Today I went to the pharmacy and behind the counter was a young man in a white lab coat. Obviously constrained by pharmacy rules he improvised his own Halloween costume by taping a piece of paper on his lab coat that read “Ghost”. I chuckled at his creative humor. He appreciatively smiled and replied, “I am glad someone appreciates my fun”. This reminded me that it was Halloween because living in the country we don’t get cute kids with costumes and outstretched goodie bags.
With the lab coated young man in mind I thought it would be fun to write a blog with a Halloween vibe. Immediately what came to mind was the Tom Woods video “Interview with a Zombie”. Classic! It is below for you. This video hysterically reminds me how hard it is as a Libertarian to get a receptive ear to the message of liberty. Most people are so buried within the left-right political universe, that the basic and compelling ideas of individual rights and liberty don’t register at all. Indeed, it can sometimes feel like the video with passionate and reasoned arguments met with automatic and lifeless responses. Hey, I was there too. As I have shared, I am a recovering Neo-Con Republican.
A little background on the video:
Tom Woods in his book Nullification is making the argument that our constitution is a contract between sovereign states . This contract formed the Federal government and gave that government limited and defined powers. But what corrects the Fed Government if it strays outside its constitutional limits? It is not the Supreme Court as some people falsely think (being merely a part of the federal government and defined and limited by the constitution and accordingly accountable to the states). No, the power and responsibility of correcting federal tyranny falls to the people through their representatives who are bound to act within the constitution and also to the states themselves. How do the states do this? Their trump card is Nullification. Each state has the reserved right to, if necessary, refuse to follow unconstitutional federal directives. Tom Woods explains how this has happened numerous times in our history. By the way, it is happening today in Colorado (asserting the Federal government has no authority regarding marijuana) and Kansas (asserting federal gun laws are unconstitutional). Of course, this is shocking news to most people educated in the public school system and getting additional education from TV talking heads. In fact, when it comes to nullification, the great majority of citizens are political Zombies who falsely believe the federal government is sovereign over the states. The Zombie’s responses to nullification in this video are a humorous way to portray the automatic and mindless responses from both the left and right.
Give this a view – and don’t be a Zombie.
– Will
