All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
Hmm.
I think it's an accident, but I think I figured out that it's a good strategy to wait to interview Tom Woods until the last half hour of the three hour show and not tell you when he's coming on.
That way you'll pay attention to the rest of this stuff.
Cause I know y'all just want to hear Tom Woods.
Senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
That's mises.org keeper of the website.
Tomwoods.com and authors, uh, author of some of these books, uh, many of these books, all these books, and more than these books, the politically incorrect guide to American history, who killed the constitution?
Um, oh yeah.
Some of these are coauthors.
Uh, 33 questions.
You're not supposed to ask about American history.
We who dared say no to war American anti-war writing from 1812 through now meltdown, a free market.
Look at why the economic crisis is all the government's fault.
Nullification, how to resist federal tyranny in the 21st century, rollback repealing big government before the coming fiscal collapse.
And now what's this back on the road to serfdom, the resurgence of statism, Tom, another new book from you.
Uh, it's a, it's a collection of essays.
I wrote the introduction, so I can't claim it as a full book.
Oh, I got you.
I bet it's a great introduction though, right?
Oh, it's worth the price of the book.
Naturally.
Of course.
All right.
So the great Tom Woods tell us, uh, and I know that you covered this in your book with a coauthor with Kevin Goodsman, who killed the constitution, uh, tell us.
And not from your twisted ideological point of view, just give us the facts.
What war powers does the American president, uh, retain or what, what powers was he delegated in the U S constitution of 1789, sir?
Okay.
Well, basically what I've been talking about over the past few days is specifically involved, what powers does he have to, to commit people to battle, to actually initiate military force, which is the key thing, because he has some powers that he shares with the Senate.
Uh, but for example, involving ambassadors and so on and treaty making, but what I've been focusing on specifically because of obviously the current context is what are his powers to actually deploy troops?
And basically the answer is, is this, that initially the con the constitution was going to say that the Congress will have the power to make war.
And they changed that to say the Congress have the power to declare war.
The president does indeed have a power to make war, but what's meant by that word is a very, it's a very, it's meant in a very restrictive sense.
It's meant that if there really were some case like these hypotheticals, they're always throwing up at us, but some case where it's so urgent, we're about to be attacked by all the countries of the world coming after us all at once.
And the president can't spare the 15 minutes it would take to get the Congressman in session and get their declaration of war while strictly speaking, he can repel an attack.
If it is, you know, it's one that's actually launched in the country.
And so D a defensive action.
Now, whether this is wise or not another question, but the point is that a defensive action is within his power.
So for example, George Washington engaged in this against the Indians.
But then he said, if you want me to engage in offensive actions, I would have to go to Congress for that.
Likewise, Jefferson and the Barbary pirates, he's sending ships for defensive purposes to protect us lives.
And he said, but if, if this were to be a matter of offensive operations, then again, I would have to get further authorization from Congress.
So that's basically it.
So that in other words, non-defensive deployment of troops requires Congress either to declare war or by statute to authorize the president to engage in measures short of war or, or, or, but we might say small little wars, minor skirmishes, that sort of thing.
But the initiative rests with Congress and the commander in chief power.
The president enjoys kicks in once the hostilities have been authorized by the Congress.
They don't give him the power to himself, initiate them.
All right.
Now here's the thing.
Where does it say that in the constitution?
Where does it say, well, what are the things that I just said?
Yeah.
Well, specifically, I'm sorry.
The part about the president has the right to repel an attack from the red Indians or anybody else without Congress giving them the authority to do it.
I mean, of course we would all think, well, geez, if there's, you know, nuclear bombs coming over the North pole, somebody's got to do something.
You might think, forget the rule of law then, but the law still says only Congress can authorize the president to act, right?
So I don't see where all this wiggle room is in the text of the thing.
Well, in the text of the thing, it is tricky.
That's true.
I mean, it sounds like there's a lot more wiggle room than the right wing AM hosts who you're bashing are successfully bashing.
Well, I'm just telling you honestly, what's, you know, what's, what's there.
I mean, I, it's not like I, this isn't what I support or whatever.
I'm just telling you what my reading leads me to conclude.
Okay.
But which part though, is I'm just trying to get a little clarification of which part of article, what says that?
Well, I mean, I don't see it.
I don't see it.
But what I do, what I do know is that the, the, the, the deliberate attempt or the deliberate changing of, uh, of make to declare basically everybody took to mean that, well, therefore we're not depriving the president of this power, uh, to do this in an emergency case that we can't rely on Congress in that type of emergency.
Oh, I see.
So you're saying this all, this all really comes down to the argument in the constitutional, uh, conventional text.
I don't think, I don't think it's very easy to find that, but I'm just telling you that if you were to go to a constitutional intent, you can find arguments to this effect in the debate.
But in a way, even though this is a tricky issue, this is neither here nor there because 99.9% of the military interventions that US presidents have engaged in have not involved, you know, the enemy is at the gates.
We've got 15 seconds to decide what to do.
I mean, in fact, the one time that that sort of did happen, or I guess one of a couple of times, but with a Pearl Harbor where there actually was an attack on the U S uh, FDR went to Congress.
I mean, he, he did.
He actually went and got the deck where he did not say, Hey, look, everybody, we've just been attacked.
I don't have time to wait 24 hours to call Congress in the session.
This has to be done right now.
Likewise with Libya.
I mean, could it really be seriously?
Well, George Bush got permission, got authorization, not a declaration, but authorization from Congress before he attacked Afghanistan, even.
Well, that's true.
Well, what I was just going to say just quickly about Libya, I was going to say that this is obviously an example of something that I hardly think this was a case where a Gaddafi was about to invade or, or B that if we had just waited, I hate to say we, sorry, if they had just waited another three hours, everything would have collapsed.
I mean, none of this would hold in that case, but in what, with regard to, uh, to Bush and Afghanistan or even Iraq, the, the key issue there involves the wording of the statement.
I mean, the, the Congress can't delegate to the president, the power to decide on war to say, look, you know, whatever you decide to do one way or the other, we just sort of, uh, in advance, we just declare, we support it.
They can, they can no more delegate that power to him than they can delegate the power to, to levy taxes on the population to him and say, look, whatever, you know, we have the power to tax, but whatever you want to do, you know, we'll just rubber stamp that afterward.
That that's not how it's supposed to work.
Right.
And now, uh, in Obama's speech last night, uh, he had a couple of words to say about the Congress.
And so, uh, what he said was, uh, nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action under a UN mandate.
Does that sound legal enough?
He's got a UN mandate.
Well, and, and he, he, he talked to a few congressmen, so apparently that's all we need.
Well, no, none of that is the case.
I mean, number one, talking to a few congressmen is not the same thing as, as actually having Congress authorize what you're doing.
But of course the, the leadership or the, or the creepiest ones of all of them.
But secondly, the, the UN thing, there's a lot of misunderstanding about this.
And I have a piece that I wrote that in fact, antiwar.com, uh, ran the other day called the phony case for presidential war powers.
And you could read it at, I just put it up at tomwoods.com right there on my blog.
And this actually links to stuff specifically on the UN so that when that issue is raised, you have all the documentation in front of you.
But to make a long story short, the UN charter even makes clear that if you are engaged in some kind of military action at the behest of the United Nations, that military action on the part of each country has to be done through their constitutional processes.
Cause even the U S Congress wouldn't have passed the participation act without that in there.
Without some assurance to that effect.
Exactly right.
All right.
Hang tight right there, y'all.
It's Tom woods, mises.org, tomwoods.com.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to antiwar radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm talking with Tom woods.
He's the author of every book that was ever written and he keeps the website, tomwoods.com well, majority of the books that were ever written, you know, um, and uh, constantly cranking out new ones all the time.
All right.
So, uh, we're talking about the war powers of the president.
This is all a moot point.
Cause the constitution has been a dead letter since when Andrew Jackson or even George Washington, you know, Thomas Jefferson, uh, resigned and he told, uh, George Washington, if you pass this banking act, which it does not say in article one, section eight, Congress can pass it.
And that means you can't sign it.
And if you do, you'll be stepping foot onto a boundless field of power from which there is no return.
And it will mean that the president can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants, whenever he wants.
Simple as that.
It seems to me like Jefferson was right.
And in fact, his own presidency proves the case.
Yeah.
Well, look, I, you know, I'm, I hold no brief for the constitution.
I mean, obviously the thing hasn't worked.
I mean, let's be, you know, I don't, don't, don't give me this.
Well, it would work if only we enforced it.
Aha.
But you see, that's the issue here that, I mean, if it's this difficult to enforce that it can go ignored for decades and decades and centuries, maybe there's something wrong with it, you know, if you, if it were anything other than the constitution, like, you know, if, if, if I had a video game machine that just consistently just emitted smoke and played no video games, I would not stand there and say, well, you know what, if I just keep turning it on day after day after day, maybe something will come of it.
I mean, I would conclude maybe the thing is broken.
Like maybe something has got to be done different from this.
But having said that, uh, nevertheless, you know, I, I am, maybe it's just because I'm a, I'm a vindictive SOB and I, I don't think I am, but I do have this streak in me that when I'm up against somebody I consider to be evil, and this is not just a matter of, you know, Hey, well, we've got an understandable disagreement over, you know, patents or copyrights, but like we're really good and evil facing each other.
I feel like I want to defeat this person on every conceivable ground.
I want to defeat him on the moral grounds, historical grounds, practical grounds, and constitutional grounds, because I don't want this person to be able to say, ah, this pie in the sky would, you know, libertarian, he's got these crazy theories, but I've got the U S constitution.
I want to show him that in spite of the fact that the constitution has been, uh, you know, trampled on and ripped to shreds, he doesn't even have that.
I mean, like you, you have got nothing to stand on other than your imperial ambition.
All right.
Now, uh, I don't know if there's a way to get to any optimism anywhere in this interview, Tom, but I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about your book rollback, uh, you basically make the case in there that nevermind your ideology or whether you got any beliefs at all.
The fact of the matter is the American society must separate itself and, you know, basically repeal the entire American federal state because we have to, because we just cannot afford this thing and the liabilities that it is placed on the future taxpayers of this country and future productivity of this country, that we just have no choice now that they've, you know, if they've driven us at least to the edge of the cliff, if not over.
Yeah, that's, that's basically it.
Um, the first chapter of rollback spell that makes the case for that.
And I, as far as I can see, it just can't be refuted.
And there are people on the left and on the right and in the end of libertarians who will agree at least on these facts that, yes, uh, they may disagree on what we need to do about it, but I don't think there's any disagreeing that when you have unfunded liabilities, like for these entitlement programs that exceed the entire GDP of the world, you know, like maybe that means you can't do this.
Like maybe you have to change course at some point.
That's where, that's what we're facing.
And then we've, meanwhile, we've got Republicans who want to cut $61 billion, which I mean, you know, it's, that's not even like one 10th of a fingernail, you know, off, off, off of Andre the giant.
I mean, it's.
Well, you leave it to them.
The first thing they'll do is turn the mentally ill out of the state hospitals and, and, you know, pick on the black single mothers and the Mexican illegal immigrants that work for black market below minimum wages and the very weakest among us, though, Glenn Greenwald had a piece.
They're turning off the street lights.
The roads are going unpaved the American municipal utility districts and county court level agencies of government all across this country, the state bailouts.
Just look at those America is busted.
And yet the empire will be the last thing to go at the rate we're going.
The president, his war power still rules all.
Yeah.
And then meanwhile, we've got this, this naive confidence, nevertheless, even today, even today, we have people who still kind of think that, well, gosh, where, where would we be though?
Without the political class, you know, they're, they're really just looking out for you and me when, in fact, we all know that, you know, if you run GE, you can pick up the phone and basically tarp occurs, you know what I mean?
You can pick up the phone and the whole, um, um, the commercial paper market gets bailed out, you know, the, the, the money markets get bailed.
I make it, you pick up the phone and say, Hey, we're, we're in some trouble.
And yeah, and she should be in some trouble.
I mean, they, they had a lot of phony baloney paper profits that were about to be wiped out.
Um, they deserve to be punished for overstating their, their, uh, their profits and for, for financing their business the way they did, but no, no, no, that's not going to happen to them.
No, no, no.
Because both parties will come rushing to the rescue.
Oh my gosh.
What can we do for you?
GE?
Well, what is it?
What is it that you need?
There's always the, yeah, they can't pave the roads, but if they need to, uh, to bomb a guy that five minutes ago they thought was perfectly fine, I mean, really McCain was perfectly fine with Gaddafi apart from, you know, a couple of perfunctory remarks about, well, you know, I'm a little unsure about his human rights record or something, but I mean, you know, and, uh, but they can always find money for that.
And, and I, and I realized that when I say this, I sound like the people when I was growing up, I would see the bumper stickers that would say, you know, wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world in which, you know, the schools had had all the resources they needed, but the Pentagon had to have a bake sale.
And, and I used to think, oh gosh, these people are so hopeless, but man, like they were much closer to the truth than I was.
Yeah.
You know, there's a, uh, like Eisenhower's speech, which, you know, of course, this is all his fault, uh, the Barack Obama of his day, but, um, he gave a speech before the military industrial complex, exactly the one you're talking about, Roger Waters quoted from it in, in, uh, his rendition of the wall recently.
Oh, really?
He let, and he was, he had just read it in a quoted in a newspaper article in England, and he said, I had no idea that Eisenhower would have said something like this, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing.
It's the speech about how every, every person who is, or every bomb that's dropped and all these things are a theft from everyone who is cold and not clothed and hungry and not fed.
Is it that speech?
Yeah.
And he talks about, you know, the pri, how many schoolhouses could you build?
How many roads could you pay?
How much America could we build with the money that's spent instead?
And he itemizes it by battleship, by bomber, et cetera, like that.
Yeah, that, and of course, you know, what are you going to say about Dwight Eisenhower, that he was some commie pinko?
Really?
I mean, Dwight Eisenhower, he's an establishment as a guest.
Yeah.
Well, that was the grandfather in him on his way out of power was like, all right, look, you know, I've kind of got a couple of things to get off my chest here.
Yeah, exactly.
That's so, so yeah, that's a rollback.
My, my new, my new book, which I think is the best thing I've done for what, what that's worth, but it, it really, you know, it's one of these things where it kind of kind of traps you in there.
Like it, it, it's the sort of book that if a tea party guy picked it up, he'd say, all right, I got to see what we could do to push back against Obama.
He's Obama's terrible.
Well, yeah.
I mean, any 10 year old who has an internet connection could see Obama's terrible.
Like we know that they're all terrible.
I mean, that's just the way the system is.
They're going to be terrible.
But I, and I talked about Obama.
All right, fine.
But the point is that as you get deeper and deeper and as the chapters go by, then we're peeling away more and more layers of the onion.
We're getting to the military industrial complex.
We're getting to some of these sorts of questions that, you know, shall we say are not exactly burning up the tea party circuit, but that these people above all need to need to hear about.
Right.
Well, that's all I got to do is just keep attacking the right from the right.
And the truth is, if, if true conservatism, if the essence of conservatism is conserving the original classical liberalism of the American revolution, then you got purity on your side.
And if you can define, uh, you know, right wing beliefs in that way, which I think you can, Tom, I think you are doing.
I think you can change a hell of a lot of minds.
I know that you already have, but you know, here's the thing.
And this is what rollback the book rollback is for especially, but it's people are afraid of the unknown.
And really like if I dream a genie could just blink that national government out of existence, whatever would we do?
What would America look like?
Wouldn't the evil capitalists with the top hats run off with everything or wouldn't the poor burn everything down?
Or, you know, what might, what terrible anarchy might ensue if you had your way?
That's what people have in the back of their head here, Tom.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's one of these questions that, you know, there's no quick radio answer to me.
Rollback is part of the answer.
And Bob Murphy has part of the answer, but by and large, you know, my, my, my answer would be that, you know, I I've given this analogy before.
If we were educated by Walmart instead of by, uh, by the government and the Walmart told us we would die without them, we wouldn't believe it.
So we shouldn't believe it now either.
Yeah.
Right on for that.
I agree.
Um, and certainly a lot of people will die with them.
I know that.
Yeah, you're darn right.
All right, everybody.
That is great.
Tom Woods.
Thanks very much for your time, Tom.
Thank you, Scott.
All right, y'all.
Tom woods.com mises.org.
Check out as many, many wonderful, awesome, incredible bargain priced books at amazon.com and wherever else.
See y'all tomorrow.
