Private vs. Government Data Collection by Jacob G. Hornberger March 4, 2014 When referring to the massive, super-secret NSA surveillance scheme over the American people (and the people of the world), commentators oftentimes conflate data collection by the government with data collection by private entities, especially those on the Internet. The notion is that it’s all sort of the same thing and that since people are willing to let Google, Yahoo, ...
Russia Reminds Us of Us by Jacob G. Hornberger March 3, 2014 U.S. officials and the mainstream press are aflame with outrage and indignation over Russia’s invasion of Crimea. If only they would feel the same degree of outrage and indignation over what the U.S. national security state, which was grafted onto our governmental system without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment, has done to our American republic. Isn’t it fascinating ...
Is the Drug-War Worth This? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 27, 2014 For the past several days, the mainstream media has been agog over the arrest of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, much as they’ve gone agog over every other big drug bust for the past 50 years or so. The hoopla surrounding these much-ballyhooed drug busts is to ensure that the citizenry, who have become increasingly disenchanted ...
An Open Letter to African-Americans by Jacob G. Hornberger February 26, 2014 Dear African-Americans, America is embroiled in a national debate over whether the minimum wage should be raised or not. I’m writing this letter to you to seek your support of the position we libertarians take, which advocates a total repeal of the minimum wage. Supporters of the minimum wage tell you that it has no harmful effects. Nonsense! Just ask the ...
The Fifth Amendment Lies in Crumbles by Jacob G. Hornberger February 25, 2014 The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part as follows: Nor shall any person … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The term “due process of law” stretches all the way back to Magna Carta, the great charter extracted from King John in 1215 in which he was forced to acknowledge that his ...
Yawn. Another Big Drug Bust by Jacob G. Hornberger February 24, 2014 U.S. officials and the mainstream press are going gaga over the latest drug kingpin to go down. This one’s name is Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo, described by the New York Times in a front-page story today as “the world’s most wanted man – the chief executive of what experts describe as the world’s most sophisticated narcotics ...
On FFF’s Liberal Panel at the SFL Conference by Jacob G. Hornberger February 21, 2014 Among the many articles generated by FFF’s panel at the Students for Liberty conference, which featured noted liberals (i.e., progressives) Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick, and Jeremy Scahill, was one at Mediaite, which included the following: “ISFLC is an annual gathering of several thousand libertarian students from around the world. Scahill bemoaned how many of his liberal Twitter followers ...
Black Teenagers Should Call for Repealing the Minimum Wage by Jacob G. Hornberger February 20, 2014 For the life of me, I simply cannot understand how intelligent people can still support something as nonsensical as a government-established minimum wage. I find this to be absolutely incredible. The very thought that people living in the 21st century can still support such inanity is surely a testament to the destructive power of America’s governmental schooling system. The latest ...
Heading into the Storm by Jacob G. Hornberger February 19, 2014 The debt ceiling was recently raised again, this time without any fanfare among federal officials or their supporters in the mainstream press. The federal government had, once again, reached the maximum limit on the amount of debt it was permitted to incur. Raising the ceiling enables U.S. officials to continue incurring more debt, thereby adding to the enormous pile ...
Continuing the Drug War is Stupid by Jacob G. Hornberger February 18, 2014 I find the mind of a statist to be absolutely fascinating. Consider, for example, an article by a man named Steve Booher, a columnist for the St. Joseph News-Press in St. Joseph, Missouri. The title of the article is “It’s Not Time to End War on Drugs.” Is that amazing or what? Booher actually wants the drug war to ...
Empire vs. Peace, Freedom, Morality, and Prosperity by Jacob G. Hornberger February 17, 2014 The justification that U.S. officials use for their assassination of people overseas, including American citizens, is that the people they’re killing are bent on killing U.S. forces. Thus, the justification is sort of a modified self-defense concept—they’re trying to kill us and so we’re assassinating them before they have a chance to kill us. Most mainstream commentators have come to ...
The Times Just Might Be A’Changin’ by Jacob G. Hornberger February 14, 2014 The New York Times is reporting that most Americans, including a majority in Florida, favor normalizing relations with Cuba, which would mean a lifting of cruel and brutal economic embargo that the U.S. government has been enforcing against the Cuban people for more than 50 years. It’s about time. Maybe Americans are finally figuring out that the embargo is an ...