never been uttered, Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on Syria yesterday. Scott Horton joins me to discuss this horrific mess. |
Thu, 6 April 2017
At age 42, Josef Sima already has a record of accomplishment in promoting Austrian economics in Europe that can rival that of almost anyone else. We talk communism, post-communist ideological opportunities, how successful politics is in bringing about positive change, and more. |
Wed, 5 April 2017
It's been exactly 100 years since the United States officially declared war on Germany and entered World War I. I review the momentous significance of that decision with Hunt Tooley, my favorite historian of the war. |
Tue, 4 April 2017
Scott Horton and I discuss Trump, the House Freedom Caucus, Russia, and other topics drawn from the headlines. |
Mon, 3 April 2017
![]() Tatiana Moroz, a liberty movement veteran, joins me to discuss a wide variety of topics, including how she uses cryptocurrency to support her work; being an independent musician in the Internet age; creeps in the liberty movement (shocking, right?); Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road, and a lot more. |
Fri, 31 March 2017
Ron Paul returns to the show to discuss the foundations of libertarianism -- along with Connor Boyack, author of a new children's book that features a character based on Dr. Paul. We also get a glimpse into the Paul household. Lots of fun! |
Thu, 30 March 2017
I joined Marc Clair on his Lions of Liberty podcast to discuss common objections to the market, plus the plague of the Social Justice Warrior. I defend myself against a drama queen on Facebook, too. |
Wed, 29 March 2017
Some economic numbers today look pretty good, so is there a case for bearishness? At the same time, aren't Austrian-influenced investors always bearish? We sort it all out in today's episode. |
Tue, 28 March 2017
The legal system that prevailed in Ireland for thousands of years was radically different from what we are familiar with today, with our monopoly judges and emphasis on retribution over restitution. But if you were to ask the average American about any of this, the result would be a blank stare. Hence today's episode. |
Mon, 27 March 2017
Donald Trump suffered a setback last week when the American Health Care Act lacked the votes to pass. Here's a great discussion of why it failed and what its failure means for the future. |
Sat, 25 March 2017
Inequality is the battering ram the left is using these days to justify all kinds of programs of intervention. In this episode we drive a stake through its heart. |
Thu, 23 March 2017
Philosopher Philip Goff argues that you have no moral claim to the money you earn on the market, because its distribution of money is arbitrary. We hit back. |
Wed, 22 March 2017
Zack Rofer (the pen name of the author of the book being discussed today) joins me to deal with a bunch of the most common questions libertarians are asked. This episode will lift a weight from your shoulders. |
Tue, 21 March 2017
Some people -- known popularly these days as Greenbackers -- oppose the Federal Reserve for all the wrong reasons: it doesn't inflate enough (!), the bankers will wind up with all the money thanks to compound interest, there isn't enough money created to pay all the principal and interest of all the loans in the economy, etc. They want the Fed to be abolished so the U.S. government can issue the money directly. Not exactly a fundamental disagreement with the Fed! I take them on in this episode. |
Mon, 20 March 2017
With several options on the table on a complicated issue full of technical details, I thought it was a good time to bring on an expert who could explain them all to us -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. |
Fri, 17 March 2017
We know the government snoops on email and other electronic communications, and yet most of us do nothing about it: we figure we'd have to be full-time techies even to begin to figure out how to protect ourselves. DigitalSafe CEO Alain Ghiai joins me today to discuss why privacy matters, and how regular people can reclaim their email and file-sharing privacy. |
Thu, 16 March 2017
Harvard University's library system just released a guide to "fake news" and propaganda websites. Guess who's on there? So's LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, and even Wikileaks. Lew Rockwell joins me to discuss what we should make of this. |
Wed, 15 March 2017
The federal government has extended its authority into so many areas, and employed statutory language so vague, that ordinary people have found themselves criminals without having done anything they believed to be unlawful. Harvey Silverglate has observed this trend firsthand over the course of his long career in the law, and he joins me to discuss how bad it is, and what we can do. |
Tue, 14 March 2017
Hillsdale College's Brad Birzer discusses libertarian themes in some of the great works of science fiction. |
Sun, 12 March 2017
Historians will be discussing and debating the election of 2016 for a long time to come. Doug Wead's new book takes us through the history of the Clintons and the Trumps, all the way through the election season and its unlikely outcome. You'll enjoy this conversation. |
Fri, 10 March 2017
How did the low-fat, high-carb diet become entrenched within nutrition science, to the point that dissenters virtually disappeared? The answer gives us a fascinating glimpse into how nutrition science -- far from being dispassionately devoted to whatever conclusions the empirical evidence pointed to -- became politicized, and how dissenting voices were silenced. |
Thu, 9 March 2017
I critique an article trying to disprove the libertarian claim that taxation is theft. The social contract makes it all right, the author says.... |
Tue, 7 March 2017
We're told we need government because only the public sector can give us "public goods," which are either impossible to produce privately or are produced in the wrong quantities. In this lesson from my Ron Paul Curriculum course on government I put this claim under a microscope. |
Mon, 6 March 2017
Today I review Donald Trump's recent speech to Congress -- a speech the media loved, I'm sorry to report -- in terms of what it's going to mean for federal spending and the budget. |
Fri, 3 March 2017
Paul Gottfried, longtime veteran of the American Right and foe of the yawn-inducing "conservative movement," discusses the significance of what has become known as the "alt right." |
Thu, 2 March 2017
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, an ideologically diverse group of people joined together to fight against the drift of the United States into imperialism, particularly in the repression of the independence movement in the Philippines. It's a great story, which most Americans know little about. |
Wed, 1 March 2017
Today I talk to libertarian writer Antony Sammeroff of the Scottish Liberty Podcast, who recently gave a talk against the "basic income guarantee" idea to a crowd that liked the idea, and at the end was cheered. So we discuss capitalism, persuading opponents, and more. |
Wed, 1 March 2017
How did federal agencies become unaccountable fiefdoms? The story goes back over 100 years, and I discuss it with the author of a brand new study of this most unfortunate development. |
Mon, 27 February 2017
Basing myself on the Harry Browne book of the same name, I discuss how in my own life I've found freedom: from neoconservatism, from academia, and from povertarianism. Fun! |
Fri, 24 February 2017
We hear a lot about the opposition of the "deep state" to Trump, and that there's an effort at work to undermine him from within. What is the deep state, and is there anything to this? |
Thu, 23 February 2017
Kevin Gutzman returns to explain where historians have gone wrong on Jefferson, why Jefferson was no conservative, the ups and downs of his presidency, and more. |
Wed, 22 February 2017
I favor speaking up in all kinds of situations, but a college classroom isn't a good one, in my opinion. The other kids don't care what you have to say and resent you for speaking, and the professor can make your life miserable. Marcelo Guadiana, a senior at UMass Boston and treasurer of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter there, begs to differ. |
Tue, 21 February 2017
The debates and policies that gave rise to American empire occurred at the very end of the nineteenth century, in conflicts that found Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain at odds. Author Stephen Kinzer joins me to discuss the transformation of America away from nonintervention and toward empire. |
Mon, 20 February 2017
C-SPAN recently posted the results of a survey of presidential historians, where they were asked to rank the presidents. Good grief, folks. I discuss some of the results. |
Mon, 20 February 2017
Steve Clayton has guts. He held a top position at Labcorp, where you've likely gone if you needed blood work done. Hundreds and hundreds of people reported to him, and he earned a fortune. But one day he decided: I hate everything about this job, and I refuse to do it one moment longer. So he left. Eventually, Steve went into eCommerce, and began building 7-figure online stores that he can run from wherever he is in the world. He's one of the world's foremost experts on eCommerce, and in particular how the little guy can create an online store as an additional income stream. |
Fri, 17 February 2017
Thomas Jefferson, says biographer Kevin Gutzman, is the most significant statesman in American history. We discuss Jefferson's views on federalism, education, the University of Virginia, slavery, colonization, American Indians, and freedom of conscience. |
Thu, 16 February 2017
Sheriff Richard Mack joins me to discuss the plague of federal bureaucracies charging people with inane offenses and ruining their lives. |
Wed, 15 February 2017
Dedra and Brad Birzer, who teach at Hillsdale College, join Tom to discuss the various guidelines issued to teachers of Advanced Placement history, in order to help students prepare for the Advanced Placement exam. It's the usual controversy: two options, neither of which reflects our outlook, are presented as the exhaustive set of possibilities for teaching and interpreting American history. |
Tue, 14 February 2017
Comedian, podcaster and television personality Dave Smith offers another perspective on my "leftists are hopeless" position. |
Tue, 14 February 2017
Of all the books Thomas Sowell wrote, A Conflict of Visions was his favorite. There he discusses the fundamental ideas, the competing visions of man and the world that constitute the roots of where our political debates come from. Michael Malice and I discuss these ideas. |
Sun, 12 February 2017
Nathan Bond, co-founder and CEO of Rifle Paper Company, made the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2015, and has had explosive success since the company's opening in late 2009. How'd he do it? |
Fri, 10 February 2017
There are a bunch of unambiguously good things a secretary of education can do (including, of course, setting her agency up for abolition). We discuss a bunch of them today. |
Thu, 9 February 2017
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss the present (and future?) state of the Libertarian Party with a member of the Party's Radical Caucus, Caryn Ann Harlos. |
Wed, 8 February 2017
This one's a must-listen, both for the topic and also for the guest: the brilliant Angelo Codevilla. What are the true origins of political correctness? Codevilla traces them to sources you'll find chilling -- but when you hear his explanation, everything starts to make sense. |
Tue, 7 February 2017
![]() Is there anything to be gained by pointing out leftist hypocrisy -- that suddenly they favor limited government, or that they're outraged by Trump Action A, and said nothing in the face of Obama Action B? Shouldn't we just be conciliatory and let bygones be bygones? Bob Murphy and I discuss. |
Mon, 6 February 2017
#1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Ringer discusses going from zero to having the best-selling book in the country, plus the hackneyed success advice from the "experts," tips for advertising and for life, and more. Show notes for Ep. 841 |
Fri, 3 February 2017
In the wake of the violent protests at (and cancellation of) the Milo Yiannopoulos event at the University of California at Berkeley, Daily Caller deputy editor Scott Greer joins me to assess what's gone wrong in the universities and what might be done. |
Thu, 2 February 2017
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn suffered tremendously at the hands of the Soviet regime, and suffered exile twice after his release from the gulag. How many people in the rising generation know about him? A new book seeks to fix that. |
Wed, 1 February 2017
Eric Peters, the heroic libertarian car expert, joins me to discuss the usual potpourri of car items in the news, including what the new administration may do in the face of the previous administration's regulatory regime for cars (including the classification of CO2 as a pollutant). |
Tue, 31 January 2017
Gret Glyer, creator of the extraordinary charitable app DonorSee, updates us on its progress -- as well as the bizarre opposition of the Peace Corps, which is refusing to allow any of its people to cooperate with DonorSee. End the charity monopoly! |
Mon, 30 January 2017
Firearms lawyer Dick Clark discusses current issues in gun law: national reciprocity for concealed carry, why black rifles are nothing to be afraid of, the Hearing Protection Act and the difficulty in obtaining silencers, trends at the state and federal level, and more. |
Fri, 27 January 2017
Entrepreneur and Mises Institute benefactor Bob Luddy grew frustrated trying to work within the system, and eventually established a series of private schools whose results have been outstanding. We get the details in today's episode. |
Thu, 26 January 2017
![]() Plenty of folks have reported good results against a variety of ailments by availing themselves of medical cannabis options. Some American states have begun allowing the use of such options, though even some of those states limit the permission to patients who suffer from a small number of maladies. CannaSense, on the other hand, is making medical cannabis available to patients all over the U.S., and how they're doing it is pretty darn amazing. |
Wed, 25 January 2017
I just had to discuss current events with someone, so I decided to talk to Jeff Deist, whose judgment I always value. We looked at the left, the right, and libertarianism at the present moment, as unknown four years begin to unfold. |
Tue, 24 January 2017
Paul Elam, the controversial founder of A Voice for Men, joins me to discuss family courts, no-fault divorce, feminism, and the state. |
Mon, 23 January 2017
Jay Richards responds to arguments we've all had to answer at one time or another as we discuss his book Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. |
Fri, 20 January 2017
Steve Patterson, an independent scholar, recently released a self-published book on logic. A couple of established academics (both libertarians, by the way) scoffed: why, if this book were any good, it would have been submitted to the peer-review process! Is this the right way to think? |
Thu, 19 January 2017
Oxfam released a report this week warning about global inequality, and proposing the usual wealth-destroying solutions. Here's why the report ought to be ignored. |
Wed, 18 January 2017
There's talk these days about subjecting the Federal Reserve System to certain rules in order to make monetary policy less erratic and opqaue, and to remove much of the discretion that the Fed has enjoyed over the years. Should we get behind this kind of plan, or are there pitfalls? |
Tue, 17 January 2017
Libertarian comedian Andrew Heaton joins me to discuss topics ranging from licensing to taxation, as only a comedian can. |
Mon, 16 January 2017
Murray Sabrin joins me to discuss the likely features of a Trump presidency, including the best outcomes libertarians might be able to hope for. |
Sun, 15 January 2017
![]() It's not just that I've learned more about email marketing from Ben Settle than from anyone else, though I have. (I subscribe to his monthly Email Players newsletter.) I've learned a ton about all kinds of things that have helped me become successful online. He's funny, he's iconoclastic, and he's really smart, so whatever your profession, you'll be glad you listened to our conversation. |
Fri, 13 January 2017
Obamacare is back in the news as the prospect of its repeal is discussed in the media. The Los Angeles Times ran seven charts that are supposed to show Obamacare has not been a failure, as Republicans contend, but a great success. Bob Murphy joins me to get to the bottom of it. |
Thu, 12 January 2017
Prolific libertarian scholar Walter Block recently reached an almost unheard-of milestone: 500 articles in peer-reviewed journals. We look back on the debates he's had and the topics he's covered, and he offers advice about writing and publication based on his years of experience. Fun! |
Wed, 11 January 2017
Thomas Sowell, a prolific scholar who has had a great influence on me, ended his syndicated column a couple of weeks ago. Gene Epstein of Barron's joins me for an overview of Sowell's work on race, economics, and more. |
Tue, 10 January 2017
Shawn Ritenour, a professor of economics at Grove City College, has just filled a very important gap: until now, it's been hard to find a really good book for people to get started reading Ludwig von Mises, the great economist. I personally felt his introductory texts were too introductory, while his treatises were too intimidating. With The Mises Reader, this problem is solved. In this episode we discuss Mises on economic method, Keynes and Keynesianism, and much more. |
Mon, 9 January 2017
Don Boudreaux, professor of economics at George Mason University, joins me to review some of the more common complaints against markets, as reflected in recent books by well-known authors. |
Fri, 6 January 2017
I've spoken to numerous professors who have confronted the campus left, so I thought I'd talk to a current college student who writes about these subjects to find out what's really up and what if anything we can do about it. |
Thu, 5 January 2017
Michael Malice comes to libertarianism more from a Randian perspective, and Tom from a Rothbardian one. Michael recently read The Betrayal of the American Right, Rothbard's part-history, part-autobiography. The resulting conversation is really excellent -- possibly my favorite Malice appearance yet. |
Wed, 4 January 2017
Human Resources departments have for practical purposes become wings of the federal regime. Instead of seeking out the best employees who also happen to fit the company's internal culture, HR departments have adopted a social work philosophy aimed at boosting particular kinds of candidates. Jeb Kinnison discusses how this came to be in his new book, Death by HR. |
Tue, 3 January 2017
![]() We lost Ralph Raico, a great libertarian historian, in December 2016. I spent the first part of this episode discussing his work; see also the link to one of his books below. I also answer several interesting listener questions, then offer to do an escape room with people in two U.S. cities. How could you not listen to this one? |
Fri, 30 December 2016
Does the American system bear any resemblances to Rome during its imperial period? Paul Krugman, who has cheered virtually every step toward empire (we're not talking foreign policy here; we mean empire as in a system dominated by a single man or a single centralized government), has the gall to be concerned all of a sudden. This is episode 66 of my sister podcast, Contra Krugman. |
Thu, 29 December 2016
Documentary filmmaker Cassie Jaye began her project on the men's rights movement as an unsympathetic, almost uncomprehending observer. After letting representatives of that movement tell their story, she had the honesty to admit there was merit in their position. |
Wed, 28 December 2016
Shari Spivack, president of the Second Amendment Women Shooting Club, discusses gun rights from the point of view of someone who trains people in firearms usage rather than engages in political activism. Some people should probably stuff envelopes, I guess, but without people like Shari, what have we got? |
Tue, 27 December 2016
The subject of Augusto Pinochet divides Chileans even today: should he be honored for making Chile more prosperous and desirable than its neighbors, or should he be condemned for human rights abuses? |
Mon, 26 December 2016
Libertarian titan Lew Rockwell joins me to discuss some names in the Trump cabinet, the alleged "Russian hacking," and the overall creepiness of the American ruling class. |
Fri, 23 December 2016
Neal Harmon is CEO of VidAngel.com, which offers streaming movies filtered according to the viewer's preference. Should VidAngel be allowed to do this? |
Thu, 22 December 2016
Brian Aitken was sentenced to seven years in prison -- later commuted by Chris Christie -- on bogus weapons charges. We discuss his case and its larger implications. |
Wed, 21 December 2016
Michael Rectenwald, a professor of liberal studies at New York University who describes himself as a lifelong left-liberal, took to Twitter not long ago to express his disgust with political correctness, safe spaces, and SJW intimidation. You can imagine the response from those tolerant lovers of diversity. But he had the last laugh. |
Tue, 20 December 2016
Is libertarianism all about the Nonaggression Principle, or are there supplementary ideas a libertarian must also hold because they uphold the free society? I used to criticize left-libertarians who believed true libertarians had to be feminists, egalitarians, etc. But now I wonder: although someone is indeed a libertarian if he believes in the NAP, might there indeed be other important ingredients in the free society? Entrepreneur and blogger C. Jay Engel joins me to discuss. |
Mon, 19 December 2016
Laura Blodgett, a homeschooling mom of 7, addresses the fears and misconceptions of homeschooling shared by friends and foes alike. |
Fri, 16 December 2016
The State of Jefferson movement wants to create the 51st state out of northern California, citing total domination of state politics by southern California. We discuss the idea and its progress. |
Thu, 15 December 2016
For a long time, nobody wanted to discuss the Depression of 1920-21, since it reversed itself without fiscal or monetary stimulus. But after a few other scholars and I started making hay with this example, Keynesian critics crawled out of the woodwork. My guest today responds, and vindicates our view. |
Wed, 14 December 2016
Peter Schiff joins me today to take listener questions. We discuss his impressions of Trump, why he thinks the trade deficit matters, where people should put their money, and a lot more. |
Tue, 13 December 2016
The hosts of the Anarchitecture podcast join me to discuss the differences between libertarian and conventional statist solutions to everything from roads to city planning and garbage collection. |