Robert Scott Bell interviews Tom Woods on nullification and states' rights

Sunday, May 13, 2012 by: NaturalNews
Tags: Tom Woods, nullification, states rights

(NaturalNews) Tom Woods guest stars on the Robert Scott Bell Show to discuss the possible overturning of the famous individual Obamacare mandate by the Supreme Court. The men also discuss the the Nullify Now event in Philadelphia and important topics varying from the primal diet and nullification to the Michigan state government's recent attempts to wipe out small family pig ranchers.

Robert Scott Bell: You know, this hour I was trying to book a major band to be with us. I put the word out to Kansas, they were not available, I put the word out to Yes, definitely not, and Jethro Tull, they were touring, they were not available. So what we got? We got Tom Woods! The good doctor, he's going to be with me at Nullify Now, the 10th Amendment Center's great event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Saturday. That is March 31st. Tom, welcome back to the Robert Scott Bell show.

Tom Woods: Well, always a pleasure to be here.

Robert Scott Bell:Yeah, and if I can't have any of those bands with me, I'd just as soon hang out with you.

Tom Woods: Well, thanks a lot. I am in fact trying to- incredibly petty as this sounds- I am trying to organize my fall speaking schedule vaguely around Ian Anderson's Thick as a Brick tour. I mean, how can I not hear him perform Thick as a Brick? So I'm actually trying to figure out- is there a speech I could give? Because of course, he's not coming to Topeka. That goes without saying.

Robert Scott Bell: Of course. It sounds much like my dad who was in the pharmaceutical industry, people are shocked because they know me now. But he used to tour around the southeast any time Neil Diamond was coming he would manage to be in every city.

Tom Woods: That's pretty good.

Robert Scott Bell: It's not as cool as Jethro Tull, but you know what I mean.

Tom Woods: I'd be satisfied with just one show.

Robert Scott Bell: Ok, no that's cool. We got a tour. You know, the Nullify Now tour is happening and it's coming up Saturday. You're going to be the keynote, of course, I'm going to be the morning keynote and we're just going to have a blast there. And I think among many things, that when Michael Bolden and the gang thought about this one they knew it was going to be right about the time of the deliberations on the Supreme Court level for what's called Obama care. And this week, all the news has been about how they're definitely going to overturn it. I'm not holding my breath, but at the same time, evidently they're asking serious questions about the whole mandate idea.

Tom Woods: Yes, I suppose that they could, they could overturn the mandate aspect of it. That is not impossible. I have to admit I would be surprised if they did it. I wasn't expecting that. I wonder what the repercussions of that are. What type of reasoning to they use whereby the individual mandate violates the commerce clause but 99 percent of what the government does is perfectly ok under the commerce clause. They would have to tread very, very delicately if they're not going to overturn implicitly a whole range of dominoes of government programs. But of course, the individual mandate is not the only aspect of Obama care. It's not the only thing- also the community rating thing, there's that everybody has to be basically accepted into it, indiscriminately, everyone's gotta be charged in effect the same premium with very, very modest allowances for age differences and whatever. And the difficulty of that is the program then becomes expensive over the long run because people just would tend to not get the insurance, just pay the penalty and then wait til they get sick, and then they've got to be accepted. So, it's a difficult- and of course, the whole Obama care just takes for granted that the current medical-pharmaceutical-industrial complex is good for us in the first place. Which is, of course you know, the subject of your whole program.

Robert Scott Bell: Well, exactly, that's the thing that I've tried to blast out to everybody, especially the progressive left that thinks that they're helping everybody by forcing more pharmaceutical interventions on the poorest and most malnourished among us. And yet, they have let's say attacked those who may be religious because they're afraid of some sort of theocracy, which is not gonna happen. Yet they have basically replaced religioun with modern medicine and that becomes their religion, the pseudo-science of let's inject everybody with everything, even without science. Let's poison them and it's like, for me, this is so not health care, even, you know, I'm opposed to mandating things just because that's my philosophy on life and I like freedom, but even if it were to mandate homeopathic medicine, I would not be for it. I want people to have the freedom to choose their path in life.

Tom Woods: Well, you know what surprised me, particularly because I don't even qualify as an amateur when it comes to health issues, but when I was substituting for Peter Schiff [sic], on his radio program, I had Gary Taubes on, who is the author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, and he told me that since 1980 diabetes has increased threefold, the number of cases. I mean that's an astonishing statistic, so something has gone wrong somewhere in what it is we are consuming. It seems if we could get this right, if people's diet was better and they weren't spending all their time at the grocery store going down the aisles with Nabisco products and instead they were doing what my wife does, which is going to the outskirts of the store. You go to the produce and all the actual food, I don't know how much- what percent of our problems would be solved, but a lot of this is trying to solve problems that are self-inflicted and if not self-inflicted, inflicted by people who have basically been taught not to know any better.

Robert Scott Bell: Well, exactly. And this is the thing about, as well, the idea that we must have a department of education. It's bad enough on the state level, what I see happening, but to have the federal bureaucracy trying to dictate what we should read, what we should learn. And of course, Thomas Jefferson has been quoted about the education and such, but different quotes about the idea that if we would let, if the people let the government decide what foods they'll eat, what medicines they'll take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny. And I think that's what we're living under now because we've abandoned the ability to care for ourselves much because of the let's say indoctrination centers that said no, there are experts for that, no there are experts for that as well. You always talk about the wise overlords.

Tom Woods: Yeah, it's true. And well gosh there's an author whose name I can't remember but who has a very, very cleverly titled book coming out later this year, Death By Food Pyramid. I love that. I should be eating eleven servings of grain a day. If I haven't had my macaroni and cheese by the time I get in bed I should feel terrible about myself. It's been an awful day. So obviously there's so much that can be done with just education for people, just knowing what to eat, how to take care of themselves the right way. Which doesn't necessarily mean being on a treadmill three hours a day, which is, can be counter-productive. But so, anyway, it's hard to know what the Supreme Court will wind up doing. If they do overturn the individual mandate provision that doesn't overturn the whole thing, and of course, you know the federal government has been good at coming up with ways of doing exactly what the Supreme Court has overturned. In other words, the Supreme Court overturned in 1935 I think or '36, they overturned The Agricultural Adjustment Act because they said that certainly the federal government can't be telling farmers how much acreage they can cultivate and what they can plant and in what quantities. So the federal government simply went back to the drawing board, came back in 1938, reintroduced the program under the guise of it being a soil conservation measure. Well, we're restricting their acreage in order to conserve the soil. So in other words, they're just trying to come up with ways that pass Constitutional muster. Well these days, almost anything passes Constitutional muster, they don't overturn anything. So, my concern is that they'll figure out some other way to do what they want to do and just word it differently or just come up with some different approach. Because if they want something they're not going to let nine people on the court stop them.

Robert Scott Bell: Right, and you know you mentioned the soil conservation concept. Of course, anyone who has farmed generationally, across generations would know from their grandparents or even further along that monoculture, this was the idea that big agribusiness had. We'll just plant the same thing year after year and we'll just add more artificial, let's say additives to the soil, pesticides, if the plants are not healthy, until of course the soil is just destroyed, is gone, the dust bowl concept. And so government has chosen poorly or let's just say those who have lobbied government to chose poorly, however it manages to do so, is such now that my good friend Jonathan Emord talks about in his book The Rise of Tyranny and now Restore the Republic is that we no longer live under a Constitutional republic. In fact, we are ruled by a bureaucratic oligarchy.

Tom Woods: There's no question about it. All these executive agencies that basically the average person has zero control over. Brings us back to the subject of what's going on in Philadelphia on Saturday. We're talking about nullification, Nullify Now, the Nullify Now event in Philadelphia, where you're going to be and I'm going to be and we're going to have a great time. But there the premise of it is that if we're going to reassert authority over our own lives and be able to exercise real decision making power in things that affect us, it has to begin by decentralizing the decision making power that we've allowed to slip out of our hands. It has to begin by bringing it a lot closer to home, not delegating things to bureaucracies neither you nor I can influence at all and that tend to be in the pocket of industry or that tend to perpetuate themselves just because bureaucracies have an interest in perpetuating themselves regardless of whether they're aimed at implementing the public good. And so that's what we're talking about with Nullify Now and decentralization. Putting control over your life back into your hands. There'll be an attempt, as always, from the media when they acknowledge nullification at all to demonize it, only wicked people could support this. Because of course, they want us to think only wicked people might actually want to make decisions regarding their own lives. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound that wicked after all.

Robert Scott Bell: Yeah, by the way I apologize for the call. The studio line was ringing. It's either the FDA or my wife. I'll check on that during the break to see what's going on here. But we're going to stick around, Tom Woods is going to be with me for at least one more segment, maybe two as we continue on heading into Nullify Now in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of all places. It's going to be a great, great day. Hope to see you there, stay with us, lots more healing to go with Tom Woods on the Robert Scott Bell show after this.

Robert Scott Bell: We're back, coming back with you and hope to see you all in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for Nullify Now. Tom Woods is with us and Tom of course has written many books, including Nullification, which is the main subject. Rollback and others, Meltdown. All these books and probably many more, though you've gotta take some time cause you've got your kids, your wife to keep up with. And by the way, that was my wife calling, so I had to take it. That's why we can take a break. All is well. But Tom, as we move forward to the concept of nullification, I'll often bring this up in conversation. I remember you saying this. Find ways to just bring it up in conversation. Now there was one health group I was working with that was all about health freedom and I wanted to raise some issues because they're working very diligently in Washington, D.C. about dealing with Congress and lobbying and this and that. You don't have the money to compete with big pharma but they're doing their level best and they've made some good contacts. But I said, we need to look at other options here, because if we can't succeed in Congress, what about the option of the states saying hey, FDA, you can't come in here. What about nullification? And immediately they said, oh, no, not nullification. Racist, right? And it's so programmed in, even the health food crowd has been completely let's say programed away from the true origin and reason for being.

Tom Woods: Yeah, I know, that's really a shame. That's just propaganda. That there's, I mean, I'm a US historian, every credential in the world, I do nothing but study this stuff and the idea that nullification has got some kind of racial tinge to it is just basically, has no basis. I've dealt with some of the hard cases related to it. In fact, I have a, in addition to my website tomwoods.com, I have statenullification.com. Go to statenullification.com. There I explain the idea, explain the constitutional, moral, logical arguments for it and then answer some of the objections. I link there to my whole question and answer format where I answer all the objections. And the fact is if you want to talk about harming people who belong to racial minorities, well there has been no institution in world history that has been more lethal for members of racial minorities than the centralized modern state that you and I are trying to get out from under. So I mean if you wanna ask about, well gee, where have minorities been the most oppressed in the world, is it in decentralized polities? Is it in societies where power is dispersed or is it in, has it been in societies where power is highly centralized? You might ask the Armenians who lived in the Ottoman empire. You might ask the Jews in Germany, the Asians in Uganda, the Ukrainians in the Soviet Union. I think they would have an answer to that question and they would not be saying nullification is what our problem was. If only they had the chance to nullify. If only they had that power. Wouldn't it have been nice if California had nullified the order to incarcerate the Japanese Americans in the early 1940's? Wouldn't' that have been good for the cause of racial justice? So, it's not the 1960's anymore. This is a totally different America, no one's contemplating returning to those days. The issue simply is, is liberty more likely to be preserved when jurisdictions have to compete with each other or when there's one giant jurisdiction? I mean, just look at how dysfunctional the system we have now is. And I think this is true of all aspects of life. Something gets too big, you see this in the natural world as well as in the political world. When something gets too big it becomes unnatural to be so big. We're getting to a point where within this century it is quite likely that we could hit 435 million people in the United States. Now how many people do we have sitting in the house of Representatives? 435. That was set in stone about 100 years ago, that no longer is that number going to increase. It's going to be 435. So we're going to get to a point where every Congressman will be representing one million people. Now at that point it becomes laughable. I don't know what the word is to describe it, laughable isn't strong enough, to even think that representation could mean anything on a scale like that. The point is that this system is out of scale. Leave aside the propaganda that the only people who support this are wicked racists who just want to exploit people and burn crosses or whatever. Just stick to the facts, leave the emotion stuff aside. That's just insane. There's no way a system can be functional like that. That's the sort of thing that we're talking about. And when we look in the history of the world, as I've already said, there is no place more lethal for minorities than centralized modern states, so look at the small states that we've seen in the history of the world. I mean we look at the city-states of ancient Greece and we look at their incredible achievements in well the sciences, in philosophy, in literature and so on and we can see that human flourishing is quite possible on a very small scale. And it's also possible to be relatively secure militarily. I mean look, was France, which is a big centralized state, was France a safe place to live in the 20th century? Was England a safe place in the 20th century? Was Germany? Well, Switzerland was. Venice, the small city-state of Venice survived 1,200 years before being conquered by Napoleon. In other words, there is a whole array of possibility, of political possibilities, exciting ones, that take into account the issue of scale. It is out of human scale for us to be living at this sort of level that we could consider if we weren't so caught up in this conventional way of thinking, that well gee if an idea isn't expressed by either Barbara Boxer or Mitt Romney, then it must be out of bounds. You know, we have to stop thinking like that. We have to think a teensy weensy bit more creatively if we're going to restore some type of humane living in this country.

Robert Scott Bell: Well we like the idea of decentralization, bringing it back home. But even the states are exhibiting some bizarre behaviors.

Tom Woods: Oh yeah. Let me jump in and clarify that I'm not saying that the states are infallible. And I love the states. and boy, I so wish I could live in Maryland under the government of Maryland or whatever, that this would be great. No, most of these people are creeps, too. So you have to keep the fight up in your states. But at least in the states you have, I dunno, at least a few percentage points greater likelihood of having some successes. I mean, you might actually know your local state representatives. He might actually live down the street from you. There's at least some remote plausibility. But even there you have to fight against the state governments. But part of my point is that the state governments, precisely because they're a bunch of bums, too. That's one of the good things about nullification, at least we can get them to do something useful for us for once. Stand up for our rights against the federal government.

Robert Scott Bell: Well, one of the most interesting state cases in the last few days, in fact, that made me say that, was that in Michigan- and we've been following Michigan for the last year on the Robert Scott Bell show and at Natural News. Just bizarre stuff with the state authorities, local authorities attacking parents for not wanting to drug or vaccinate their children and attacking some people that are wanting to plant gardens in their- oh my gosh- in their front yard, to feed the community. And things like this are just happening and I don't know why Michigan. Now suddenly we hear that Michigan, the state government is wanting to basically do some form of pigacide. Basically, if your pig has black hair it's slated for termination. And literally what they're doing is the bidding of the so-called big pig farm associations that are like big agri-business pig growers and try to wipe out the small family ranchers that are growing pigs, under the guise that these are not native species. But I don't know that there are any native species in Michigan. All of these things were at one point or another brought into being. So there's some bizarre behavior even on the state level. There's so much centralized bureaucracy and power that these corporations can lobby into existence, these monopoly ability to basically pig genocide.

Tom Woods: Well, you're right, and in fact I think that this is- first of all, this is a reason to keep a close eye on the state governments as well, but number two, I don't think we should think to ourselves, well maybe we should look to the federal government for relief against oppressive initiatives at the state level of this kind because I think for some reason, I think there are some progressives who think that the democratic party might be sympathetic to their point of view when it comes to natural health, alternative health, things of that nature. But both parties are so obviously in the pockets of medical establishment. I mean there's no indication whatsoever that the Obama people have any sympathy with anything you're talking about on this program. If anything, they're more into forcing kids to get this or that injection and- we don't have advocates in Washington. That's the point. There are no such people. Or if there are, they are so woefully outnumbered that the idea that we should just try and vote for the right people in Washington and put things right is just laughable. We've got to start in our own backyards. That's the only possible strategy that could work.

Robert Scott Bell: Well look at California, as well, another example. Governor Jerry Moonbeam Brown who was kind of a new agey liberal kind of guy, a crunchy-granola sweet eating guy, and now he comes back into the governorship the past year or so and passes legislation thanks primarily to the majority of Democrats because, a few Republicans did sign onto it, but mostly 100% of Democrats I believe, in California, to force the ability of a 12 year old girl to give consent to a doctor to get the Gardasil HPV shot. I mean, this is uniquely Democrat. It's just a bizarre thing if you want to talk about protecting children, they're not even allowing parental notification on things like this.

Tom Woods: Well, I don't know about how to elaborate on that other than, you know, at least I don't live in California.

Robert Scott Bell: Yeah but, what it does is it blows the preconceived notions about, ok you think that Democrats, they're more like earth-muffiny kind of people?

Tom Woods: Absolutely not. I know some grass-roots people who have sympathized with the Democrats in the past may be on that side of things. But the politicians really are not. Is Nancy Pelosi going to sympathize with you if you go to her office? Is Obama? Is Biden- do you think Joe Biden has ever had an unconventional thought in his entire life? Much less he's gonna fight for you on something like this? We have to understand, it's two wings of the same bird of prey. It's two different mafia families basically, is the way to think of the Democrats and the Republicans. We have to emancipate ourselves from this way of thinking.

Robert Scott Bell: Well done, well said. Listen, I want to hold you over one more segment if you don't mind, Tom. We gotta do a little bit more nullification to gear people up to understand what we're gonna be doing in Philadelphia with the Nullify Now conference. Also, some of the other arguments that are thrown at you that are sort of non-arguments. They're very funny. We'll go back to fourth grade. Are we gonna be smarter than a fourth grader after this? With Tom Woods, right here on the Robert Scott Bell show, notes link up to tomwoods.com as well as we've added statenullification.com. Check it out at robertscottbell.com after this.

Robert Scott Bell: Wrapping up today's Robert Scott Bell show. I couldn't do it with a greater guy than Tom Woods. Having a great time with him, tomwoods.com. And of course, he'll be in Philadelphia, as will I, Saturday, March 31st. Also, Sheriff Richard Mack, a whole host of other characters that are just wonderful to hang out with. We're gonna have a great time. We hope to see you there. But Tom, in dealing with nullification, we've covered a number of objections over the last couple of years together on the show. Of course, we've linked to your YouTubes and great video, let's say blogs, so to speak. But this one recently you did just a few days ago, it was called "Shut Up and Memorize Your Fourth Grade Textbook." Why don't you lay out how this came about?

Tom Woods: For heaven's sake, yeah. Maybe one of the most frustrating things in the world is Twitter because- you know, your listeners are on Twitter, you know that when you use Twitter you're confined to 140 characters for each thing you type in. So when somebody says something that's critical of you, he's saying it in 140 characters or less and then you have to have this ridiculous debate back with this person in 140 character bits. It's like, if you think these political debates on television with these 30 second sound bites are bad, those are like Ciceronian by comparison to what goes on Twitter. So I had a guy write that nullification was idiotic and unconstitutional. And now I'm supposed to respond to this in 140 characters. I wrote a book on this, and by the way, it's a pretty darn good book if I may say so. Nullification. Because- not because of any merits of my own, just because it digs up very interesting American history that is very, very useful to know. The states used to fight for their rights and decentralization on entirely honorable grounds and on the right side of the issues, consistently throughout the 19th century. But then it just boiled down to, somehow he just switched subjects on me. Somehow we got talking about Lincoln. I was like, I don't want to talk about Lincoln. But on his website he had said that he couldn't believe that there were people who said that Abraham Lincoln had ever held the view that whites and blacks should not intermarry or that blacks should not be voters or serve on juries, or that he would not interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. He couldn't believe anybody would say these things about the 16th president. Well, I'm a US historian so it's sort of my job to correct people when they make errors.

Robert Scott Bell: Well, just a moment Tom. Just to acknowledge the fourth grade text book- wasn't it true if we grew up, and I remember public school education. We were literally deifying Lincoln. He freed the slaves. That's what is still the central religious meme if you will in, I don't know if it's history or social studies or some combination of the two that happened. So what this guy was espousing really was fourth grade textbook stuff.

Tom Woods: Oh, absolutely. Fourth grade textbook, really Stalinist in the admiration for politicians, and you're not allowed to have a dissenting view. On the Lincoln thing, modern research now tells us that all through the war Lincoln was frantically searching for anyplace in the world he could send the freed slaves to. They sure as heck can't live here. That was his view. So I just pointed out, look, you can find out this is wrong just by looking at simple sources. The Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln came right out and said, ?I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of allowing them to intermarry with white people.' He said that there's a physical difference between the races that will prevent us from ever living on terms of social or political equality, but inasmuch as we must live together I as much as any other man favor assigning the superior position to the white race. And then in his first inaugural, so this is not exactly the most obscure source in the world, his first inaugural address, he said that ?I have no intention to interfere with slavery in the states where it exists, I do not believe I have the legal right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.' So, in other words, the guy was saying the exact opposite of the truth, what is demonstrably true. There's no getting around it. But it's this sort of mentality that just sort of repeats the textbook stuff, that will just repeat the stuff about nullification is not allowed, it's unconstitutional. It's not unconstitutional. We talked about this in the past, I'll be talking about it on Saturday. Talking about it on statenullification.com, talking about it in the book. In the state ratifying convention you see ample evidence that this was indeed contemplated as a remedy for what you do when all three branches betray you. It's all well and good to say the Supreme Court will come to the rescue, but it's been asleep at the wheel for decade after decade, rubber-stamping everything the other two branches have done. As Presidents have usurped powers, war powers and spying powers, surveillance, all these sorts of things have gone on and the Supreme Court has been asleep at the wheel. What do you do in a case like, in cases like the ones we're facing now? Well, Madison and Jefferson made clear that state nullification was the only moral and strategically sound approach to take.

Robert Scott Bell: Yeah, exactly. And even as we look at this issue in a current context, I just wanted to bring up the way that states are-whether it's overt nullification or subversive nullification, however it wanted to be defined. Like medical marijuana, issues like that, like the Real Idea Act. There's certain things that have been passed federally that haven't been unpassed or repealed or even ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the states refuse to enforce, that sort of just kind of die on the vine. It's interesting how this goes without any kind of overt laws being passed.

Tom Woods: Well, one thing that I find interesting about how the states have in the past succeeded in doing this, in fighting against the federal government, is that in some cases it's just been the general public has just refused to go along with whatever the law is. So it could be the medical marijuana restrictions. Well, in California people just don't listen to those and when it's on that big of a scale, what is the federal government going to do? So it's interesting to see at the level of the states that sometimes there doesn't even need to be any formal effort to resist. The people just do the resisting. But in other cases, as I show in the book Nullification, very interesting in the 1850's there were states that thought that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 went beyond what the constitution allowed and you had Wisconsin saying, we're not going to enforce this law, and their state Supreme Court saying good for you, legislature of Wisconsin. This law is unconstitutional, void and of no effect, and they just went ahead and refused to do it. They said we're gonna preserve our state sovereignty and not allow these federal marshals to come in and kidnap people without a legitimate warrant, without a jury trial. And they got away with this, they actually got away with this. So the federal government can do an awful lot to us without any formal fanfare just through its existing bureaucracies. It can engage in all kinds of oppressions, but the point of my book Nullification is to show we can do the same thing. They get away with a lot, but what we've forgotten is what the states used to get away with, and therefore can get away with again today.

Robert Scott Bell: Well, in fact there were some official legislation passed in certain states that would basically nullify Obama care no matter what the Supreme Court does. So there are other issues, even if they find it "Constitutional," they're gonna have to deal with a number of states and probably even more should they find it constitutional.

Tom Woods: And there are states and localities that are talking about nullifying the National Defense Authorization Act, the indefinite detention provisions. And that's been wonderful because the progressive left has even gotten onboard of this. Their distaste for the general principle of nullification has been overwritten by the fact that- it really is kinda bad to be this indefinite detention policy. The federal government tries to deny that it exists, but ever since 9/11, Bush and Obama have reached for a vast, unspecified reservoir of powers that we cannot do enough to try to hem in. So this is very encouraging, too. We have a cross-section of people on different sides of the spectrum coming together and saying at some level, at the state level, we've gotta just say no to this thing.

Robert Scott Bell: Yeah. Now one of the other arguments that's always thrown out, and you've covered this more recently in your blog as well, this idea of the supremacy clause, that the federal constitution is always supreme or above the state constitutions. But there's a distinction made in the supremacy clause that kinda throws that thinking out as far as it's used in a general way that applies to everything.

Tom Woods: Right, there's a clause in Article 6 of the Constitution that says, I'm paraphrasing, but this Constitution of laws that should be made in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land, anything to the contrary not withstanding. And the shorthand version of that that you get from kids who have gone to law school is federal law trumps state law. Well, that's not at all what it says, and no one would've ratified the Constitution if they thought that's what it meant. It says that this Constitution plus laws that shall be made in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land. Now people try to claim this means you can't nullify because federal law is the supreme law of the land. No, it's constitutional laws are the supreme law of the land. Laws made in pursuance of the constitution are supreme laws of the land. The issue when a state nullifies is precisely that state saying this law is not in pursuance of the Constitution, that's why we're nullifying it. So the supremacy clause just begs the whole question entirely. It doesn't settle the issue. So that's the thing. And Alexander Hamilton himself, big centralized government guy, repeatedly said at the New York Ratifying Convention and in the Federalist papers, that the supremacy clause specifically applies only to laws which are Constitutional. So that does not in any way overturn the principle of nullification.

Robert Scott Bell: Very good point. Now, when we're together in Philadelphia, Tom, I hear that we're going to be seeing less of you, if you know what I mean.

Tom Woods: Oh yeah, I've shed some pounds, certainly since the last time you and I met. Basically because we've adopted the primal, blueprint thing. So let me say at my site I actually have a page, tomwoods.com/primal where I talk about what we did and I link to my wife's food blog. And my wife in turn has linked to you at least once, but my wife has started a blog basically telling what we've done and how we've done it. We're all losing weight and more important than that, equally important, our general health has improved. We thought we couldn't do this, we thought we'd missed too many things and how can I get through life without a Coca-Cola with my meal? Whereas now I feel like it was drowning out the flavor of my food. Now I just want the light flavor of an iced tea. Just enough to be interesting, but not so much that it overpowers your food. So if we can do this, really anybody can.

Robert Scott Bell: Basically what we're saying here is the Woods family nullified myplate.gov.

Tom Woods: You're darn right. That's right. And so what I think we ought to be doing, one nice way to promote nullification, is exactly what you just did. This is how we'll find, you know the Freemasons have their secret handshake or whatever, this is how we'll know who is in the know about nullification. Just say things like, let's say you're going to go order a drink and then after your order you realize no, you know what, I think I'd rather have a gin and tonic, you say to the bartender, I'm sorry sir I think I'd like to nullify my order. Just use the word in casual conversation and see whose eyes have that glint in them. You say, ah, you're one of us.

Robert Scott Bell: Right, of course, and the hope too is that we can neutralize the emotional reaction that has been programmed into so many, and like I said, good people who are trying to do the right thing but just- it's like petting the cat backwards when they hear the word and it's so programmed. But utilizing, using it casually like that will start demystifying it and taking away that energy as well.

Tom Woods: That's right, that's right. So you're right, we're nullifying the conventional wisdom on what to eat. In fact, my wife and her whole family have had problems with blood pressure. My wife's had high blood pressure, they all have high blood pressure or higher than normal blood pressure. And then she's eaten the exact opposite of what she's supposed to eat. She's eaten meat, she's avoided the grains, she eats eggs and doesn't feel sorry about eating eggs, and her blood pressure for the first time in her life, is normal.

Robert Scott Bell: Isn't that brilliant. Now remember all the conventional wisdom, that which the government has sanctioned because those lobbied into existence the right way to do things, basically had said exactly the opposite of what she is doing. That you must stay away from meat, meat's dangerous. Now I will acknowledge as you will now, on the primal diet they talk food that is grown as it's been grown for a long time. You're going out for the grass-fed, if you will. If the plants were there for the food to be eaten by, let me just say the cattle to eat, you want them eating what they're designed to eat, or else you alter it to the point where it may not be as healthy.

Tom Woods: That's true, so at some level it's not enough just to say I need these ingredients in my diet. You have to investigate, what about these ingredients themselves? What are they full of? Thankfully we've got the, the Topeka Farmer's market around here, it's not just three guys selling vegetables. It's dozens and dozens and dozens of vendors. People who raise their own, it's grass-fed cattle and all the rest of it. All this stuff is at our fingertips, right here in town. I know everyone has access to some farmer's market, but this thing is like a middle eastern bizarre or something, it's unbelievable. We're very lucky.

Robert Scott Bell: That is absolutely sensational. The grass-fed, and staying away from these grains, many of them now genetically modified, loaded with pesticides, all of these things. And you're living proof, you're family's living proof of how healthy it is to eat as, let's say, we've been eating on this planet for quite some time now. I look forward to seeing you in Philadelphia, as I was saying, I was just digging, digging. I still haven't found the organic cheesesteak yet. You may have to take a hiatus for a day on the primal diet.

Tom Woods: Well I am going to take a hiatus because I figure my body now is so robust and resilient that it can get by with one regular cheesesteak and then we go right back onto the regimen.

Robert Scott Bell: Yeah and you know you're gonna enjoy it for me in case I can't find the quality because my body, I've been down the road too far, too long that I'm never going back. But that's just me, and you know how I say it's RSB approved. If not, I might look at you funny but I don't judge you.

Tom Woods: Well fair enough. It's too bad that we couldn't find a local natural foods store to get you the ingredients and I'll just cook you up a cheesesteak so you can sit with us.

Robert Scott Bell: It could happen, it still could happen. Hey listen, if you do get Jethro Tull to come to Topeka give me a call. I may have to fly out and see them with you.

Tom Woods: Ok, yeah, I'll let you know.

Robert Scott Bell: That's Tom Woods, we're gonna see him in Philadelphia, it's always a great pleasure when we get together. Tom, thanks again and we'll see you in just a couple of days.

Tom Woods: Looking forward to it, Robert. See you then.

Source: http://www.naturalnewsradio.com