There’s Nothing Wrong with ‘Preaching to the Choir’Recently by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.: Why Everything Should Be Abolished
On my Facebook page, someone complained that the great event being planned for this Friday, May 11, in Oklahoma City, is just “preaching to the choir.” Now even granting that this particular person only ever criticizes and as far as I can see has never had a kind word to say, the objection is a common one. But: (1) No pastor I know of tells his choir, “I’m about to preach, so why don’t all of you go have a cigarette in the vestibule?” The choir needs to be preached to just as much as anyone else, for reasons I’ll explain below.
(2) The choir can always stand to have its knowledge level boosted. Unlike the clergy, they don’t devote 24 hours a day to theology. Likewise for people interested in the Fed, government policy, etc. The more they are preached to, so to speak, the more effective they become in defending their views outside the choir. (3) Holding rally-style events helps buck up people’s courage. It shows them that although they may be in the minority, they are far from alone. Other people think as they do. (4) Rally-style events allow like-minded people to meet each other and coordinate efforts, thus making them more effective ambassadors of their ideas. (5) Just as people occasionally bring friends to church (if I may continue to borrow the choir analogy), people bring friends to events aimed at liberty activists. These events can open the minds of these friends. (6) Similarly, every liberty event becomes another YouTube to (a) inform other liberty activists, making them more effective still, and (b) reach people on the fence who may thereby be converted to our point of view. So by all means spread the ideas wherever you can get an audience. I myself have spoken to all sorts of audiences, many of them not sympathetic to our views. But by no means should you let yourself be hectored out of holding events aimed at people already committed to these ideas. They can bear much fruit. Reprinted with permission from TomWoods.com. May 10, 2012 Thomas E. Woods, Jr. [send him mail; visit his website], a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, is the author of eleven books, most recently Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse and Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, as well as the New York Times bestsellers Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. He is also the editor of five other books, including the just-released Back on the Road to Serfdom. Copyright © 2012 Thomas Woods
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