From the Tom Woods Letter:
There’s been a lesser-known firing of a much lesser-known individual than Tucker Carlson, and I’ll get to that in a moment. And this one likewise speaks volumes.
First, in case you missed it, last night Tucker released a video, right at the time his normal broadcast would have taken place, in which he said the following:
Good evening. It’s Tucker Carlson.
One of the first things you realize when you step outside the noise for a few days is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country, kind and decent people, people who really care about what’s true. And a bunch of hilarious people also. A lot of those. It’s got to be the majority of the population even now.
So that’s heartening. The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won’t even remember that we had them. Trust me, as someone who’s participated.
And yet, at the same time and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources.
When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues? It’s been a long time.
Debates like that are not permitted in American media. Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it.
Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state. That’s a depressing realization, but it’s not permanent. Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They’re brain dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone’s life is improved by them.
This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, and so it won’t. The people in charge know this. That’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive. They’re afraid. They’ve given up persuasion. They’re resorting to force.
But it won’t work. When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who’ve been trying to silence them shrink, and they become weaker. That’s the iron law of the universe. True things prevail.
Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some. And that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.
That’s pretty close to exactly what I would say to America if I had their attention for two minutes.
We don’t debate major things. Major things are decided for us already. The talking heads on television pretend to disagree with each other, but they’re usually debating trivialities on the edges of the actual issues.
Ukraine is an excellent example. Good luck finding a debate on that subject!
The CIA, the U.S. military, Hollywood airheads, the political class, the official opinion molders, the corporate CEOs, you name it — they all have the same opinions, and it wouldn’t even occur to them to foster debate, or that their opinions are debatable in the first place.
These are people who can have entire conversations about financial crises and bubbles without once mentioning the role of the central bank.
Somebody like that is not in the business of informing the American public. Somebody like that is trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes, in the interests of the wealthy and powerful.
People who are highly suggestible, or mentally slow, or desperate to be in the in-group, will unthinkingly adopt whatever is presented to them by these elites.
But there are a lot of us who instead look at the American establishment and say: these are unimpressive and ignorant people whose opinions are worth nothing and whose track record is a joke.
There are enough of us that something has to happen. Certainly the suppression of our voices can go on for only so much longer.
And that brings me to the other firing.
After 37 years, Ted Galen Carpenter, one of the only people worth much of anything at the Cato Institute, was suddenly let go.
Carpenter reports:
“After 37 years, my role as a scholar with the Cato Institute has come to an end. We did not part on pleasant terms. I discovered the hard way that criticizing Ukraine’s government or Washington’s support of that government can prove fatal to one’s career.”
Most unfortunate.
But: there are far too many of us who agree with these silenced voices for those voices to vanish altogether. I rather suspect they will come back with a vengeance.
A few quick notes and I’ll wish you a good night:
(1) If you’d like to attend the Mises Institute’s Property, Civilization, and Culture event in Reno next month, my readers can take $10 off the registration fee by using code Woods23 at this link:
https://www.mises.org/woodsreno
If you’re a Supporting Listener of the Tom Woods show you can take $15 off.
(2) You will find an outstanding group of intelligent dissident voices inside the Tom Woods Show Elite, my private group. We’re not on Facebook because we believe people should be allowed to have unfettered discussions. I’d be grateful if you joined me there, and I know you’ll love it:
https://www.SupportingListeners.com
(3) And finally, a happy birthday to my mother, whose sacrifices for me over the years I appreciate deeply.
