America’s Welfare-State Revolution by Jacob G. Hornberger April 2, 2015 It is truly impossible to overstate the enormity of the welfare-state revolution that occurred in 20th-century America. Consider that for more than 100 years — from the inception of the Republic until the 20th century — the American people lived under the most unusual and remarkable governmental system in history. No, I’m not suggesting that it was a libertarian paradise by ...
Is the Constitution a Failed Experiment? by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2015 Some people say that given the massive welfare-warfare state under which we now live, it’s clear that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have proven to be a failed experiment in the protection of the rights and liberties of the American people. But is that true? Consider the fact that Americans are not forced to send their children into state ...
The Biggest Threat to American Liberty by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 2015 George Washington pointed out, “Overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. Wise words by the father of our country, but ones, unfortunately, rejected by modern-day Americans, who love and idolize the enormously overgrown military establishment that now characterizes our federal governmental system. Eastern ...
The Right to Discriminate Against Ellen Pao by Jacob G. Hornberger March 30, 2015 Silicon Valley executive Ellen Pao is licking her wounds after a jury ruled against her last week in her gender-discrimination suit against former employer Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers. Pao had accused the firm of not promoting her because she’s a woman. The jury ruled against her by finding, as a factual determination, that she was not the victim ...
The Power of State Indoctrination by Jacob G. Hornberger March 27, 2015 Conservatives just don’t get it. They complain about Common Core, saying that the federal government shouldn’t be involved in education. Fair enough. No problem with that position. But the problem with conservatives is that while they want to get the federal government out of education, they steadfastly want state and local governments to continue “educating” children. Conservatives fail to see that ...
Extradition Hypocrisy by Jacob G. Hornberger March 26, 2015 A murder case in Italy stands to expose the U.S. government’s hypocritical stand on extradition, the legal process by which one country forcibly turns over a person within its jurisdiction to another country to stand trial for a criminal offense committed in the latter country. Let’s assume that John Doe, a citizen of Country A, is accused of murdering a ...
Bush’s and Maduro’s Power Grabs by Jacob G. Hornberger March 25, 2015 The Venezuelan legislature has just granted President Nicolas Maduro’s request for emergency powers to deal with the crisis posed by President Obama’s recent decree that Venezuela poses a grave threat to U.S. “national security” and Obama’s imposition of sanctions on Venezuelan officials. Not surprisingly, U.S. conservatives are ridiculing Maduro for exaggerating the threat posed by the U.S. national-security state and ...
What If We Had Public Churching? by Jacob G. Hornberger March 24, 2015 Let’s assume that for the past 100 years, the United States has had a system of public churching, modeled on the public-schooling system that America has had for more than a century. Under the public-churching system, there would be mandatory church-attendance laws that would require parents, on pain of fine and imprisonment, to send their children into the public-church system ...
A Great College Tour by Jacob G. Hornberger March 23, 2015 Last week I had an awesome time on my college tour exchanging ideas on liberty with students and non-students at four colleges in Florida: Florida International University (Miami), St. Petersburg College (St. Petersburg), Santa Fe College (Gainesville), and University of Central Florida (Orlando). The audiences consisted primarily of students in the Young Americans for Liberty, a nation-wide organization with ...
Another Nanny State Failure by Jacob G. Hornberger March 19, 2015 Advocates of the nanny state are undoubtedly suffering a bout of depression over their latest failure. According to the Los Angeles Times, a legal ban on fast-food restaurants in south Los Angeles has failed to reduce obesity. In fact, it’s worse than that. While obesity has increased in all parts of Los Angeles, the increase was largest in the ...
Does It Matter Who Is Elected President? by Jacob G. Hornberger March 18, 2015 For their entire lives, Americans living today have experienced two massive infringements on their liberty and well-being, one consisting of what we call the welfare state and the other consisting of what we call the warfare state. The welfare state encompasses coercive transfer programs, regulatory programs, and all other government programs that take care of people or subject peaceful choices ...
Conservative Blindness on Iran by Jacob G. Hornberger March 17, 2015 In a standard conservative screed against Iran, Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg begins by stating, “It has been an Iranian tradition since 1979 to end Friday prayers with chants of ‘Death to America.’ In a purely rational world, that would be all one needed to know that Iran is not a reliable negotiating partner.” Goldberg is wrong. In ...
