Fighting for Freedom

Jacob Hornberger tells us to stick to our principles and hit the enemy hard.

On Monday, February 17th, Jacob "Bumper" Hornberger addressed a group of Libertarians at a luncheon sponsored by the Samuel Adams Society at the LPC's 1997 Convention. One of Liberty's most articulate and inspiring advocates, Hornberger is the founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, a libertarian educational foundation with a proud, indominable motto: "We Don't Compromise." The following is an edited transcript of his speech.

Jacob Hornberger: It's a pleasure and an honor to be here, speaking before all you California Libertarians.

My friends, I cannot imagine a more insulting message than the one that Democratic and Republican candidates deliver to the people they ask to vote for them. The essence of their message is simple: "We believe you are a bad people -- irresponsible, uncaring and incompetent. If you were responsible, caring and competent, like your ancestors, we wouldn't need Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare. Your ancestors didn't need 'em. They were responsible, compassionate, competent people. But you are not. We must force you to honor your parents and to care for the elderly and needy. If you were responsible, we wouldn't need the War on Drugs; but if we legalized drugs all you people would be injecting heroin into your veins! You're incompetent: that's why we need public schools. Your ancestors didn't need 'em -- for over 125 years Americans did without government run schools. But you're incompetent: we can't trust the education of your children to you!"

The sad truth is, most Americans have bought into this message. They honestly believe what they're being told: that they are bad, irresponsible and uncaring. You see, government schools have been a great success -- probably the government institution most successful at accomplishing its goal: producing good little citizens who believe that they need the government that has educated them. Not to mention the fact that most people believe that our socialist welfare state is actually free enterprise, and that our completely regulated way of life is actually a free society. They honestly believe they cannot be trusted with freedom, that they must be coerced into being good. This is what public schools have done. They have robbed the American people of their self-esteem.

But we Libertarians have a very different message. True, we have the economic argument, the practical case for freedom, and the moral argument. But we also have the psychological case for freedom. We say to people: "We believe in you! You don't need Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or welfare. We believe in you! We believe you will honor your parents voluntarily, that you will help the poor, the needy and the disadvantaged. And for those who won't or can't, voluntarily funded agencies -- private charities -- will pick up the slack."

It's our message that separates Libertarians from everyone else. You see, Libertarians have a fierce commitment to reality: we see the world as it is, not as the government would have us see it. But we also have a high sense of what Thoreau and Emerson called "self-reliance" -- belief in ourselves. None of us doubt we'd survive in a free society. And it is this concept of self-reliance that we must transmit to our fellow Americans. We must say to them: "We believe in you! But you have to start believing in yourselves!" Libertarians know that when you start believing in yourself, you start believing in others; that when your self-esteem rises, you start seeing the positive in others, rather than the negative. And when you start believing in others, you start believing in freedom; you start believing in cooperation rather than coercion. And that's the point when your support for the socialist welfare state evaporates. This is what terrifies Democrats and Republicans. They have a vested interest in making sure people think bad of themselves so that they'll keep supporting the mechanism that brings in great gobs of money to pay all the beneficiaries of the welfare state -- including the politicians and bureaucrats who run them.

My friends, our message is a very powerful one.

Six or seven years ago, I was asked to serve on the platform committee of the national LP. Not having read the platform, I assumed it'd be a standard statement of moderation -- that is to say, it'd talk about reducing government spending, downsizing government, reducing taxation, vouchers for public schools, medical IRAs, Social Security IRAs, etc. Excuse me if I offend anybody, but that's not the kind of stuff that excites me. But when I pulled out the platform and started to read it, I was awe-struck -- stunned! It was a purist libertarian manifesto: Abolish public schools! Abolish Social Security! Abolish Medicare! Abolish all taxation -- not just some! I'm telling you, I started to get very excited -- my heart was pounding -- about abolishing "the cult of the omnipotent state!" So I get on this committee and everyone's arguing over phraseology, trying to make sure that a philosophical leak is not sprung in this document. And not once -- not once! -- did somebody ask, "Is this going to cost us votes?" It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

I'll tell you another story... Sheldon Richmond, whom many of you know, is Vice President of Policy at The Future of Freedom Foundation, The Future of Freedom Foundation. He wrote a book for us entitled Separating School and State, which called for the abolition of government schools; it rejects vouchers and shows how a free market in education will work. Now he's completed a new book called Your Money or Your Life: Why We Need To Abolish the Income Tax. It's all about the tax's history and disastrous economic consequences. But when Sheldon came to the last chapter, he called me up. "I've got a problem," he says. "It turns out that if we abolish the income tax, we're knocking out $1.3 trillion from the government's $1.6 trillion budget" -- and, keep in mind, he's not talking about replacing the income tax with another tax. I'm proud to say that our foundation has not and will never call for any kind of taxation. So I said, "What's the problem?" and he said: "Well, are we going to be taken credibly?" And I said, "When was the last time we worried about that?" (audience laughs) So he said, "I got an idea. Let me go see what $300 billion will buy." So two or three days later, Sheldon called me back and said: "We got a new problem: it turns out that in inflation-adjusted dollars, $300 billion will buy exactly the same level of government that existed in 1941. Now, I don't know about you, but if my Libertarian friends think that I'm endorsing this, they're gonna call me a Franklin Roosevelt big government man!" (audience laughs) And I said, "You think you've got problems! If I publish a book that advocates cutting $1.3 trillion from a $1.6 trillion government budget, my friends are going to call me an incrementalist!" (audience laughs)

My friends, we have the most powerful weapon that a political party or movement can have: the truth. It is a weapon that the other parties do not have. Truth will beat money, armies, any opposition any day of the week. Unfortunately, some of us sometimes feel we need to dilute, moderate or soften our message to appear respectable or credible. But if we moderate our message, we weaken it; we are subverting the main weapon in our arsenal. Now why would we want to do that?

I have a good Libertarian friend who ran for state office in Virginia. I saw his campaign statement in the newspaper: reduce taxes and spending, improve education and transportation, and so on. After the election, I called him and said, "I don't understand your strategy. It seems to me that all Republicans and a lot of Democrats would feel very comfortable endorsing your statement." He said, "Well, the Republican Party ran a weak candidate; I targeted Republican voters and thought I had a chance to win." And I said, "But why wouldn't you want to differentiate yourself from these two parties and take advantage of the opportunity to attack them! " He said, "How?" And I said: "By saying you want to abolish public schools, abolish all state drug laws, and abolish all state welfare and regulatory agencies! And if you're embarrassed about abolishing all taxation, as some Libertarians are, at least call for abolishing the state income tax." He looked at me and said, "I could never win that way!" So I said "Well, you only got about 1% of the vote doing it your way! If you're gonna lose, you might as well go down fighting like a Libertarian!" There's nothing inglorious about defeat -- as a native Texan I can tell you that.

Some people in this party are preoccupied with trying to get Democrats and Republicans to shift their votes to us. I think they're missing the real voters we should be targeting: the 52% of Americans who don't vote! I think we could get 10% of that vote easy -- that's five million votes. Many of these people don't vote because they think it doesn't matter. And if Libertarians start sounding like Republicans, they're gonna think we're just like the rest of 'em.

What if a Libertarian was elected president and said he was going to downsize the government by 30%? Am I supposed to be happy with that? Am I supposed to be happy with a Libertarian head of the IRS handling 70% of the taxation that's left? Am I supposed to be happy if Libertarians are running the ATF, the DEA, the CIA, the FBI, HUD, Agriculture, Energy, Education and all the other perjurious, corrupt, incompetent government agencies? We need to take down these agencies, not downsize them! People must know that we want them to give up the entire socialist welfare state in return for never having to pay any taxes ever again! They must know that our objective is to permanently shut down all non-essential government services! (audience applauds) And if those 52% of Americans see that we really are different, you might see a monumental shift toward the Libertarian Party. Those people are our target -- and we're not going to get them by moderating our message.

I even see some Libertarians calling for ways to reform the socialist welfare state: reforming public schooling with vouchers, reforming Medicare with IRAs, even saving Social Security! They think no one will vote for us unless we say we're saving Social Security -- the crown jewel of the socialist welfare state! Excuse me? I am a Libertarian! Social Security originated with the German socialists. Otto Von Bismarck stole the idea from them. In the 1930s, it was a hallmark of the National Socialist Party -- the nazis! Where do you think Franklin Roosevelt got the idea for it? Now, why in the world would we want to save such a thing?

Some Libertarians say, "well, a promise has been made." Oh really? Well, I never promised anything, I know that! Social Security is just a tax -- like the income or gift tax. It's a welfare program, like food stamps or public schooling. And where do we stop? What about Medicare? Do we want a Libertarian plan to save that corrupt welfare program too, and one to save public schooling? Do we try to save the income tax? And what is the message these plans will be sending to our fellow Americans? That we don't really believe that freedom will work! Because if we believed freedom worked, we'd call for the immediate abolition of these corrupt, incompetent agencies. By calling for safe half-way measures, we're saying we don't really believe in freedom. And how exciting is that message?

Those of you who've been in the party a long time know we've gone through some dark days. And yet, through it all, there was a core of people hanging in there, holding the party together, building it. And what motivated them? Was it the idea of downsizing government? I don't think so. It was the idea of advancing human liberty by dismantling, not reforming, the socialist welfare state. That's what was driving us. That's what got people excited.

Some Libertarians think we should run our campaigns like a croquet game -- safe, distinguished and polite. I don't see it that way at all. I think we're in a street fight. Those Democrats and Republicans are coming down the street towards us. We have to take off our gloves and start dukin' it out with them, mix it up with these people. Now, they're bigger than we are, so they're gonna beat us up and knock us down. But I guarantee in any street fight, you can get in a few punches. You can bloody somebody's nose or give 'em a black eye. So the next time they come down the street, they think: "Oh, no! Not those Libertarians again!"

I'll give you an example... A guy called me from the Perot party and asked me to talk at one of their meetings. He said, "I'm also going to have two Democrat and Republican bigwigs there, and I'd like to set a little trap for them -- are you interested?" I said: "That's music to my ears!" (audience laughs) So he said, "I want you to go first -- and instead of just explaining the principles of liberty, would you please tear them to pieces?" So I go there and of course these two guys have no idea what's about to happen. When the time came, I got up before the audience, pointed at the Democrat and Republican officials and said: "These two people right here, and the parties they represent, have brought this country to where we are today: 50% taxation, the regulation of every aspect of your lives, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on liberty -- and you know what, ladies and gentlemen, they're not going to take responsibility for all the harm they've done. You're going to hear them in a few minutes, and I guarantee you they're not going to say they're sorry for what they've done to you and the children of this country!" I went on like that and when I finished, the Republican got up -- his hands were shaking. Then the Democrat got up and spent 15 minutes defending Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal! (audience laughs) We've got to take the offensive and hit these people hard. Frankly, you've got to despise them and everything they stand for.

Not long ago, I was sitting at a supper table with Newt Gingrich, a bunch of my Libertarian friends, and some of his friends. Now Newt wouldn't even talk to us -- he's too good to talk to us -- until he finally turned to me and said, "Would you mind passing the bread?" All my friends suddenly got quiet because they know how much I despise these guys. So I smiled at him and said, "Well, Newt, I've got an important bill coming up in Congress, and before I pass you the bread, I want to know how you're going to vote!" Everybody around me started chuckling and Newt played dumb: "What do you mean?" So I said, "Look, I grew up on the Texas/Mexican border and learned all about politics from Mexico. There, the situation is upfront: you negotiate with the government officials in advance, pay your bribe, and they fulfill their part of the bargain. But here we have to call them 'campaign contributions,' 'honorariums' or things like that, and it's very inefficient because you guys don't always know what you're getting paid for." Well, he fumed! How dare I impugn the integrity of Congress -- imagine! (audience laughs)

We have to hit these people hard. They've built a fortress -- a nice racket that's making them jillions of dollars -- and they're protecting it with things like ballot access laws to keep out the competition: us! We've got to take our battering ram -- the battering ram of uncompromised truth -- and keep pounding away at their gates. Ultimately, we'll break through; then our people will rush inside and create havoc behind enemy lines! And the only way we can do that is to continue delivering the purist message of Liberty. If we don't call for Liberty, if we only call for reform, then who's left? If not us, who will cry for freedom? If we don't do it, the light of Liberty goes out! The responsibility is ours. I firmly believe that it is the destiny of American Libertarians to lead the world out of its socialist dungeon. I think we're going to see a move toward freedom in this country that'll make the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire look like child's play. We Libertarians are leading the charge toward dismantling the socialist welfare state. If we stick to our principles and hit our enemies hard, we'll lead America to the highest peaks of freedom that mankind has ever known.

My friends, it's an honor to be on this side of this fight with you!