Colonization v. Immigration

Colonization was a primary organizing principle in Western history from ancient times to modern. The Ancient Greeks attempted to preserve the empire of Alexander the Great by placing colonies in select locations including Alexandria, Egypt.

The Ancient Romans later perfected colonization and maintained their rule with colonies stretching from Great Britain to the Middle East.

Constantinople was a colony established by Emperor Constantine that lasted through to 15th century.

With the fall of Constantinople and rise of the West, the world saw Western Europe transform into colonial lords. North and South America were quickly subdivided by the European powers and colonized.

NOTE, when reading literature prior to the US Revolution, many spoke of colonization in glowing progressive terms. The idea was that successful societies would replicate their success through colonization. Colonization would lead to the progress of man.

Despite the good intentions of colonists, the structure of colonialism tended to be oppressive as the distant kings exploited the colonies in the struggle for power.

The colonial system was oppressive. The oppressive nature of colonialism reached its height with the reintroduction of slavery into the Western World. The colonial slave trade saw the forced movement of populations for the express purpose of establishing and maintaining political control.

The American Revolution was a rebellion of the American colonies against the oppression of the colonial system and corrupt kings.

The left drums the talking point that the United States is a nation of immigrations. This talking point is misleading. The United States was a colony that rebelled against the colonial system.

After rebelling against the colonial system, immigration took on a new characteristic.

In colonialism, people were sent to an area with the goal of radically changing the area and establishing political control for the motherland.

After the rebellion, American immigration took on more of an individual flare and began to be seen as people moving about in pursuit of their personal aspirations.

Colonization v. Immigration

There is a difference between colonization and immigration.

Colonization is about a political elite moving people with the intent of establishing or extending a power base. Colonist seek to create radical change in the places they colonize.

Immigration is about individual people freely moving about. The immigrant seeking to improve his life is engaged in a slightly different process that is more likely to change the immigrant than it is to choice the destination of immigration.

Immigration and colonization are not polar opposites. Both ideas exist simultaneously in the American Experience.

The American Experience

The American experience has episodes of both individual immigration and colonization. For example, the settlement of Missouri and Kansas included groups from slave states sought to colonize the area with sympathy toward slavery. In a dark moment of American history, the governor of Missouri issued an extermination order of the Mormons who were against slavery.

On the Mormon question, both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young sent missionaries abroad to recruit immigrants for various Mormon settlements. These immigrants appeared to vote as a block controlled by the Mormon leaders. This episode has the appearance of ambitious political leaders using a colonial form of immigration for political ends.

The 1847 emigration to Utah is interesting in that it appears that some emigrants had a political aspiration to set up their own country to be known as the Empire of Deseret.

Ironically, the early Utah Pioneers were illegal immigrants into areas claimed by Mexico. The Western US officially traded hands after the Mexican American War and Treatise of Quadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. So, there where was year where Utah emigrants were illegal immigrants.

Mexico and California

When judging history, it is important to note that Mexico was the product of colonization.

In California, one sees the Spanish missions along the King's Road (el camino real) were part of a traditional European colonization effort. The political displacement of this group by the rabble of the California gold rush was partially a colonization effort and partial just a lot of individuals running about trying to improve their lot.

Colonization in the Modern Era

International politics continued to be dominated by colonialism well after the American Revolution. European colonies persisted in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia well into the 20th century.

Non-European countries have taken stabs at colonization as well. Notably, in the 1970s, Turkey sent 150,000 colonists to Cyprus with hopes of gaining political control of the island.

The Distinction between Immigration and Colonization

I happen to be a big supporter of immigration. Personally, I hope the world evolves in the direction of open borders. However, I am not naïve to the point where I simply close my eyes to two millennia which was dominated by elite political groups to gain power through the mass movement of people.

Currently, the United States is under the yoke of an extremely powerful elite group calling for radical change that supports a massive uncontrolled migration from Socialist nations and that appears engineered to give an elite group near absolute control for the foreseeable future.

As nations revert to using the movement of people for political gains, the pendulum swings from a free movement of people for their personal betterment to the exploitation of immigration for political gains. Political trends appear to be leading toward greater oppression.

To punctuate this negative direction, the dictators of Iran have recently launched a program to pay women to have children with the idea that they could use these children to expand their political reach.

19th Century Mayhem

One amusing aspect of the Glenn Beck Whow is that Mr. Beck provides a tunnel vision view of our nation's history where all of our troubles began with the 20th century.

It makes one wonder if there is something or someone in the 19th century that Mr. Beck wishes to hide.

Historically, 19th Century America had some really big troubles. These troubles included slavery, a Trail of Tears, a slaughtering of buffalo, brutality toward native Americans and a civil war.

On the international front, the 19th century saw the French Revolution devolve into genocide and Napoleanic wars. The Haitian revolution went south, etc.. On the intellectual front, the perverted philosophies of Hegel amd Marx came to the forefront and set up the brutal dictatorships of the 20th century.

My research traces many of the problems of the modern age to the 19th century.

The founders of our nation did a great job writing a Constitution, but they were not able to resolve the problem of slavery and created a free nation where some people owned slaves.

The generation after the US Founders was left trying to reconcile slavery with the Revolution. This generation of thinkers imported the new philosopies of Kant and Hegel and came up with some really bizarre notions.

It is in the first generations of American intellectuals that we see intellectuals adopting the philosophy of Hegel and turning modern liberalism into the opposite of classical liberalism.

The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand is a fun read that provides insight into 19th century American thought.

There were wild things going on in 19th century America. There were truly bizarre utopian societies, experiments with polygamy, financial schemes a plenty, and many questionable ideas from 19th century America.

Mr. Beck's insistance that 19th century America was a utopia is way off the mark. It really makes me wonder: Why is it that Mr. Beck wants all problems to begin with Teddy Roosevelt?

Health Care as a Right

The idea that health care is a right flows directly from insurance.

Insurance is a contrivance for regulating health care expenses. Policy holders pay a regular premium into a group pool. When they have an irregular medical expense, they file a legal claim against the pool.

Paying a premium into the pool gives policy holders a right to withdraw resources from the pool.

Yes, I intentionally emphasized the words "regular" and "claim" to emphasize that insurance is a scheme to regulate health care through the legal system.

The rights involved with insurance are conditional rights. It is on the condition of paying the regular premium into the pool that people receive a right to the resources of the pool.

This conditional right, however, leads people down the path of thinking of health care in terms of rights, and eventually into all of the logical pitfalls that occur when one tries to claim health care as a human right.

For libertarians to turn the conversation around, they must work to create alternatives to insurance. The most promising alternative is the Medical Savings and Loan. The MS&L uses a combination of savings, loans and grants to pay for care. The system has people paying a premium to give access to medical loans. However, it is a step removed from the concept of health care as a right as it has evolved in the insurance world.

A Tall Ship In Rough Seas

Imagine a tall ship sailing through rough seas.

The rich passengers on the upper decks discover that they can dampen the rough sailing by attaching massive lead weights to their bunks. These weights shift against the waves to provide localized stability.

They call these massive lead weights a hedge.

The massive lead weights become a craze, and all the passengers living in the upper decks (above the center of gravity of the ship) get one.

A pundit on the ship makes the casual observation that the hedges used by the rich passengers will regulate the rough seas for all the passengers. And so the captain of the tall ship encourages the installment of massive lead hedges throughout the upper decks.

Then, one day, a wave broadsides the top heavy ship and all the hedges swing starboard. The people panic and start throwing their weight to the port when a second wave hits and the hedges swing violently toward port.

And so it came to pass that that the heavy lead hedges designed to even out the bumps in moderate seas caused the top heavy boat to capsize in the waves … and all the passengers drown.

Direction of a Train

Ooops, I forgot to include the train metaphor in the last post on economic movement.

The direction a train is facing often tells you more about where its going than the schedule of past stops.

Imagine for a moment that you came across a train in Reno that is facing East. The people getting off the train are all talking about their California vacation and one of them even shows you a ticket that says San Francisco.

Now, you might be wanting to go to the Golden State, and the information that the train was recently in California is compelling; However, jumping on the train is likely to be a big mistake. The train is pointing East!

It ain't going to Frisco. It's headed toward Chicago.

Obama continues to pound the drum that the economy collapsed in 2008 because of George Bush and the right.

The engine of our government was headed to the left at the time. Democrats captured both the House and Senate in 2006, and leftist regimes captured countries around the world.

Businesses invest forward, they don't invest back. Businesses hire people for the work that they will do, not for work they did in the past.

If we want to blame the recession on either the right or the left, we should look at the direction the country was headed at the time of the collapse and not where it had been.

At the beginning of the economic crash, investors realized that Bush had done little for the free market (beyond giving a tax cut without corresponding spending cuts). The collapse happened when people realized that we were heading in the direction of a bigger government.

I was upset to see Democratic candidates campaigning against George W. Bush in this current election cycle. It shows that our leaders are not looking for answers ... just partisan excuses.

The idea that Bush caused the recession is partisan talking point. To counter the talking point, I wrote the post: Who caused the recession?

As businesses face forward, the direction our economic engine is facing has a bigger impact on investment decisions than where it has been.

Who Caused the Recession?

Obama ran a successful campaign against George W. Bush in 2008. It looks like he is gearing up for another campaign against Bush in 2010.

Despite the fact that the ideas behind our current financial structure came from the left, the mantra of the Anti-Bush campaign is that the free market loving right created the current economic malaise.

I contend that one can lay the economic collapse on the left just as easily as the right.

The first observation is that most universities lean left. The ideas that come from universities have a far bigger impact on the economy than the president.

The second thing to note is that the Compassionate Conservatives and Neocons of the Bush Administration aimed to capture the center. To do so, they moved the Republican Party to the left. During the Bush Administration, the Democratic Party moved even further left. With both parties moving left, the county as a whole swung leftward during the Bush years.

We can see the effect of this leftward movement in uncontrolled spending and record deficits.

The International community moved left as well. At the beginning of the Bush Administration the emerging markets were the primary engines of economic growth for the world. In response to unpopular wars, many countries of the emerging market fell under the yoke of communism, stunting growth and falling back into third world status.

We see similar trends in the European Economic Union where countries moved leftward in response to unpopular wars.

So, prior to the economic crash the entire world was unified in a massive leap to the left. The direction a country has a bigger impact on investment than where it's just been.

Back in the United States, the Democrats took both the House and Senate in 2006. This new majority was substantially further left than the Democratic Party of the Clinton years who were trying to sustain their power by moving to the right.

For those of you who took new math and can't reason: The year 2006 is a member of the set of years that is less than 2007.

We blame the economic collapse on Bush and the right, but it happened in a time when Bush was a lame duck and the Left had a solid hold on the United States and most international governments.

In the days prior to crash, Bush had a single focus of winning wars that the press said was lost. He threw the last of the political capital of the right into staving off the possibility that the Iraq war would culminate in a Cambodia style genocide.

Jumping back to the economy, let's make a gigantic assumption. Let's assume for a moment that businesses invest for the future and not for the past.

Businesses saw their allies in government in a full scale retreat, while the rhetoric and ideology of the newcomers demanded radical change with greater government control, a reversal of tax cuts and substantially more regulation.

During the economic crash, the drum beat was that America lost the war and that radical change was on the way.

Holding to the wild-eyed assumption that businesses hire people for work that they will do in the future and not for work done in the past, businesses hearing the drum beat of defeat and radical change would be wary about hiring people.

With the prospect that taxes would soon increase and employees would become a major liability in the near future, businesses that anticipated troubling times would not only freeze hiring, but would actively seek to cash out in the economy.

An economic crash happens when businesses cash out en masse.

Of course, there were many other big problems in the economy. Banks like Golden West and Washington Mutual had hundreds of billions in questionable loans. Madoff had a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, and the mortgage backed securities hawked by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as cash equivalents were in fact debased.

The bulk of political donations from these groups flowed toward Democrats and Obama.

It is also important to note that one of the greatest financial manipulators of all, George Soros, had a single minded focus on destroying George Bush and bringing Democrats to power.

The wild rise in energy prices that took place during the crash shows that there was a great deal of financial manipulation going on in the background.

Many people blame the economic collapse on derivatives. The derivatives in question were created by the Security Modernization Act of 2000 that was signed by Bill Clinton, and not George Bush.

It is true that the Bush Administration hadn't a clue about how to regulate such derivatives, but very few people really understand the affects of the new mix of derivatives, much less a president whose primary focus was on handing wars.

I am not a fan of George W. Bush; however, I reject that the economic collapse was caused by the free market. There is a much more compelling case that the crash was caused by the leftward shift that took place during the Bush administration, and an intellectual elite that created self-destructive derivatives (The derivatives of the Security Modernization Act of 2000 is not the free market, it was a set of regulations to give the elite an edge on the market). This would mean that Bush's primary fault was that he moved to the center and failed to make a compelling case for the vision of freedom.

The economy collapsed in a time when an unpopular Republican was President. The House and Senate (which control the purse strings) were controlled by the dynamic Democrat duo of Pelosi and Reid. The world and the nation had taken a massive swing to the left.

The economic collapse of 2007/2008 was much like the start of the Great Depression in that it followed back to back progressive presidents. There is a stronger case that the collapse happened because we were veering away from a free market to the case that it was caused by the free market.

The Strategy of Game Theory

Game Theory is an interesting branch of mathematician wherein mathematicians create simulations that pit different strategies against each other. Game Theory as a discipline was popularized by John von Neumann and John Nash in the 1950s.

Wikipedia traces the history to James Waldegrave in 1713. I found this odd as people have been talking about the interaction of strategies since antiquity.

It turns out that the strategies of free market economics and a Constitutionally limited government of the United States fair quite well for society as a whole. The ideologies of Hegel and Marx work well for people who want to consolidate power for the benefit of a ruling elite.

It is extremely interesting to see how different game strategies play out in simulations. People can learn a lot from game theory.

Unfortunately, big problems arise when people start trying to apply game theory directly to economic or political problems. When people try to apply strategies from game theory directly to the problems the day, they inadvertently end up adopting the principles of game theory as the underlying foundation of society. The underlying principles of game theory end up leading many to adopt the destructive view that life is a game where one must dominate or perish.

Game theory has been extremely popular for a full half century. Ideas from game theory appear to be at the heart of many of the destructive ideas in Wall Street and DC.

Although it is valuable to test the principles at the foundation of our society with game theory, it is dangerous to make game theory itself the foundation of a civilization.

For a society to thrive, the principles at the base of society need to be stronger than that of a simply strategy used in a mathematical model.

Tolerating Intolerance

The modern mind loves paradox. This love of paradox is the primary difference between the modern and classical thinker. (Aristotle thought paradox a self-destructive waste of mental effort).

One interesting paradox is that the politicization of tolerance leads to intolerance.

When politicians position feigned tolerance in a political platform, reactionaries might accept intolerance as theirs.

Even if the opposition is wise enough to avoid the ploy. The politicians in our image-driven culture have learned to project the image of intolerance on their opponents.

Projecting false images of intolerance on the opposition is paradoxical as the act of projection is itself an act of hateful intolerance.

The game of projection and paradox would be quite amusing were it not for the unfortunate fact that they have negative consequences in the real world.

Right now, we have a broken immigration system which is hurting a large number of people.

Some on the left feign a pose of hyper-tolerance while advocate a policy of ignoring immigration laws. This position allows them to project intolerance on the people who want the immigration laws enforced.

The issue seems cut and dry from the distance. The left is the party of tolerance and right a hotbed of intolerance. This image fades once one realizes that the wide scale flaunting of immigration laws created a large, exploitable underclass living in an extra-legal state.

Having a large underclass leading an extra legal lifestyle ends up creating the very intolerance that the supporters of illegal immigration claim to want to avoid.

People living an extra legal existence are exploited and alienated. This exploitation often drags down other elements of society.

That progressives will actively encourage the flaunting of immigration laws removes political solutions from the table and creates the very intolerant society they project on those wanting to enforce the laws.

Conversely, the enforcement of immigration laws (which is framed by the left as intolerance) establishes the legal process as the venue for debate. Forcing the issue through a deliberative process is likely to result in greater sympathy and tolerance for the people trapped in our broken and corrupted immigration system.

Following those who feign the image of tolerance leads to intolerance, while following those framed as intolerant is the best hope for instilling tolerance.

The reason for this paradox, of course, is that "tolerance" is not a foundational issue. It is simply a descriptive term that describes one's attitude to a given issue.

The paradoxical nature of the term is immediate apparent when applied to itself (the reflexive paradox). For example, a champion against racism does not tolerate intolerance. A policeman who turns a blind eye to a racist act is tolerant of intolerance.

It is a descriptive term. It is not a human right nor does it serve well as a foundational principle for a society.

As a descriptive term, one might use it to describe sentiments within a society: Society tolerates this, but does not tolerate that, etc.

There may actually be things that we, as a society, don't want to tolerate. For example, I dislike child abuse. I believe that we, as a society, should not tolerate child abuse.

In conclusion, tolerance is nothing but a descriptive term. Focusing on tolerance, in and of itself, is a paradoxical distraction that can divert attention from real issues. The focus on tolerance can even take a negative turn when people engage in games of feigning tolerance while projecting intolerance on others.

Constitutional Context

To understand a document like the Constitution, one needs to read the document in its context. Nullified, by Thomas E. Woods is a well researched document showing that the Constitution of the United States was created with a vision of strong States and a limited National Government.

The Constitution gave enumerated powers to provide national defense and to help simplify interstate commerce, etc..

The debates surrounding ratification of the Constitutions show quite clearly that the framers of Constitution were creating a multi-dimensional system of governance with strong state governments and a limited Federal government.

Today, we find ourselves facing the exact opposite of what the Founders intended with an unbounded Federal government with a history of failing at its primary charges while mandating state laws.

So, although the founders intended to create a distributed form of governance, they failed to create a mechanism to preserve a distributed form of governance.

Thomas Jefferson thought that the way to preserve the balance of state and federal power was through the process of nullification. The central idea behind nullification is that an unconstitutional law (such as No Child Left Behind) is not really a law and can be rightfully ignored by the states.

Mr. Woods book is a great read that presents the context of the Constitution and supports the concept of nullification.

Whether or not we should revive the principle of nullification is a different debate. During the progressive era, we have so thoroughly trounced on our Constitution that the majority of Federal activities fall outside the enumerated powers of the Constitution.

My primary worry about nullification is that states will only challenge those laws with which they disagree. As different states disagree with different laws, reviving the process of nullification is likely to result in increased hostilities between the states and will not restore Constitutional balance.

To restore the balance between states and federal government would require a more formal mechanism of dispute than the game of simply not enforcing laws.

Regardless of one's feelings on nullification, Mr. Woods' recent book is a great read in that it provides insight into the context of our Founders thoughts on the balance of powers (buy at Overstock.com)

Sports Stadiums are a Wash for Local Economies

Big Government reports that big stadiums aren't the boom claimed by promoters.

My observation is that these big crony-capitalist projects end creating a tiny number of multi-millionaires and a large number of low wage, part time jobs. As for the local community, the big public financed stadiums pull local crowds from smaller local venues; so they don't create widespread prosperity.

Markopolos' Paradoxical View on Regulation

I just completed Harry Markopolos' financial thriller No One Would Listen (buy at Overstock.com). The book tells the story of an unsuccessful whistleblower in the Bernie Madoff fraud case. The book details the negative experience the author had trying to report one of the largest frauds in history to the SEC. As the SEC failed to listen, the Ponzi scheme played out until investors lost $65 billion.

The book provides an intriguing first hand look at the difficulties faced by people trying to work within the system to prevent fraud. Unfortunately, the solutions offered in the epilogue fall short and fail to provide us with a useful paradigm for reform.

Paradoxically, Markopolis ends his book on the systematic failures of regulation with a call for even more regulation. Markopolis's call for more regulation is even more bizarre as Markopolis himself points to the reason why regulation fails [pg. 269]

"Security Laws [regulations] are outdated almost as soon as they go into effect, because new financial instruments are created to skirt these laws [regulations]."

Regulations tend to become obstacles for honest companies. Meanwhile, conniving companies study the weaknesses in regulations and form products specifically to skirt the regulations. Such products generate income, but don't generate value.

In the same paragraph, Markopolos notes:

"The purpose of laws is to deine the lowest form of acceptable behavior between people, but ethics are the higher standard that the SEC security lawyers have successfully ignored.

So, what we need are higher ethics.

As to the investigation of fraud, the best approach is to develop investigatory programs that sees if companies are adhering to ethical standards, then to vigorously pursue investigation of fraud when companies are caught lying.

As was pointed out time and time again in Markopolos's investigation, the Madoff ponzi scheme had been breaking laws and lying to clients for at least 18 years.

When there is no effective investigation or enforcement of existing regulations, adding new regulations simply add to the regulatory burden with no benefits to the people.

Markopolos' book is a good read, but does not provide any real solutions to the ethical problems facing Wall Street. He makes a strong case that there should be greater rewards for whistleblowers, but completely fails to address the problem of fraudulent whistleblowing.

Don't Give Big Insurance What it Wants

The biggest mistake Republicans can make at this point is to fall for the line that big insurance will join in the effort to repeal Obamacare.

ObamaCare is manna from heaven as far as big insurance is concerned. The program centralizes regulation of insurance is a group of captured federal regulatory agencies (opposed to dispersed regulatory authority among the states). Above all, it does the incredible. It makes buying insurance mandatory ... which relieves insurance from competition of self-funded care (which erodes profits).

From the perspective of big insurance, the only downside to Obamacare is that it's administered by people hostile to big profits. The ideal world for big insurance would be for neocons to take over the administration of insurance and for idiot Republicans to allow big insurance to sell products across state lines ... which would lead to even greater consolidation of the industry.

Those wishing to repeal Obamacare must realize that big insurance is the enemy of reform.

To preserve our freedoms, the repeal of Obamacare must focus on strengthening local control and providing alternatives to insurance.

Strengthening local control means continuing the tradition that insurance can't sell across state borders. It also means created mechanisms for self-funded care that can compete against insurance.

Redistributive Justice

The concept of redistributive justice is a self-destructive logical fallacy, as the act of taking with the purpose of redistributing is itself an act of injustice.

Proponents of redistributive justice often favor large centralized states to do the redistribution. The process of centralization has the effect of concentrating wealth which is counter to the stated claim of redistribution.

The modern mind loves the paradoxical nature of slogans like "Redistributive Justice." However, such concepts have the effect of undermining society and leading to conflict as the people redistributed from get reduced to subsistence.

Institutionalized injustice does not create a higher state of justice.

Redistributive Justice and Insurance

We tend to associate the term redistributive justice with socialists desiring a totalitarian state. The concept of redistributive justice is as problematic in the private sector.

The insurance industry sells products that are supposed to result in redistributive justice. We buy into a pool. That pool then redistributes the health care resources to those in need.

The actuality of insurance is that, by placing everyone's health care resources into a pool, the industry effectively concentrates wealth and decreases access of care to those outside the pool.

As insurance companies transformed our health care system into monopolies, we find millions of people underserved by their toxic products.

A private industry hawking paradoxes as a product can do as much damage to a society as a government hawking paradoxes.

If we want to preserve our freedom and prosperity we need to create alternatives to insurance and government controlled health care ... such as the Medical Savings and Loan. (NOTE, as there is a high default rate on loans in the medical savings and loan, the system does redistribute resources from well to ill. The system is not built on the concept of redistributive justice.)

States Don't Have Rights, States Have Powers

The following is an open letter to Thomas E. Woods, author of Nullification (buy at Overstock.com)

Dear Mr. Woods,

I enjoyed watching a zombie pick your brains during your YouTube interview.

I agree with your assessment that we are being played for suckers. I hope that distinguished scholars, such as yourself, will work diligently to counter the manipulation of our language by the left.

A month ago I was trying to argue the cause of States Rights and was immediately labeled a "neoconfederate-racist."

While posting the wording of the Tenth Amendment the umpteenth time, it dawned on me: States don't have "rights" they have powers.

I am now curious about the origin and usage of the term "States Rights."

As you are more learned and have access to better resources than me, I would be honored if you took time out of your busy schedule to address this very important distinction.

My research of the Founders indicates that they created a multidimensional political structure where the people had rights. The States and Federal Governments had limited powers.

If this is true, then the slogan "States Rights" is antithetical to the Constitution. Advocates of limited government run the risk of undermining their cause if they use the loaded term "States Rights."

If what I believe is true, and the slogan "States Rights" is paradoxical creation of the enemies of limited government, then proponents of nullification need to strike the term from their lexicon and actively challenge its use by emphasizing "States don't have rights, only people have rights. The Constitution grants limited power to the different levels of government."

Nullified by a Zombie

In the work Nullification (buy at Overstock.com), Thomas E Woods advocates that states use nullification to check the powers of the Federal Government. He makes the inplausible argument that abolitionists used nullification to fight fugitives slave laws and was, more often than not, used to protect rights of the people when the Federal Government steps out of bounds.

Of course all that we learn of the powers of the states is that, prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the supporters of segregation and Jim Crow laws made appeals to "States' Rights." (PS, the states' rights slogan is an absurdity, state's have limited powers, not rights)

In the video, Thomas Woods areguments are shredded by a zombie who points out that Thomas Woods is clearly a neoconfederate, racist supporter of slavery.

I wondered if the zombie is Jason The. Mr. The loves to point at people and make irrelevant and unfounded accusations.

In conclusion, Thomas Woods is a racist neocofederate who seeks to use nullification to counter the centralized government.