by Thomas E. Woods
Even though state nullification was more often employed in the nineteenth century by northern states than by southern, and the movement today is in evidence all over the country – north, south, east and west – you’ll never guess the line the smearbund is adopting. I’m telling you, you’ll just never guess.
All right, I’ll tell you. Their reply to all this is: “Confederate Confederate Confederate slavery slavery slavery racism racism racism.†Good old establishment Left. Always something new and interesting to say.
Lou Dubose, a conventional leftist who takes criticism of the federal government personally, recently wrote a piece called “Confederates in the Attic†for a subscription-only pro-regime site. I am one of those alleged “Confederates,†since Lou seems to think my opposition to government makes an exception for the Southern confederacy of 1861–1865.
Lou is worried about my forthcoming book, Nullification. He warns that hundreds of people at CPAC loved my speech on the subject. It’s all very sinister.
Right now California is on the verge of decriminalizing marijuana, in an act of defiance of the federal government. Lou Dubose looks around the country, sees decentralizing forces like this everywhere, and responds, “Confederate Confederate Confederate Confederate Confederate Confederate Confederate.â€
Lou, we’ve duly noted your contribution. Thanks a bunch.
Here’s the reply I sent to Conventional Lou, the guy who thinks the federal government is super-dangerous when a George W. Bush is running it, but that we should keep it just as powerful as it is now even though it could fall into the hands of another George W. Bush. Actually trying to stop the federal government’s anti-social behavior, on the other hand? What are you, a “neo-Confederate�
Mr. Dubose:
Someone just forwarded me your article. What a shame. I actually read and enjoyed your book Vice, and I’ve heard you interviewed on Antiwar Radio with my friend Charles Goyette. Murray Polner and I included an article from the Texas Observer, where I understand you were once associated, in our book We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now (Basic Books, 2008).
All of us in the Ron Paul/Campaign for Liberty mold are antiwar (much, much more so than Obama and his followers, to say the least), anti-torture, pro-civil liberties, and anti-drug war. Isn’t that a set of policies that would favor racial minorities? I’ve never understood all the hysteria against us.
Wouldn’t nullification have been nice for California and Washington State to have tried when Japanese-Americans were being rounded up by the progressive U.S. government? I sure would have favored it.
Digging out old articles from the 1990s is silly, as I’m sure you know. (If you’d like to know how I feel about the abolitionists you could read We Who Dared to Say No to War (2008), which includes several notable ones.) You could also dig out articles showing I used to be pro-war. What would that prove, other than that I’ve moved from neoconservatism to paleoconservatism and (for the past nine years) to libertarianism?
[You can even find, as late as 1999, in a scholarly journal called American Studies, an article I wrote critical of capitalism from a traditionalist perspective. Are you going to trot that out and say my free-market credentials aren't so clear after all? Probably not, since you'd look ridiculous. I do have a pretty substantial online archive of my recent writing you can read without having to use the Wayback Machine, that might give you a slightly better sense of my worldview.]
California is considering decriminalizing marijuana across the board. That’s also nullification. Are they to be condemned? Whatever happened to the tradition of decentralism on the Left, à la Kirkpatrick Sale? These days the Left hems and haws about the U.S. government (when it’s out of power, of course), but balks at any actual opposition to it, apart from a few pretty speeches.
Some of us are a little more impatient than that.
Finally, what a shame you didn’t bother to mention that in front of a CPAC crowd I criticized both the draft and preemptive war.
Long live decentralization! Nationalism had its day with the states’-rights-hating Hitler. Let’s return to a humane scale of living.
Reprinted from LewRockwell.com
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (visit his website; follow him on Facebook; send him mail), holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His nine books include the critically acclaimed study The Church Confronts Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2004) and two New York Times bestsellers: Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. His new book, Nullification, will be released on June 29. Visit his blog.
© 2010 Tom Woods
My comment to Lou Dubose would be: "Thanks for the compliment!" I find no higher compliment than to be called a "Confederate". I have 2 great-great grandfathers and 3 great-great uncles who served in the Confederate States Army. They did their duty to their country. They resisted the raping, pillaging, burning army of the United States government, which was making war to destroy the old republic, destroy the states and centralize the power the states once had in its capital on the Potomac, Washington, D.C. The states are now only beginning to get that power, robbed of them in the 1860's War, back! The Confederate States Army was fighting heroically to defend American soil and the original republic of the Founding Fathers!
Calling true Southerners or any States' Rights thinking person "Confederate" is like throwing Bier Rabbit in the Brier Patch!
Same here, on feeling complimented.
Among the remaining Americans who think for themselves and want their rights and freedom back,
"We are all Confederates now."
(Sorry Newsweek, but you're going out of business soon, ayway.)
Same here, on feeling complimented.
Among the remaining Americans who think for themselves and want their rights and freedom back,
"We are all Confederates now."
(Sorry Newsweek, but you're going out of business soon, ayway.)
It's like a badge of honor when the centralizers start attacking you and name-calling. They don't have much else to attack with when you're right!
That was a good response by Woods. I am glad to see him also discuss his evolution to his current positions. It indicates his intellectual honesty and willingness to constantly re-think his own positions.
I don't see why any liberal would ever be opposed to decentralization of power since it maximizes freedom by ensuring that any abuse of power and the violation of someone's natural rights by the government would be confined to a small area therefore minimizing the destruction to someone's freedom.
In Arizona, where people don't like the new immigration law, there are those attempting to defy the authority of the state by suing the state. As much as I agree with the new law, the action a few cities shows the benefits of decentralization for the left as well as the right.
I don't see why any liberal would ever be opposed to decentralization of power since it maximizes freedom by ensuring that any abuse of power and the violation of someone's natural rights by the government would be confined to a small area therefore minimizing the destruction to someone's freedom.
In Arizona, where people don't like the new immigration law, there are those attempting to defy the authority of the state by suing the state. As much as I agree with the new law, the action a few cities shows the benefits of decentralization for the left as well as the right.
Why? Well, it works from both sides.
Let's say the Republicans are "big brother," and the Democrats are "little brother." Let's also say that the state government is "Dad," and the federal government is "Mom."
Big brother and little brother are deciding who should get to watch his favorite TV program, and there's only one TV. The one who does not get his way from Dad will run to Mom for relief. Vice versa, if the one isn't getting relief from Mom, he's going to run to Dad.
They know no bounds. They don't care about the bounds. Mom and Dad don't exactly agree who should have the final say, either, and so, we wind up with a mess. Nobody wants to agree with any set rule that says, "the buck stops here."
I don't know if referring to one as big or small is all that indicative of reality!
I don't know if referring to one as big or small is all that indicative of reality!
It's not. It was just to show two kids fighting for position. Check your e-mails. I have a pending question for you.
I don't know if referring to one as big or small is all that indicative of reality!
Shouldn't the argument be about maximizing freedom instead of who should set the rules?
When one kid runs to mom because he didn't get his way with dad then that kid is choosing what rules suit him best but when mom and dad agree the kid doesn't get to choose the rules which means he will get squat from mom and dad.
Why? Well, it works from both sides.
Let's say the Republicans are "big brother," and the Democrats are "little brother." Let's also say that the state government is "Dad," and the federal government is "Mom."
Big brother and little brother are deciding who should get to watch his favorite TV program, and there's only one TV. The one who does not get his way from Dad will run to Mom for relief. Vice versa, if the one isn't getting relief from Mom, he's going to run to Dad.
They know no bounds. They don't care about the bounds. Mom and Dad don't exactly agree who should have the final say, either, and so, we wind up with a mess. Nobody wants to agree with any set rule that says, "the buck stops here."
Confederate, and proud of it!
I too can think of no higher honor than to be called a Confederate, for it was those who bravely fought, died and sacrificed during the Second War for Independence as did our Forefathers.
On the Floor of the Senate of the United States of America, The Honorable Jefferson Davis gave the following speech in 1850:
"If I have a superstition, sir, which governs my mind and holds it captive, it is a superstitious reverence for the Union. If one can inherit a sentiment, I may be said to have inherited this from my revolutionary father.
And if education can develop a sentiment in the heart and mind of man, surely mine has been such as would most develop feelings of attachment for the Union. But, sir, I have an allegiance to the State, which I represent here. I have an allegiance to those who have entrusted their interests to me, which every consideration of faith and of duty, which every feeling of honor, tells me is above all other political considerations. I trust I shall never find my allegiance there and here in conflict.
God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union. If, sir, we have reached that hour in the progress of our institutions, it is past the age to which the Union should have lived. If we have got to the point when it is treason to the United States to protect the rights and interests of our constituents, I ask why should they longer be represented here? Why longer remain a part of the Union?
If there is a dominant party in this Union which can deny to us equality, and the rights we derive through the Constitution; if we are no longer the freemen our fathers left us; if we are to be crushed by the power of an unrestrained majority, this is not the Union for which the blood of the Revolution was shed; this is not the Union I was taught from my cradle to revere; this is not the Union in the service of which a large portion of my life has been passed; this is not the Union for which our fathers pledged their property, their lives, and sacred honor.
No, sir, this would be a central Government, raised on the destruction of all the principles of the Constitution, and the first, the highest obligation of every man who has sworn to support that Constitution would be resistance to such usurpation. This is my position."
Very beautifully and poignantly said by our last President. His words cut to the chase, sharper than a two-edged sword. I wish our country had such eloquent, powerful, patriotic statesmen today. Today's pathetic politicians wouldn't stand a chance vis-a- vis such a gifted statesman! Show me one politician today who has such allegiance to his state or country in this day and time. (There are not many, maybe Jan Brewer, if she holds her ground).
Yes, our first President, Jefferson Davis, and all the other Confederate patriots stand like skyscrappers over those modern-day petty human beings who would try to make the impotent, pathetic attempt to besmirch that good, honorable and untarnishable name, Confederate.