What Is Going On With Tom Woods?

In the last few months, Tom Woods has begun: bashing libertarians, giving government a free pass, promoting losing arguments, acting like some old problems are new, acting like some new problems are old, buddying up to Stefan Molyneux, and censoring fans.

Although I don't know Tom Woods, I would HATE to think that Tom is controlled opposition. I would hate it more than I hate conformism—and you know how much I hate conformism.

Episode 972 of Tom's daily podcast was all about Google firing James Damore. He mostly blamed lots of libertarians for related issues, and he blamed Google a little for being so politically correct, and he blamed leftists a little for being wrong, but he only only blamed government for about 5 seconds near the end. Of course, Tom should have given government 99% of the blame, unless he wanted to blame the cabal behind government, but Tom never goes there, so ... he should have given government 99%.

This is the second time in the last few months that Tom has said he blames companies a lot more than government for political correctness in the workplace. The first time was very brief, but I still found it shocking coming from Tom Woods, so I and others set him straight, and yet, he's doing it even more in this show, in which he not only makes the same error, but he mostly bashes other putative libertarians.

The main theme in this show is that many libertarians are saying that libertarians can't complain about Google firing James Damore because Google is a private company and can do whatever it wants. However, no real libertarian would make that argument, and I have only heard that kind of argument once from a putative libertarian, and that was only two months ago, and it was online, and it was from someone I had never encountered before. No real libertarian would make this argument for two reasons, and Tom did correctly explain the first reason, which is that libertarians can obviously criticize companies because we can boycott them, but like those fake libertarians, Tom did not say that we should blame government.

Perhaps more concerning is that Tom treated these obviously fake libertarians as if they were real libertarians and as if there had always been a significant number of such libertarians. Tom thus helped them to tarnish real libertarians.

Even if certain specious arguments from libertarians is a new thing on reddit from putative libertarians, why act as if it is real and thus help what appear to be trolls trying to tarnish libertarians? Even if some real libertarians were mistaken, why do a show about that instead of the actual government atrocities? Why act as if this James Damore thing is new, when it has been the norm for decades, and yet act as if the libertarian arguments on reddit are a pre-existing phenomenon when they are new?

Another recent phenomenon is Tom promoting losing arguments like his arguments against a social contract.​ For example, he makes a pretty big deal about how it is not like any other contract and that no one signed it, which is obvious and which does not address the strongest arguments in favor of a social contract. Tom set us up to lose with these arguments because a progressive could defeat all of Tom's arguments (with which he armed us) by simply pointing out how a majority would in fact sign the social contract if that were necessary to receive its perceived benefits.

The real argument against a social contract is: 1) it is not legitimate for one person to decide that another person is included in the social contract, 2) democracy is illegitimate, and 3) agreement is not legitimate if it was in any way the result of duress caused by that government. Given these facts, there is not person in America who could legitimately be bound by a social contract—even if he signed it.

How do I know this? I didn't read any of this anywhere. It is just common sense. So why can I figure it out so quickly and so easily when Tom, with his PhD, and all of his friends, with their PhDs, couldn't seem to figure it out. It just doesn't add up.

The final straw that precipitated this article about Tom was when he, or one of his admins, censored me and the others who down voted this podcast​. As surprised as I was to find myself down voting a Tom Woods podcast, I was more surprised when my down vote (and the others) were no longer being counted. In fact, my votes are no longer counted on any of his videos—not even my up votes, which were about 98% of my votes. Tom is thus actually hurting himself to spite me. Ironically, he referred to others as "babies" in this podcast.

That reminds me of another recent development. Starting with his interview with Stefan Molyneux, Tom is not as nice as he used to be. This doesn't concern me much, but others may find it more relevant.

I am now getting much less positive feedback and much more misdirection than I used to get when I make my points on Tom's Youtube channel (Tom isn't responding himself any more), so I wrote an article explaining how government caused Google to fire James Damore, how this is not something new, and how, in addition to the one obvious direct cause by government, there is a matrix of millions of self-reinforcing factors at work—all by government. I explain how government has so thoroughly corrupted the business world.

A long time fact that some may find more relevant, but which doesn't concern me much, is that Tom is Catholic. After I pointed out that he can be excommunicated and thus has conflict of interest, he began criticizing the Catholic church for being too politically correct, but he still won't touch how the Pope should not be a Jesuit and how the Jesuits pretty much invented communism (before Marx), and how they've been pushing it hard ever since. He also won't touch how the Catholic church has raped or sexually assaulted as many as one million boys in the last 100 years.

Another long time fact, which does concern me somewhat, is that Tom won't talk about conspiracy, like 9/11 or JFK. However, it is clear that he knows more than he is saying because he let it slip in 2016 when he said that people who think the conspiracy is to get Obama a third term don't know what they're talking about because elections are how they maintain the illusion of legitimacy! "They?!" He could only have meant that a power above both the Republicans and Democrats is playing everyone! Hmm ... it was right after that when all this weirdness with Tom began ...

Consider that I still wouldn't have written this article if it weren't for the fact that so many of those prominent libertarians, voluntaryists, etc. whom I know personally, or online, or whom I merely follow online ... changed recently. Starting in early 2016 it became very clear that many of them had either sold out or else had always been controlled opposition, and more have been outing themselves ever since.