—–Original Message—–
From: JW
Sent: Sat 10/15/2016 4:55 AM
To: Walter Block
Subject: RE: Your conversation with Friedman

Professor Block: One more thought here too. I think the reason that Dr Friedman cut off the conversation with you towards the end, is because while he shares many of your views, he does not agree with your strategy to attain them. Sure, the principled philosophers do a great service to all of us by constructing contradiction free logical frameworks for us to strive towards but they are like the man who draws up the football plays before a game, and not the players on the field actually trying to block and run the ball. Heaven forbid that the football players would refuse to take their place against the opposing team excepting that they could run every play precisely to the millimeter and angle that it was drawn up on the paper. They would lose by forfeiture. Granted that occasionally someone will take a principled stand on some issue and due to weakness on the other side they will get all 100% of what they want. But it is rare indeed, and the bulk of real life does not happen this way. So that by adopting a principled philosophy in the ultimate vision of where we are heading you are right not to compromise your principles, but in putting that philosophy into action I think the pragmatist who holds your principled view in his mind, while he compounds victory after victory even if by some margin over his opponents gradually takes away more territory from the enemy and in the end he does more for the cause of liberty by fighting the good fight and never giving up. The other thing that I don’t think is much like reality, is that you seem to think that if a principled philosopher gives up any of his ground whatsoever either in his ultimate goal or in the means of attaining it, that all hope is lost and he might as well just quit now. But he doesn’t have too, that is not the only possibilities here, in fact it seems like a child throwing a tantrum. He can win small battles a little at a time, and just keep on compounding those victories until he rides off into the sunset.

This is my problem with the Objectivists, and especially their commentary on political ideas, I have been reading their commentary for the past 10 years now. They hate Obama and they hate Hillary and they hate Trump, so they will just stand on the sidelines and criticize and not vote for anyone, or maybe they will vote for someone who has no chance of winning. I’ll never forget when I first started working in the stock market and I had all these reasons not to do anything, because the Federal Reserve was corrupting the monetary supply, and we needed to go back to a gold standard, and taxes were too high, and the market was going to crash because of all of the speculators who don’t take a principled approach to investing and they are pushing up the market, and on and on and on. Until one day I met a man who had made several million dollars in a very short time in the stock market and he just looked at me and said …. “Hey John…. It always sounds smart to do nothing.” Then he smiled and walked away. What we really need are people who understand the power of compounding, who are willing to get into the fight, and who can take ole Ben Franklin’s pros and cons list and actually weigh out complicated issues, and has the ability to choose between two options and take the one that has the most weight towards the direction you are trying to move towards and choose it with boldness, even though its maybe not every single thing you want or how you want it. Anyways… that’s my two cents. Thanks, John Woods

Dear JW: I disagree. I don’t think there’s a dime’s worth of difference between Milton and me regarding the means to a free society; we both believe in education. As I said to him in one of our exchanges:

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that we are aiming at (slightly)
different goals, mine more extreme than yours, but I don’t see that
we have any real disagreement as to means. At least, I have never
read anything of yours (and I think I’ve read virtually everything
you have ever written) on the subject of transitions with which I disagree.
I don’t favor picking up the gun and shooting bureaucrats and
politicians. I don’t favor violent revolution. On the contrary, at least
in this regard, I have modeled my career after your own: education,
writing, speaking, publishing, etc. (I don’t compare myself with you
as far as success in these endeavors is concerned; I only say that I am
trying to the best of my abilities to emulate you.)”

No, the reason, I think, he stopped our exchanges was this thrust of mine. He was accusing me of being a fanatic, since I was an anarchist. I pointed out to him that his son, David, was also an anarchist. I asked him if he thought his son, David, was also, like me, a “fanatic.” He never replied.

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