|
Full Context
www.fullcontext.org
January-February 2001
Full Context Interview with Jacob G. Hornberger
by William & Karen Minto
Q: Where did you grow up?
Hornberger: I grew up on a farm on the Rio Grande
near Laredo, Texas,
which at that time was the poorest city in the United
States.
Q: What about your early environment influenced your thinking and
character?
Hornberger: My father was German-American and my mother was
Mexican-American. The integration and confluence of Mexican and American
people and culture in Laredo
had a tremendous impact on me. And working in the fields with illegal
aliens and going to school with kids whose families were poor gave me a
deep empathy with the downtrodden in life.
Q: How did you get the nickname ćBumper?ä
Hornberger: I got it when I was a baby, it stuck, and all the theories are
bad.
Q: What kind of law were you practicing before you gave it up?
Hornberger: I was a trial attorney. For the first several years, I handled
both criminal and civil cases, but ended up specializing only in civil
litigation. In 1987, after 12 years of practicing law, I made one of the
biggest decisions of my life÷to leave the practice of law to work fulltime
in the libertarian movement. That year, I accepted a position as program
director at The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington,
New York.
Q: What attracted you to the law profession?
Hornberger: My father was an attorney, and so I was walking into courtrooms
since I was a toddler. From grade school on, my biggest dream in life was
to become a trial attorney. I skipped lots of classes in law school to sit
in the law library studying trial books by famous lawyers, such as F. Lee
Bailey and Gerald Spence. A few months after graduation, the federal judge
in Laredo appointed me to
represent an indigent man who the DEA was accusing of a drug conspiracy. My
client was innocent, and so we proceeded to trial. The jury acquitted him.
It was very exciting. The DEA agents werenāt very happy.
Q: Tell us about how you discovered the philosophy of liberty?
Hornberger: A big seed was planted when I was in law school. I was watching
a afternoon movie on television entitled, The Fountainhead, and was
stunned. I bought the book and it had a big impact on me, but I didnāt
pursue it. A few years later, I discovered in the Laredo
public library a series of books entitled ćEssays on Libertyä that had been
published by The Foundation for Economic Education. It was those essays
that changed the course of my life. I discovered that FEE was still in
existence, bought just about every book in FEEās catalog, and went to New
York to attend a FEE seminar.
Q: When did you discover the Essays on Liberty
series and who were some of the authors that most impacted your thinking
Hornberger: It was about 1977. The library had only the first four volumes
of the series, but they were a gold mine of libertarian giants. First and
foremost for me was Leonard E. Read, the founder of FEE and the person who
has most impacted my libertarian thinking. Others included Ludwig von
Mises, Murray Rothbard, Frederic Bastiat, F.A. ćBaldyä Harper, Frank
Chodorov, Henry Hazlitt, Hans Sennholz, Ed Opitz, Percy and Bettina
Greaves, Paul Poirot, John Chamberlain, Herbert Spencer, Albert J. Nock,
and Dean Russell. You canāt do much better than that in four small books!
Q: Were there any of their arguments in particular that you found
convincing?
Hornberger: Primarily the moral arguments and secondarily the utilitarian
arguments for freedom. Like most everyone else in South Texas,
I had grown up a Democrat. When I returned to Laredo
after graduation from law school, it didnāt take long for me to become
outraged over the U.S.
governmentās treatment of Mexican illegal aliens, and so I tried to file
suit against every federal judge in the Southern District of Texas. (Young
lawyers can get away with such things.) Our local federal judge refused to
allow the suit to be filed but he told me that he would begin appointing me
to represent as many illegal aliens as I wanted.
One day, as I was interviewing some of them in jail, it hit me: if
Democrats love the poor as much as they say they do, how could be treating
these people in this way? None of my leftist friends could provide a good
answer. At that time I assumed that the only other choice was Republican,
and everybody knows that they hate the poor.
Then I discovered libertarianism in those FEE books, and the veil of
darkness was lifted in a real Road to Damascus experience. Not only could I
see that it was morally wrong for the state to interfere with peaceful
behavior, I immediately recognized that the ones who would benefit most
from a libertarian society were those at the bottom of the economic ladder,
i.e., the Mexican illegal aliens.
Q: What role did the ideas of Ayn Rand play in your philosophical
education?
Hornberger: A big one. It started with The Fountainhead and then I
discovered the Objectivist Newsletter and read them all. But it was Atlas
Shrugged that had the biggest impact on me. Iāve read it twice, including
all of John Galtās speech! Although Iām a Christian, I was deeply attracted
to Randās uncompromising moral and philosophical approach toward liberty.
Q: How long did it take after that to start to make changes in your
life÷like quitting the ACLU, for example?
Hornberger: I was serving on the board of trustees of the Laredo Legal
Aid Society, which was a government agency that provided legal assistance
to the indigent. I resigned it immediately, which totally befuddled my
leftist-attorney friends, who couldnāt figure out what was happening to me.
I think my resignation from the ACLU came later because I loved their
position on civil liberties but finally couldnāt handle their defense of
the welfare state.
Q: How would you have described your political philosophy before then?
Hornberger: I grew up a Democrat but Iāve always been characterized by a
strong sense of individuality and rebellion. For example, in the seventh
grade, a friend and I published a newspaper÷The Weekly Bore÷to compete
against the establishment public-school newspaper, The Lionās Roar. And I
recently was surprised to see that I had written a mini-libertarian
autobiographical sketch in my senior yearbook at VMI÷five years before I
discovered the FEE books and two years before I saw The Fountainhead on
television. So, I think Iāve always been a libertarian even if I didnāt
realize what that meant.
Q: How did you decide to get involved, first as a libertarian activist,
and second, why choose the political route instead of journalism or think
tanks or some other means?
Hornberger: My early years as a libertarian were spent mostly in quiet
study, while I was practicing law. Later I began sponsoring seminars and
lectures, mostly in Dallas where I had moved my law practice. While in
Dallas, I met Richard Ebeling, who is vice-president of academic affairs
for The Future of Freedom Foundation
and who teaches at Hillsdale College. Richard became my best friend and
gave me a private tutorial in Misesās Human Action. Also, Sam Bostaph, head
of the economics department at the University of Dallas, gave me a private
tutorial in classical economics (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, etc). Thus,
even though I was an economics major at VMI, it was Bostaph and Ebeling who
gave me a sound foundation in economics.
Then, in 1987, I went to FEE. For most of my early years as a
libertarian, I believed that the think tank route was the best way to go.
Gradually, I began speaking at Libertarian Party functions and loved it. I
finally concluded that political activity can be a very potent force in
advancing liberty. In fact, one of our largest donors at FFF discovered
libertarianism through a Libertarian campaign.
Q: Do you think your background in law prepared you for the life of a
speaker and debater?
Hornberger: No doubt about it, but I was arguing with my public
schoolteachers long before then.
Q: Why did you leave the Foundation for Economic Education and start The Future of Freedom Foundation?
Hornberger: The first year of my life at FEE was one of the happiest one I
had ever experienced. I was doing what I loved to do÷seminars and
speeches÷and getting paid to do it! Life was great. Then a conservative was
hired to be president of The Foundation, and I simply didnāt feel
comfortable working there under his presidency. After a year, I decided to
leave to establish a libertarian foundation that took a totally
uncompromising approach to libertarian issues, with a strong emphasis on
moral, philosophical, and economic issues÷a foundation with an attitude!
So, thatās what I did with FFF, and
itās been very gratifying. I should point out that I could never have done
it÷and FFF would not be where it
is today÷without the support, advice, friendship, and help of Richard
Ebeling, who has been with me since the very start.
Later on, Sheldon Richman and James Bovard came aboard and helped to
propel us forward. I should also point out that that conservative president
of FEE moved on and that now FEE, under the fine leadership of Don
Boudreaux, is back on my list of five most-admired libertarian think tanks
in the world.
Q: Now with Donald at the head of FEE, would you ever consider a merger?
Sheldon edits Ideas on Liberty, so it seems that you would be a good ćfit.ä
Hornberger: Iāve always taken the position that the libertarian world is
better off with more think tanks rather than less. Most of us in the
movement are good friends and we respect each other and each otherās work
immensely, but we realize that we do things in different ways and focus on
different audiences.
For example, if you compare an issue of Ideas on Liberty with Freedom Daily , you will get the same type
of feel in terms of philosophy and devotion to liberty because all of
us÷Don, Sheldon, Richard, Jim, me÷have been deeply influenced by FEE. Yet,
you will immediately note that there is a difference in the style and focus
of the two journals.
Itās hard to define but itās readily discernable, and the result is that
while there is tremendous overlap with the people who read and support our
work, there are also people who are attracted to one and not the other.
Thus, by having both institutions and journals, we serve a larger audience.
Q: If someone on your staff writes an article for Freedom Daily that you disagree with, how
do you handle that? Do you try to reach some consensus for the
philosophical reputation of your foundation or give in to the free flow of
ideas?
Hornberger: Thatās a fascinating question. Believe it or not, it has
hardly ever happened in the 11 years weāve been publishing÷maybe 2 or 3
times. Why? Because of the writers who write regularly for Freedom Daily--Ebeling, Richman, Bovard,
and me÷as well as those who write frequently such as Doug Bandow and Ralph
Raico.
All of us share the same intellectual background, were deeply influenced
by the likes of Read, Bastiat, Mises, Rand, Hayek, Rothbard, and all of us
believe that itās important not to compromise or dilute libertarian
principles. Thus, Iām just not concerned that thereās going to be what we
call a philosophical ćleak.ä
Q: How did you recruit Sheldon Richman from Cato?
Hornberger: Donāt start rumors! Sheldon was leaving Cato anyway to move to
western Virginia with his family. Since Cato did not permit telecommuting,
Sheldon approached me for a job on that basis, and I quickly accepted. I
have the utmost respect for Sheldonās intellectual and personal integrity,
and I count him among the finest friends I have ever had in my life.
Q: How do you differentiate yourself from other organizations such as
Reason Foundation, Cato, or FEE? How are you different, and why should we
give you guys money?
Hornberger: Cato is in the public-policy realm. It takes a real-world
issue and applies a practical libertarian solution that can be, both
pragmatically and politically, implemented immediately. FEE and FFF deal more broadly with the overall
moral, philosophical, case for the free society in the context of everyday
problems, but recognizing that they might not be politically feasible. The
analogy would be a football game: Cato is moving the ball down the field.
Weāre pointing to the goal line. I think Reason has evolved into
fascinating combination of the two, doing both public policy work but
periodically focusing on the principles.
In my opinion, to the extent possible, donors ought to add recipients to
their donor list rather than transfer donations from one to the other. All
of us are filling valuable niches in the movement toward the achievement of
liberty.
Q: How large is your staff?
Hornberger: We have three on staff here in the office, a proofreader and
art designer off site, and our three regular writers÷Ebeling, Richman, and
Bovard÷off site.
Q: What are the day-to-day duties involved?
Hornberger: Answering mail, writing articles and op-eds, preparing Freedom Daily, and changing toner.
Q: You have an aggressive travel schedule÷who takes care of the office when
you are away?
Hornberger: Alicia Cannon, who has been with me for 7 years. Weāre still
not sure what her title is, but FFF would not run without her. And weāve
recently added Andy Bennett, who is making an invaluable contribution also.
Q: Do you think youāll eventually get road warrior burn-out and turn
more to writing?
Hornberger: I sure hope not. The written word is vitally important and it
lasts forever, but Iām convinced that in order for people to come to a
grand and noble cause such as ours, they have to feel the passion and
excitement that can only come from a speech.
Q: For those of our readers who havenāt been following the insider
politics of the national Libertarian Party, what is the problem with the
Browne camp?
Hornberger: Iāve concluded that the problem facing the national LP is
not one that is directly associated with Browne or any other particular
person. Instead, it is a matter dealing with a conflict of visions.
One group of people place little or no value on ethical principles,
believing that right and wrong are judged only by the libertarian
nonaggression principle. In other words, as long as conduct is not violent
or fraudulent, advocates of this paradigm would say that one cannot say
that conduct is ćwrongfulä in an objective sense. Then there are those of
us who believe in a paradigm that places ethics right near at the top of
our values. We would say, for example, that a paradigm that permits a
candidate to make payments of money to party officials is ćwrongä because
it violates ethical principles relating to principles of fiduciary duty and
conflict of interest.
So, I realized that itās not just a question of isolated ethical
violations by certain people but rather a systemic problem involving what I
consider is an incorrect paradigm. Thus, the only solution, I have concluded,
is to try to persuade LP members to abandon the old paradigm and adopt a
new one, which is what I am trying to accomplish by the LP national
convention in 2002.
The reason for this is not only that I believe ethics are ćright,ä but
also because I believe that the American electorate will never support a
third party that operates under an unethical paradigm. In fact, a Wall
Street Journal exit poll last November reflected that voters place ethical
and moral principles at the top of their most important issues.
Q: Are you going to run for the partyās nomination in 2004?
Hornberger: I donāt know, but if LP members fail to put a permanent stop to
the unethical paradigm under which the LP is operating at the 2002
convention, it wonāt make any difference how many people seek the
presidential nomination. Because if the old paradigm is permitted to
continue, general party resources will once again be used to advance the
personal campaign interests of whoever the advocates of the old paradigm
ćanointä to receive the benefits of the partyās general resources. And few
LP members, myself included, have the resources to battle not only another
LP candidate but also the entire general resources of the Libertarian
Party, including our very own donations to the party.
Moreover, Iām convinced that if the old paradigm is permitted to
continue, whoever prevails in the nomination will do no better than the
standard half percent or one percent because, again, the American people
will never embrace a third party deliberately engaged in unethical conduct.
Given the choice between two major parties and one minor party engaged in
wrongful conduct, people will never waste their vote on the minor party.
Give them the choice of a party of ćintegrity and principle,ä which is what
Iām fighting for, and I think youād see some serious open-field running for
national LP candidates.
Q: You have recently been arguing that the target demographic of the
Libertarian marketing campaign is wrong. You maintain that the white
upper-middle class suburban voter is too fickle, and will jump from
Libertarians to Republicans if the Democrats are running a strong
candidate. Theyāll vote against the Democrat rather than for the
Libertarian. On the other hand, you suggest that the people who are more
receptive to the Libertarian message are those who have the most to gain
from government leaving them alone: Indians on reservations, the Blacks and
Hispanics in government housing projects and on other forms of government
assistance, recent immigrants trying to start new businesses. Can you
explain how you intend to build a pro-capitalist constituency among the
minorities and the poor?
Hornberger: The point Iām trying to make is to go where there is bigger
bang for the buck with limited resources. For example, consider two
different rooms filled with 100 people each. One room has white,
middle-class families who proudly take their children to the public school
bus every morning. The other room is filled with inner-city blacks and
Hispanics from the barrio. You deliver the same hard-core libertarian
speech to both audiences: end the drug war, get rid of public schooling,
abolish the income tax, open the borders, end gun control, abolish welfare
and Social Security, and so forth.
Iām not saying that the entire room with blacks and Hispanics will
embrace your message. Iām saying that a greater percentage in that room
will embrace your message, because generally theyāve been victimized by the
government to a much larger extent than the white, middle class group. So,
in the white, middle-class room, maybe 2 out of 100 will like what you say,
but in the inner-city black, Hispanic barrier group, the figure will soar
to, say, 20.
Q: What do you think of the new ads the Libertarian Party has had made?
Do you think they are worth spending millions of dollars on to get aired
across the country?
Hornberger: Iāve said this for more than five years, much to the chagrin
of the national LP hierarchy, but I will continue to say it: this
mass-media type of campaign that they have taught and promoted at the LPās
ćsuccessä seminars for years and which has twice been used by Browne is a
ridiculous and tragic waste of scarce LP resources. What amazes me is how
they just continue repeating the exact same strategy that has produced
nothing but failure. They blame the failure on external factors, ignoring
the obvious÷that their strategy could not overcome those external factors.
Any ads the LP puts on the air are going to be drowned out by the other
peopleās ads÷they have far more money than we do.
When I saw those glitzy ads that Browne had at the national convention,
I liked the ads but knew that the mass-media strategy would fail again. But
thatās the point÷no matter how impressive the ads, the strategy wonāt work.
Look at the waste of about $300,000 in Libertarian resources that went into
Browneās campaign infomercial. When Browne won the nomination, I figured
heād get about 1 percent, which in my opinion is the very most the mass
media-strategy can do, but which also means that 99 percent of the
electorate has rejected you.
The problem is that because the ads are glitzy, people are attracted to
them regardless of the results. The strategy I have been recommending for 5
years advocates the development of guerrilla strategies and tactics that
marshal scarce resources and concentrate them on our opposition. Iām more
convinced than ever that guerrilla political warfare is the way to go for
the LP, and thatās why I shall continue advocating it. But thereās no doubt
about which strategy the national LP hierarchy will continue to pursue.
Q: Bill Bradford recently argued that decriminalization of drugs could
be both a litmus test of libertarian commitment and an issue that should be
at the top of the Libertarian Partyās outreach message. Do you agree? If
not, what issue in your mind would be a better buzz-generator for
libertarianism?
Hornberger: Prioritization of issues within a short period of time is a
very difficult task for any LP candidate, and thus I have the utmost
respect for any Libertarian who has run for office and had to grapple with
this. But I believe that it is incumbent on every Libertarian to make
ending the war on drugs a center part of his campaign, not only because
itās right, but also because itās destroying the lives of so many people.
Moreover, itās a perfect issue to develop both the moral case and the
utilitarian case for liberty. I agree with Bill on the litmus test÷I donāt
see how a person can consider himself a libertarian if he favors the war on
drugs.
Q: Many Objectivists have always been a little skeptical of the
Libertarian Partyās ability to stay true to the vision of capitalism that
Ayn Rand projected so vividly in Atlas Shrugged and her non-fiction
writings. In the last couple of years, weāve see some high-profile
Libertarians trying to woo Rush Limbaugh Republicans by watering down
libertarian positions on abortion and other issues. You predicted this
would be devastating to the credibility of the Party. Do you think the
ćcompromise and concealmentä factor as you call it, was in part responsible
for Browneās terrible showing in the recent election?
Hornberger: I think everyone, myself included, would agree that overall,
Browne is a good spokesman for libertarianism. I think he made some
mistakes on national television÷such as calling for the assassination of
foreign leaders (Politically Incorrect) and claiming that our Southern
borders are currently open to free immigration (Meet the Press)÷but hey,
who wouldnāt make mistakes in the pressures of a presidential campaign?
Iāve come to the conclusion that there is one principle reason for
failure at the national LP level: the paradigm of unethical conduct that
has governed the LP for many years, including the right of LP presidential
candidates to make payments of money to Libertarian National Committee
(LNC) officials for ćservices rendered.ä
I believe that the American people have a keener sense of when something
feels fishy than we give them credit for. I saw this in jury trials÷jurors
might not be able to understand all the complex issues in a case, such as
the judge would, but they could instinctively size both sides up and arrive
at a just decision. I think that many regular people size up the LP,
instinctively sense that things are not right, and go elsewhere.
If Libertarians would adopt a paradigm of ethics and integrity and
combine that with libertarian principles, theyād have more success than
they would know what to do with.
Q: What else contributed to the 37% drop in Browne support between 1996
and 2000?
Hornberger: A Wall Street Journal exit poll last November showed that
American voters place ethics and moral principles at the pinnacle of their
most important issues. Voters fall into three categories: (1) those who
know about the LP and embrace it; (2) those who know about the LP and go
away because they donāt like the feel; (3) those who have never heard of
the LP. What we have to do is get those in Category 2 to embrace us so that
theyāll go out and sell the LP to Group 3. While Browne and the national LP
could excite some people in Group 1, they could not, for the reasons Iāve
stated, excite people in Group 2, and without Group 2, those in Group 3
cannot get the information. What I say is: adopt a new paradigm of ethics
and make the LP ćthe party of integrity and principle.ä That would enable
those people in Group 2 to embrace the LP comfortably, and they in turn
would become our salesmen for Group 3.
Q: Would you consider running as the VP nominee on a ticket with Ron
Paul? Would it matter if you were a Libertarian or a Republican so long as
you kept your integrity and your principles intact?
Hornberger: There are few people I admire more in life than Ron Paul. I
consider him the Frederic Bastiat of our time. He is truly one of my
heroes. He has shown that being a Libertarian (and a LP presidential
candidate to boot) is not the kiss of death among American voters. He was
attacked by both his own party officials (I can relate!) and by his
Democratic opponents, but he stuck by his guns. Those Texas voters, bless
their freedom-loving hearts, put him back into Congress.
Rather than spending time thinking about presidential politics, however,
I have decided to continue spending my time trying to persuade LP members
at the 2002 convention to adopt the new paradigm of ethics and integrity.
If they donāt put a permanent stop to the unethical conduct, in my opinion
it wonāt matter who runs for the LP presidential nomination because no one
will be able to defeat the candidate who has been ćanointedä by the LP
hierarchy to receive the benefit of general party resources being poured
into his or her campaign against other Libertarian candidates.
Again, I believe itās ethically wrong for LP officials to be permitted
to accept money from a LP presidential candidate and that itās also
ethically wrong for party officials to use LP resources to advance personal
campaign interests of any of the contenders for the nomination.
Q: FFF published Richmanās Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish
the Income Tax. How have you marketed that book and have you engaged its
detractors in dialogue?
Hornberger: We had nice sales to Conservative Book Club and Laissez
Faire Books and promoted the book in Liberty and Reason and on radio talks
shows across the country. The other thing that has revolutionized book
sales for organizations such as ours has been amazon.com, where all our
books are carried.
Q: After the income tax is gone, how do we realistically support the
operations of the government?
Hornberger: Voluntarily. In a sense, we are much like the Russians with
respect to the production of shoes. Many Russians are so accustomed to the
governmentās producing of shoes that they refuse to believe that a free
market in shoes will actually work. (What if everyone forgets to produce
shoes?) Itās the same way with government. Americans cannot imagine that
people would actually support government if they werenāt forced to. Most
people, including myself, believe that government is vitally important,
especially its police and judicial functions. Therefore, why canāt we rely
on people to voluntarily support that which they believe is important? And
the free-rider objection is answered by the fact that people support lots
of things that others donāt support but nevertheless utilize÷like churches,
opera houses, and museums.
Whatās important, from a standpoint of principle, is that no one should
be forced to support anything, not even the government, against his will.
Q: Do you think a state-by-state approach, repealing income taxes one
state at a time would get voters interested in a national income tax
abolition plan?
Hornberger: Absolutely. This is the principle reason I believe so
strongly in initiative and referendum. It is an ideal way for people to
limit the power of government. It is also a way for libertarians to bring
up libertarian concepts in elections that do not involve candidates.
Q: In an essay you wrote ćWaco: Lies, Deaths, and Cover-Upsä you ask:
ćIs it time to dismantle, not reform, the FBI and the ATF and leave law
enforcement to state and local governments?ä If we did not have the FBI
would it not make it difficult to chase criminals from state to state?
Donāt we need some agency to be a central crime bureau that keep tracks of
dangerous people and disseminates information to every state in this very
mobile society of ours?
Hornberger: I think itās actually a balancing test that is involved
here. Theoretically, a national police force that is strictly devoted to
investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and punishing violent and fraudulent
people is fine. The problem is as a practical matter, it doesnāt work out
that way.
The FBI has spied on peaceful and law-abiding citizenry, kept files on
them, and harassed political dissidents. I believe that on balance,
citizens are better off decentralizing police forces and relying on state
police forces cooperating with each other.
The ATF has no business being in existence at all, since we shouldnāt
have any laws interfering with the unrestricted ownership of weapons, and
because itās not good to have a racially bigoted government agency with
guns that kills innocent citizens without remorse or regret. It should be
abolished yesterday.
Q: Since the Federal Reserve is a fact, how do you rate Greenspanās
performance and what would you do differently?
Hornberger: I donāt think anybody can contest Greenspanās success in
reining in inflation and keeping the value of the dollar relatively sound
for the past several years. But we must not permit that success to lull us
into a false sense of security. Government control over money is quite
possibly the most threatening governmental power that exists÷threatening to
both freedom and financial well-being, perhaps even greater than the income
tax. Thatās why we must continue calling for its abolition and calling for
a free market in money and banking. I should also note the fact that
Greenspan was able to lend an enormous amount of money to Mexican
government bureaucrats without permission of Congress or the President.
Thatās the type of power that dictators have.
Q: TV is the medium of the age and exerts a considerable influence on
the culture. But besides John Stossel, there isnāt much of a voice for
liberty on TV. How can we change that?
Hornberger: I wish I knew the answer to that because the television talk
shows are filled with conservatives and leftists, all of whom are extremely
boring. They need some libertarianism to liven things up, but they just
continue sticking with whatās boring. I suppose the answer is what Leonard
Read said years ago: keep working on yourself to the point where youāre so
good at explaining libertarian principles that they begin seeking you out.
Stossel is obviously a brilliant man, but I have a strong feeling that
behind that brilliance lies thousands of hours of hard work studying and
toiling.
Q: What predictions do you have for the Bush presidency?
Hornberger: Same old Republican, hypocritical nonsense. Theyāll preach the
virtues of ćfree enterprise, private property, and limited government,ä as
conservatives always do, and then theyāll embrace all the statist programs
that currently exist. Have you noticed that theyāre not calling for
abolishing anything, not even the Departments of Education, Commerce, and
HUD÷not even nonessential agencies such as the National Endowment for the
Arts? Theyāll just continue managing the levers of the welfare state and
regulated society, doling out privileges to their buddies, in the quest to
be able to do it for eight years rather than only four.
Q: If you were elected President, what would you do during your first
week in office?
Hornberger: (1) Immediately pardon all people who have been convicted of a
nonviolent and nonfraudulent offense and continue to do so continuously
every week after that÷including nonviolent drug offenders, gun offenders,
illegal immigrants, and tax violators; (2) immediately end the repatriation
of Cuban refugees into communist tyranny; (3) order troop withdrawals from
all over the world and downsize the military-industrial complex; (4) ask
the American people to begin debating and discussing constitutional
amendments calling for the abolition of the income tax and all
welfare-state programs, including Social Security, and calling for the
total separation of education and the state and the economy and the state;
(5) do a century bike ride on Sunday.
Q: I want to read you a quote from ćHow Bad Do You Want to Be Free?ä and
then ask you something about it. You wrote:
But more is needed to achieve freedom than the necessary resolve among
freedom devotees. One of the greatest impediments to the achievement of
freedom is the lack of respectful tolerance for differing points of view
among freedom devotees. The reason we [FFF] promote different
organizations, despite philosophical, and sometimes even personal,
differences is that we want to achieve freedom in our lifetime, and we know
that these organizations, in their own way, are helping in that struggle.
When people are able to consider a different perspective on liberty, even
though it might not be our own, overall understanding of freedom is
improved. Does this mean that freedom devotees should not address
philosophical differences of perspective? Of course not. But it does mean that
we donāt have to engage in personal attacks on one another or dissociate
ourselves with others simply because they are unable to buy ćour complete
packageä on liberty.
On the one hand, this could be interpreted as supporting the argument
that David Kelley gave, around the same time as you did, in his essay
ćTruth and Toleration.ä Yet where do you draw the line÷even if civility is
still required, when is tolerance no longer required? Civility is one
thing, but an umbrella approach to libertarian activism could just as
easily lead to the subversion of the idea of liberty by allowing it to be
assimilated to ćfree-market conservatismä or ćanarchismä so long as the
intellectual public (our target market) is concerned. Surely the strongest
form of denunciation and repudiation is warranted for those who would sully
the true meaning of liberty.
Hornberger: I think the issue of tolerance depends on the situation. For
example, at FFF seminars, we are intolerant with our refusal to permit
statists to deliver lectures. But we are very tolerant in permitting any
view to be raised and discussed during the discussion sessions. Sometimes
weāll debate statists at our programs, during which we try to treat them
with the utmost courtesy and respect. Within the libertarian movement,
there is a wide range of differences on such issues as education, Social
Security, immigration, methodology, and so forth. I think itās healthy that
we encourage as much openness and tolerance in discussion and debate as
possible because itās the best way to arrive at truth and the best
solutions.
Q: On the topic of ethics, Ayn Rand maintained that self-sacrifice is
wrong and destructive. The morality of most of America is the
Judeo-Christian ethic, and self-sacrifice is one tenet. Rand maintains that
the ethic of self-sacrifice is undercutting American Capitalism, giving the
liberals the moral justification of the welfare-state, and leaving the
conservatives morally helpless to argue against it. Because of this, we
keep sliding further into socialism and our rights are continuing to be
diminished. As a Christian and a Libertarian, how would you solve this
dilemma?
Hornberger: Iāve concluded that this subject is so complex that not even
the Randians understand it. For example, Randians would argue that Mother
Theresa acted irrationally because she sacrificed her life for others. Yet,
if a person donates all his earnings to an Objectivist foundation, Randians
would say that he hasnāt sacrificed his life for Objectivists but simply
placed a high value on feeling good over what the foundation did with his
money. Well, why canāt we say that Mother Theresa put a high value on
feeling good through helping others?
Or letās say that a child is about to be run over by a bus. A
50-year-old Christian jumps in front of the bus, knowing that he will be
killed but that the child will be pushed to safety. The Randian would say
that the man has acted irrationally by sacrificing his life for another.
But if the 50-year-old happens to be a Randian and the father of the child,
the Randian will say that his act is rational because he places a high
value on his childās life. Well, why isnāt it possible for a Christian to
put a high value on a childās life who he doesnāt know?
Part of the problem, of course, is that Randians havenāt yet discovered
that God really does exist, and therefore it is entirely rational for them
to believe that those who have are acting irrationally. Moreover, Rand was
not being logical in suggesting that simply because people in society like
to help others, that that necessarily means that theyāll turn to the state
to do so.
But what attracted me so much about Rand is the strong moral foundations
she presented for a free society, even if the roots of her convictions are
different from mine.
Q: What preparation do you recommend for budding activists?
Hornberger: Discover what you love and are good at and concentrate on that.
Q: What do you do for leisure ö any hobbies?
Hornberger: Iām single, 50, Catholic, and have a well-worn copy of Cooking
for Dummies. I love to cycle and have twice done Bike Virginia, a five-day
bike ride involving a thousand riders. I also hike and occasionally do some
scuba diving. For the last few years, Iāve gotten interested in languages,
and so Iāve become fluent in Spanish and Iām now learning Italian. Last
summer I attended a language school in Florence and cycled on weekends in
Tuscany÷an awesome vacation, especially since I also love opera. While in
Florence, I got interested in Renaissance Art and I just finished a book on
the Medici family. I watch Spanish and Italian television programs
regularly.
Q: If you could give us one of the biggest lessons you have learned from
your life experiences so far, what would it be?
Hornberger: As Scott Peck puts it, life is hard. But it is also a great
adventure if you confront it directly÷family interactions, fascinating
experiences, meeting new people, having fun, making fine friendships,
working hard, and fighting important battles. My goal is, as Thoreau put
it, is not to get to the end of my life and discover that I have not lived.
|