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Questions for the Presidential Debates

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Idiot questions to ask the presidential candidates at the debates:

  1. Why haven’t you disclosed your income tax returns?
  2. Where do you think President Obama was born?
  3. What are you going to do to create jobs?
  4. What are you going to do about a “leppo”?
  5. Who is your favorite dictator in the world?
  6. What do you think is the ideal weight for a beauty pageant contestant?
  7. Do you feel your opponent has a presidential look?
  8. Will you accept the outcome of the election?

Good questions to ask the candidates at the debates:

  1. The U.S. government has been killing people in the Middle East for 25 continuous years and, in the process, bringing untold suffering and chaos to that part of the world, not to mention the deaths, injuries, and psychological consequences to U.S. military personnel. Why do you favor killing even more people in the Middle East and what do you hope to accomplish with it? Why not simply bring home all the troops now from the Middle East and, for that matter, from the rest of the world, including Korea, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America?
  2. The federal government was converted into a national-security state after World War II because U.S. officials said that it was necessary to fight the Cold War. The Cold War ended 25 years ago. Why shouldn’t we dismantle this Cold War apparatus today, especially given all the dark-side activity in which it engages, including state-sponsored assassinations, coups, invasions, occupations, torture, support of foreign dictatorships, Guantanamo, and secret surveillance?
  3. Since the end of the Cold War, every act of American terrorism has been motivated by anger produced by U.S. interventionism abroad, including regime changes, assassinations, coups, and support of foreign dictatorships. Why not restore America’s foreign-policy heritage of non-interventionism and limit the Department of Defense to defending the United States?
  4. The drug war has brought nothing but death, destruction, official corruption, violence, crime, drug lords, drug cartels, drug gangs, gang wars, assassinations, murder, robbery, muggings, overcrowded prisons, and racial bigotry. Why do you wish to continue this federal program and what do you aim to accomplish by continuing it?
  5. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the primary purpose of the federal government on a domestic basis has been mandatory charity, which is also known as the “welfare state.” Why do you believe Americans should be forced by law to care for others and how do you reconcile that with the principles of individual liberty? Why not simply repeal Social Security and all other welfare-state programs and leave people free to decide for themselves who to care for and how to do so? Why not separate charity and the state, just as our ancestors separated church and state?
  6. Obamacare is turning out to be an absolute disaster, with insurance companies abandoning the program all over the nation. Why shouldn’t we repeal that program along with all other federal healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid? Why not separate healthcare and the state?
  7. Under the Constitution, the official money of the American people for more than a hundred years consisted of gold coins and silver coins. Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve and fiat (paper) money, we have seen decade-after-decade of constant debasement of the value of the dollar, along with an endless cycle of artificial booms and busts. Why not separate money and the state, as recommended by the Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek?
  8. For more than 125 years, Americans lived without income taxation and an IRS. Were they wrong? Why not restore an income-tax free life to the American people living today?
  9. For more than 70 years, there has been an ongoing immigration crisis, which has caused untold anxiety and depression for several generations of Americans. Why not simply open the borders to the free movements of people? Isn’t free enterprise the heritage of the American people and isn’t it the only thing that works?
  10. Every credible economist attests to the virtues of free trade and the detriments of tariffs and protectionism. Why not unilaterally lift all trade restrictions and make America a free-trade nation?
  11. The minimum wage has caused a chronic, permanent unemployment rate of 30-40 percent among black teenagers. Why shouldn’t it be repealed?
  12. As everyone acknowledges, including President and Mrs. Obama, who sent their children to private schools, schools run by the government (i.e., public schools) continue to be an enormous disaster for children and families. Why shouldn’t we end all governmental involvement in education, including federal aid and compulsory attendance laws, and leave it to families and the free market? Why not separate school and state?
  13. Gun control laws have proven to be ineffective in convincing murderers, robbers, and rapists to refrain from using guns in the commission of crime. Don’t gun-control laws simply prevent good people from defending themselves against bad people? Moreover, doesn’t widespread gun ownership among the people deter would-be tyrants from doing horribly bad things to the citizenry?
  14. U.S. sanctions and embargoes have caused untold suffering for people around the world, including the citizens of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Iraq (where U.S. sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of innocent children). Why not lift all sanctions and embargoes, especially since they constitute a grave infringement on the economic liberty of the American people?
  15. What does the word “freedom” mean to you and how do you apply it to the America’s welfare-state and warfare-state way of life?
  16. What do you believe the proper role of government is in a free society?
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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.