November 28, 2022 • 16 mins
"Tim the Lawyer" Sandefur joins Jack & Joe to talk about a pair of his most recents cases (one involving the adoption of Native American kids, the other involving homeless camps in downtown Phoenix, Arizona).
Tim also shares some details about his new book, " Freedom’s Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Liberty in an Age of Darkness.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington
Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Show Getty Armstrong and Jetty
Show glut Man, it's one of the sins. You realize,
it's sin, gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. Right,
(00:24):
it's not just a sin, not a heir. I wish
you wouldn't do that. It's to death. So it's not
only just bad for you, it's a sin. God does
not like God. Glutten me was displeased with me? Yeah,
me too. I'm speaking to myself. Let's let's just tone
down the gluttony. I ate the last big plateful of
mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey and stuffing last night, and let's
(00:47):
just tone her down a little bit. Maybe something a
little light tonight. Yeah, let's let's walk away from the
Let's walk away from the table and not wabble away
from the table for the first time in four days.
How much apple Chris is enough? I'm asking myself, not you.
Oh it's so good though, warmed up a little ice cream. Oh,
there were references to how my gallbladder gave up on
(01:08):
me last year, and I'm running out of organs. It
quit and walked out the Great Resigning or whatever they
call that. Uh. So, here's here's a young man who's
slim and find a physical condition not to mention a
sharp mind. And that's Tim Sandford, Tim the lawyer. Tim
Sandford is the vice president for Litigation for the Goldwater Institute,
(01:29):
author of many fine tomes, including some of my favorites,
The Right to Earn a Living and the Permission Society.
Uh and and also a brand new book, which we'll
talk to him about in a couple of minutes. But Tim,
how are you welcome? I don't know, man, I think
I may have indulged in a little of that gluttony
myself over Thanksgiving. Yes, I know you're not frightened by
(01:49):
your maker, but it's not always the best health for
all we went to. We we spent Thanksgiving in Hawaii.
So I am I am now officially with the Hawaiian's
called a pa or pig gorged myself at the lou House.
So hey, by the way, I saw that post on
your Twitter, and you and your and that your wedding
(02:10):
anniversary and the picture of you and Christine on the
couch is a Simpsons drawing where'd you come up with that?
That was awesome? I don't know. My wife contacted the
artist and got that done Simpson's style portrait of our
family sitting on the Simpsons couch. It's absolutely perfect. Well
on my law. That is so cool. Wow, that is
a cool gift. Yeah. Indeed, so, Tim, we have a
(02:31):
lot of stuff to talk to you about. A couple
of big cases, one that you've been working on personally,
and then your new book is out and we want
to talk to you about that. But let's let's first
bring the gabble down and talk about the cases. Now.
For instance, you're working on an Indian Child Welfare Act case.
We've talked to you about it, but for folks not
familiar with it, give them the thumbnail sketch if you would.
(02:51):
That's a federal that that that law is a federal
law that says how states have to treat child welfare
cases like abuse and neglect and adoption and foster care
if a child is biologically eligible for membership in an
Indian tribe. So it draws this biological distinction between kids
and says that states have to treat these Indian children differently.
(03:14):
And what's amazing about it is. It says they have
to treat these Indian children worse because this law actually
overrides the best interest of the child rule, which is
the rule that governs how these kinds of cases are
dealt with, and it forces state officials to send Indian
children back to abused homes in situations that would not
(03:34):
happen if the kids were white or Black, or Asian
or Hispanic or whatever. And as a result, this law
has led to the preventable murder of Indian children across
the country in case after case after case. So we've
been challenging the constitutionality of this law, and that case
went to the U. S. Supreme Court and was argued
a couple of weeks ago. I went out to d
(03:55):
C to to attend these oral arguments. The very exciting
thing to witness, well, it was what's the argument for
the status quo? Because it sounds horrifically racist, it really is.
But the reasoning behind it at the time was actually
they thought they were doing a good thing because in
the decades that preceded its passage, which was the states
(04:17):
and federal officials, they had been engaged in this pro
program of purposely taking Indian children away from their families
in order to forcibly assimilate them with white society. And
so that that was like that, you know, taking kids
away from their families for no good reason. And so
they said, well, how can we stop this from happening?
So they passed as law intending to put an into that,
but as almost seems to almost always happen, the government
(04:40):
went too far the other direction and ended up passing
a law that actually prohibits states from protecting these children nowadays.
In many cases, Wow, that's just the results are unthinkable,
and just the logic strikes or the lack of logic
is so troubling. Um. But so that it's in argued,
(05:00):
and you know, it's difficult to say how it went.
But how did it go? Oh, it went pretty well,
it was. It was four hours of oral argument, which
is incredibly low. I mean, that's like nineteenth century style,
back when they used to take all day, and the
justices were all very attentive to the very complicated constitutional
(05:20):
questions here, because it's not just that it's race based,
it's also what are the limits between federal and state authority?
And what are the what do the regulations say there's
a lot of parts of the law that actually aren't defined,
so nobody really knows what some of these terms mean
and things. So it went back and forth. There were
some really good arguments on both sides. I'm optimistic. I
think that the argument went pretty well for US. I'm
(05:44):
predicting it will be a five four. I think it'll
be close, but I think it. I'm optimistic that this
case is going to to declare this law unconstitutional and
forced Congress to say, look, with regard to children's race,
we need to prioritize their best interests. You can't say,
you know, like this law basically prohibits white adults from
(06:04):
adopting Indian children. Children who are in need, don't They're
not interested in color lines. They need protection and help.
And this law is a law that says that even
when there are adults willing to help children in need,
they're not allowed to if they're the wrong race. And
that's really outrageous. How much of the oral arguments was
that new Chatty Supreme Court justice just talks too much? Yeah,
(06:26):
there there was a little bit of that. It wasn't
too much, but you know, after four hours, I think
we were also exhausted that when actually it was funny
that Chief Justice said, thank you, the case is submitted,
which means everybody's done well. One of the lawyers had
not had his chance to to finish up his argument,
so he stood there with this funny look on the
stays until the Chief Justice said, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead,
and he went up to the podium and he said,
(06:47):
I take the hint, your honor, and you could be yeah, wow, wow, Okay.
Let's talk about another case that I was asking about
a few weeks ago. Uh, that had to do with
in forcing laws against public camping, blocking sidewalks, etcetera. In Phoenix.
As you know, every need not be reset. But everybody
(07:08):
in every blue city in the country and some of
the Purple cities is dealing with this horrific influx of
of junkie camps everywhere. What's that case about. Yeah, Unfortunately,
Phoenix is now the location of one of the largest
homeless encampments in the country, over a thousand people who
are living in what we call the zone on several
blocks of downtown Phoenix intens and on the streets because
(07:31):
of a city policy to refuse to enforce laws against
vagrancy and camping and pollution and these sorts of things,
and as a result, it's destroying the businesses in the area.
These people who are trying to run a business in
these several blocks that are now being occupied by the
homeless are they're they're finding that they can't have they
can't hire people to work in these businesses, they can't
(07:53):
protect the safety of their employees. They can't even protect
their own businesses from from from arson. There these people
of setting fires to stay warm now that it's getting colder.
And one person testified at a recent hearing that he
had to have all the wheel the windows in the
building sealed because of all the urine soaking into the
to the place where he works because of these homeless encampments.
(08:14):
So several business owners have filed suit in the state
courts here challenging that the city's maintenance of a public nuisance.
A nuisance is, you know, when you use your property
in a way that damages somebody else's property. And the
government is not allowed to run a nuisance anymore than
anybody else's. And by maintaining this homeless encampment now for
for a couple of years now and and basically attracting
(08:37):
this this element to the community to destroy people's property.
The city is engaged in a nuisance. Now, unfortunately, we
had a hearing several weeks ago and then the case
got reassigned to a new judge. So now we have
to have another hearing next week. Uh seeking a court
order commanding the city to start enforcing its own laws. Well,
obviously this could have far reaching consequences if it goes
(09:03):
the correct way. To my mind, I don't know where
you draw the line at nuisance, but maybe that would
finally be the way you break up these camps. Right,
that's that's right. And in fact, there is one precedent
already in place. Remember when when uh, I think it
was Portlands, they were operated what they called chairs or
chop or whatever the the yeah, yeah, to set up
(09:24):
this autonomous community zone in the middle of the city
and refused to enforce the law there. As a result,
a lot of people suffered their their property was being
destroyed and taken away from so they sued the city
and the federal court allowed that case to go forward,
saying that that was a taking of their property without
due process of law. So there is precedents on the
(09:44):
book that says that when the government just completely washes
its hands of its obligation to enforce the law and
protect people's property rights, then it can be liable for
depriving people of their constitutional rights. Yeah, that's interesting, cause
I know I know business owners who feel like they
can't They don't get near the as many customers as
they would normally get because it's so hard to get
to the front door. And what's so frustrating for us
(10:07):
the largely law abiding is that they're violating sewage laws,
they're violent and camping laws, they're violating drug use laws,
and just there's a lack of political will, or I
should putting in the affirmative, there's a political will to
ignore the law. Unlicensed dogs off leash. I mean, it's endless.
Refusing to enforce the laws against pollution. It's illegal in
(10:28):
Arizona to pollute the public waterways. Well, this zone is
within walking discnse of the Salt River. People are urinating
and defecating on the streets and the sidewalks, and that
when it rains that runs off into the river. Well,
no private party would be allowed to do that in
the city. Isn't allowed to do that either. How it's
kind of surprised when you said it's been going on
for years, because when you first set a thousand people,
I thought, well, can't you just wait till summer and
(10:49):
will kind of take care of itself. But it's been
going on for years. How do you How do you
stay in one of those places in the summertime? Good?
I can't imagine. And of course in the winter, they're
gonna start setting even or fires than they currently are,
which sets fires to the tents out of the time
and starts to burn down the buildings. And we're talking
about these buildings. Are these these tents are basically situated
between the main campus of Arizona State University and the
(11:12):
state Capitol building in Phoenix. So you're talking about places
we would really rather not have violent crime and arson
going on. Tim Sandford's vice president for litigation in the
Goldwater Institute. If you just missed our conversation with him
about a couple of really interesting cases grabbed via podcast later,
I'm strong and getting on demand. But now let's move
on to his brand new book, Freedom's Furies. How Isabel Patterson,
(11:34):
Rose Wilder Lane and Mine Rand found liberty in an
Age of Darkness. Uh, it's ladies night, tim Sanderford's word processor.
What inspire Well, I it's just I have always thought
it was a really interesting story that these three women
in the year nineteen forty three, each of them published
(11:55):
books that basically started the modern libertarian movement. And turns
out that they knew each other and we're friends, and
they were all very interesting people. Rose Wilder Lane, for example,
basically ghost wrote the Little House on the Prairie novels
with her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and of course rand
started a philosopical philosophical movement that was very influential. She
had been born in the Soviet Union and escaped to
(12:18):
the United States as a young woman to to get
away from Stalin's Russia. And Patterson is not very well known,
but in during her lifetime she was the most influential
book critic, probably in a in in New York City,
and a very powerful voice. And the three of them together,
they were friends and and they decided to kind of
(12:39):
push back against the New Deal. And so I decided
to write a little bit about them, and it turned
into a book that's more on the literary and political
history of the New Deal and of their own writing
in their own careers than anything else. UM. I like
the books pushing back against the New Deal because you know,
it's regularly hailed in mainstream media's an obviously good thing
for everyone in the country. UM how did how did
(13:01):
they define their political views? I mean, what was the
what were the main tenants of their political view? They
consider themselves individualists, so they didn't really use the word libertarian.
Um Rand particularly hated the word libertarians. They considered themselves
radicals for capitalism. That is, they were kind They were
a kind of liberal in the sense that they were
in favor of liberating individuals, which is what liberals used
(13:24):
to mean. But they thought the best way to liberate
individuals was through the free market, to let people do
their own thing and only bring that have the government
become involved if people start violating each other's rights by
taking their stuff away or beating them up or whatever.
They didn't believe in government as a savior or a
protector figure. And I think that's part of the reason
why they're being women. Was relevant because Patterson and Lane
(13:47):
were born in six so they were in their thirties
when the women got the right to vote in America,
and so they they were very familiar with the way
that being protected, or she did from from the the
harsh things in life, is really a euphemism for taking
people's freedom away from them. And of course, rand you know,
in the Soviet Union, they have been promised, oh well,
(14:09):
where government is going to oversee an era of utopia
and plenty, and she of course witnessed personally how that
actually worked out, so that I think they were especially
sensitive to the idea that being protected means taking your
freedom away. Interesting especially because it's it's fairly indisputable that
when women gained the right to vote, sympathy in chreased
(14:30):
a great deal for a more mommy ish government, a
more caretaker government. That was certainly their view. That was
certainly what Patterson thought. Patterson thought that she was very,
very a kind of a cynical personality, and she thought
that when the New Deal came along, the masculine virtues
all basically disappeared. And she late in her life she
(14:50):
used to say, I grew up in a in a
in a world where men were men. But she thought
that that with with the coming of Franklin Roosevelt and
the bureaucratic state that is supposed to protect everybody. That
men just vanished from the earth, and what we were
left with was guys who were just begging for favors
and protection instead. And it disgusted her Lane. Of course,
(15:11):
she grew up on the Western Frontier. She grew up
on the prairie. She hated it so much that she
moved to Albania to get away from it. But she
grew up in the West, and so she knew what
it was from her parents and her grandparents, what it was,
what what masculine virtues were necessary to settle the Western frontier.
And Rand had this idea of what masculine virtue meant of,
(15:33):
of being bold and uncompromising, self reliant and so forth,
and she thought that was being undermined by the New Deal.
So they all, they all thought the American character of
boldness and enterprises being destroyed by government intervention. That's fantastic.
I love that. I promise I will read this book.
And I, like I said, I love any pushback against
the idea that the New Deal was just overwhelmingly positive
(15:56):
for America. So the title is Freedom's Furies. How Isabel
Patterson Rosewild? Their Lane nine Rand found Liberty and Age
of Darkness will have a link at Armstrong and Getty
dot com so you can find it easily. Tim, We apologize,
but we're up against a heartbreak and must bid you
a fond Do you appreciate your time though, Thanks guys. Yeah,
it's always great to talk. Thanks Tom. Yeah, you run
(16:17):
into that all the time in mainstream media, that the
the new Deal, you know, that's that's what that's what
Biden should do. That's what you should do. This out
of the Darkness art Strong and Getty
From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington
Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Show Getty Armstrong and Jetty
Show glut Man, it's one of the sins. You realize,
it's sin, gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. Right,
(00:24):
it's not just a sin, not a heir. I wish
you wouldn't do that. It's to death. So it's not
only just bad for you, it's a sin. God does
not like God. Glutten me was displeased with me? Yeah,
me too. I'm speaking to myself. Let's let's just tone
down the gluttony. I ate the last big plateful of
mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey and stuffing last night, and let's
(00:47):
just tone her down a little bit. Maybe something a
little light tonight. Yeah, let's let's walk away from the
Let's walk away from the table and not wabble away
from the table for the first time in four days.
How much apple Chris is enough? I'm asking myself, not you.
Oh it's so good though, warmed up a little ice cream. Oh,
there were references to how my gallbladder gave up on
(01:08):
me last year, and I'm running out of organs. It
quit and walked out the Great Resigning or whatever they
call that. Uh. So, here's here's a young man who's
slim and find a physical condition not to mention a
sharp mind. And that's Tim Sandford, Tim the lawyer. Tim
Sandford is the vice president for Litigation for the Goldwater Institute,
(01:29):
author of many fine tomes, including some of my favorites,
The Right to Earn a Living and the Permission Society.
Uh and and also a brand new book, which we'll
talk to him about in a couple of minutes. But Tim,
how are you welcome? I don't know, man, I think
I may have indulged in a little of that gluttony
myself over Thanksgiving. Yes, I know you're not frightened by
(01:49):
your maker, but it's not always the best health for
all we went to. We we spent Thanksgiving in Hawaii.
So I am I am now officially with the Hawaiian's
called a pa or pig gorged myself at the lou House.
So hey, by the way, I saw that post on
your Twitter, and you and your and that your wedding
(02:10):
anniversary and the picture of you and Christine on the
couch is a Simpsons drawing where'd you come up with that?
That was awesome? I don't know. My wife contacted the
artist and got that done Simpson's style portrait of our
family sitting on the Simpsons couch. It's absolutely perfect. Well
on my law. That is so cool. Wow, that is
a cool gift. Yeah. Indeed, so, Tim, we have a
(02:31):
lot of stuff to talk to you about. A couple
of big cases, one that you've been working on personally,
and then your new book is out and we want
to talk to you about that. But let's let's first
bring the gabble down and talk about the cases. Now.
For instance, you're working on an Indian Child Welfare Act case.
We've talked to you about it, but for folks not
familiar with it, give them the thumbnail sketch if you would.
(02:51):
That's a federal that that that law is a federal
law that says how states have to treat child welfare
cases like abuse and neglect and adoption and foster care
if a child is biologically eligible for membership in an
Indian tribe. So it draws this biological distinction between kids
and says that states have to treat these Indian children differently.
(03:14):
And what's amazing about it is. It says they have
to treat these Indian children worse because this law actually
overrides the best interest of the child rule, which is
the rule that governs how these kinds of cases are
dealt with, and it forces state officials to send Indian
children back to abused homes in situations that would not
(03:34):
happen if the kids were white or Black, or Asian
or Hispanic or whatever. And as a result, this law
has led to the preventable murder of Indian children across
the country in case after case after case. So we've
been challenging the constitutionality of this law, and that case
went to the U. S. Supreme Court and was argued
a couple of weeks ago. I went out to d
(03:55):
C to to attend these oral arguments. The very exciting
thing to witness, well, it was what's the argument for
the status quo? Because it sounds horrifically racist, it really is.
But the reasoning behind it at the time was actually
they thought they were doing a good thing because in
the decades that preceded its passage, which was the states
(04:17):
and federal officials, they had been engaged in this pro
program of purposely taking Indian children away from their families
in order to forcibly assimilate them with white society. And
so that that was like that, you know, taking kids
away from their families for no good reason. And so
they said, well, how can we stop this from happening?
So they passed as law intending to put an into that,
but as almost seems to almost always happen, the government
(04:40):
went too far the other direction and ended up passing
a law that actually prohibits states from protecting these children nowadays.
In many cases, Wow, that's just the results are unthinkable,
and just the logic strikes or the lack of logic
is so troubling. Um. But so that it's in argued,
(05:00):
and you know, it's difficult to say how it went.
But how did it go? Oh, it went pretty well,
it was. It was four hours of oral argument, which
is incredibly low. I mean, that's like nineteenth century style,
back when they used to take all day, and the
justices were all very attentive to the very complicated constitutional
(05:20):
questions here, because it's not just that it's race based,
it's also what are the limits between federal and state authority?
And what are the what do the regulations say there's
a lot of parts of the law that actually aren't defined,
so nobody really knows what some of these terms mean
and things. So it went back and forth. There were
some really good arguments on both sides. I'm optimistic. I
think that the argument went pretty well for US. I'm
(05:44):
predicting it will be a five four. I think it'll
be close, but I think it. I'm optimistic that this
case is going to to declare this law unconstitutional and
forced Congress to say, look, with regard to children's race,
we need to prioritize their best interests. You can't say,
you know, like this law basically prohibits white adults from
(06:04):
adopting Indian children. Children who are in need, don't They're
not interested in color lines. They need protection and help.
And this law is a law that says that even
when there are adults willing to help children in need,
they're not allowed to if they're the wrong race. And
that's really outrageous. How much of the oral arguments was
that new Chatty Supreme Court justice just talks too much? Yeah,
(06:26):
there there was a little bit of that. It wasn't
too much, but you know, after four hours, I think
we were also exhausted that when actually it was funny
that Chief Justice said, thank you, the case is submitted,
which means everybody's done well. One of the lawyers had
not had his chance to to finish up his argument,
so he stood there with this funny look on the
stays until the Chief Justice said, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead,
and he went up to the podium and he said,
(06:47):
I take the hint, your honor, and you could be yeah, wow, wow, Okay.
Let's talk about another case that I was asking about
a few weeks ago. Uh, that had to do with
in forcing laws against public camping, blocking sidewalks, etcetera. In Phoenix.
As you know, every need not be reset. But everybody
(07:08):
in every blue city in the country and some of
the Purple cities is dealing with this horrific influx of
of junkie camps everywhere. What's that case about. Yeah, Unfortunately,
Phoenix is now the location of one of the largest
homeless encampments in the country, over a thousand people who
are living in what we call the zone on several
blocks of downtown Phoenix intens and on the streets because
(07:31):
of a city policy to refuse to enforce laws against
vagrancy and camping and pollution and these sorts of things,
and as a result, it's destroying the businesses in the area.
These people who are trying to run a business in
these several blocks that are now being occupied by the
homeless are they're they're finding that they can't have they
can't hire people to work in these businesses, they can't
(07:53):
protect the safety of their employees. They can't even protect
their own businesses from from from arson. There these people
of setting fires to stay warm now that it's getting colder.
And one person testified at a recent hearing that he
had to have all the wheel the windows in the
building sealed because of all the urine soaking into the
to the place where he works because of these homeless encampments.
(08:14):
So several business owners have filed suit in the state
courts here challenging that the city's maintenance of a public nuisance.
A nuisance is, you know, when you use your property
in a way that damages somebody else's property. And the
government is not allowed to run a nuisance anymore than
anybody else's. And by maintaining this homeless encampment now for
for a couple of years now and and basically attracting
(08:37):
this this element to the community to destroy people's property.
The city is engaged in a nuisance. Now, unfortunately, we
had a hearing several weeks ago and then the case
got reassigned to a new judge. So now we have
to have another hearing next week. Uh seeking a court
order commanding the city to start enforcing its own laws. Well,
obviously this could have far reaching consequences if it goes
(09:03):
the correct way. To my mind, I don't know where
you draw the line at nuisance, but maybe that would
finally be the way you break up these camps. Right,
that's that's right. And in fact, there is one precedent
already in place. Remember when when uh, I think it
was Portlands, they were operated what they called chairs or
chop or whatever the the yeah, yeah, to set up
(09:24):
this autonomous community zone in the middle of the city
and refused to enforce the law there. As a result,
a lot of people suffered their their property was being
destroyed and taken away from so they sued the city
and the federal court allowed that case to go forward,
saying that that was a taking of their property without
due process of law. So there is precedents on the
(09:44):
book that says that when the government just completely washes
its hands of its obligation to enforce the law and
protect people's property rights, then it can be liable for
depriving people of their constitutional rights. Yeah, that's interesting, cause
I know I know business owners who feel like they
can't They don't get near the as many customers as
they would normally get because it's so hard to get
to the front door. And what's so frustrating for us
(10:07):
the largely law abiding is that they're violating sewage laws,
they're violent and camping laws, they're violating drug use laws,
and just there's a lack of political will, or I
should putting in the affirmative, there's a political will to
ignore the law. Unlicensed dogs off leash. I mean, it's endless.
Refusing to enforce the laws against pollution. It's illegal in
(10:28):
Arizona to pollute the public waterways. Well, this zone is
within walking discnse of the Salt River. People are urinating
and defecating on the streets and the sidewalks, and that
when it rains that runs off into the river. Well,
no private party would be allowed to do that in
the city. Isn't allowed to do that either. How it's
kind of surprised when you said it's been going on
for years, because when you first set a thousand people,
I thought, well, can't you just wait till summer and
(10:49):
will kind of take care of itself. But it's been
going on for years. How do you How do you
stay in one of those places in the summertime? Good?
I can't imagine. And of course in the winter, they're
gonna start setting even or fires than they currently are,
which sets fires to the tents out of the time
and starts to burn down the buildings. And we're talking
about these buildings. Are these these tents are basically situated
between the main campus of Arizona State University and the
(11:12):
state Capitol building in Phoenix. So you're talking about places
we would really rather not have violent crime and arson
going on. Tim Sandford's vice president for litigation in the
Goldwater Institute. If you just missed our conversation with him
about a couple of really interesting cases grabbed via podcast later,
I'm strong and getting on demand. But now let's move
on to his brand new book, Freedom's Furies. How Isabel Patterson,
(11:34):
Rose Wilder Lane and Mine Rand found liberty in an
Age of Darkness. Uh, it's ladies night, tim Sanderford's word processor.
What inspire Well, I it's just I have always thought
it was a really interesting story that these three women
in the year nineteen forty three, each of them published
(11:55):
books that basically started the modern libertarian movement. And turns
out that they knew each other and we're friends, and
they were all very interesting people. Rose Wilder Lane, for example,
basically ghost wrote the Little House on the Prairie novels
with her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and of course rand
started a philosopical philosophical movement that was very influential. She
had been born in the Soviet Union and escaped to
(12:18):
the United States as a young woman to to get
away from Stalin's Russia. And Patterson is not very well known,
but in during her lifetime she was the most influential
book critic, probably in a in in New York City,
and a very powerful voice. And the three of them together,
they were friends and and they decided to kind of
(12:39):
push back against the New Deal. And so I decided
to write a little bit about them, and it turned
into a book that's more on the literary and political
history of the New Deal and of their own writing
in their own careers than anything else. UM. I like
the books pushing back against the New Deal because you know,
it's regularly hailed in mainstream media's an obviously good thing
for everyone in the country. UM how did how did
(13:01):
they define their political views? I mean, what was the
what were the main tenants of their political view? They
consider themselves individualists, so they didn't really use the word libertarian.
Um Rand particularly hated the word libertarians. They considered themselves
radicals for capitalism. That is, they were kind They were
a kind of liberal in the sense that they were
in favor of liberating individuals, which is what liberals used
(13:24):
to mean. But they thought the best way to liberate
individuals was through the free market, to let people do
their own thing and only bring that have the government
become involved if people start violating each other's rights by
taking their stuff away or beating them up or whatever.
They didn't believe in government as a savior or a
protector figure. And I think that's part of the reason
why they're being women. Was relevant because Patterson and Lane
(13:47):
were born in six so they were in their thirties
when the women got the right to vote in America,
and so they they were very familiar with the way
that being protected, or she did from from the the
harsh things in life, is really a euphemism for taking
people's freedom away from them. And of course, rand you know,
in the Soviet Union, they have been promised, oh well,
(14:09):
where government is going to oversee an era of utopia
and plenty, and she of course witnessed personally how that
actually worked out, so that I think they were especially
sensitive to the idea that being protected means taking your
freedom away. Interesting especially because it's it's fairly indisputable that
when women gained the right to vote, sympathy in chreased
(14:30):
a great deal for a more mommy ish government, a
more caretaker government. That was certainly their view. That was
certainly what Patterson thought. Patterson thought that she was very,
very a kind of a cynical personality, and she thought
that when the New Deal came along, the masculine virtues
all basically disappeared. And she late in her life she
(14:50):
used to say, I grew up in a in a
in a world where men were men. But she thought
that that with with the coming of Franklin Roosevelt and
the bureaucratic state that is supposed to protect everybody. That
men just vanished from the earth, and what we were
left with was guys who were just begging for favors
and protection instead. And it disgusted her Lane. Of course,
(15:11):
she grew up on the Western Frontier. She grew up
on the prairie. She hated it so much that she
moved to Albania to get away from it. But she
grew up in the West, and so she knew what
it was from her parents and her grandparents, what it was,
what what masculine virtues were necessary to settle the Western frontier.
And Rand had this idea of what masculine virtue meant of,
(15:33):
of being bold and uncompromising, self reliant and so forth,
and she thought that was being undermined by the New Deal.
So they all, they all thought the American character of
boldness and enterprises being destroyed by government intervention. That's fantastic.
I love that. I promise I will read this book.
And I, like I said, I love any pushback against
the idea that the New Deal was just overwhelmingly positive
(15:56):
for America. So the title is Freedom's Furies. How Isabel
Patterson Rosewild? Their Lane nine Rand found Liberty and Age
of Darkness will have a link at Armstrong and Getty
dot com so you can find it easily. Tim, We apologize,
but we're up against a heartbreak and must bid you
a fond Do you appreciate your time though, Thanks guys. Yeah,
it's always great to talk. Thanks Tom. Yeah, you run
(16:17):
into that all the time in mainstream media, that the
the new Deal, you know, that's that's what that's what
Biden should do. That's what you should do. This out
of the Darkness art Strong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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