The Military’s Power to Imprison Americans Is Not Freedom by Jacob G. Hornberger February 13, 2014 I’d venture to say that few Americans know who Jose Padilla is. Nonetheless, Padilla is one of the most important figures in the lives of the American people. It was his case that revolutionized America’s legal system by upholding the power of the military to take American citizens into custody, put them into concentration camps for as long as ...
Embracing Nonintervention and Open Immigration by Jacob G. Hornberger February 12, 2014 One of the libertarian positions that scare some Americans is open immigration. The thought that millions of people from around the world would be free to come to the United States to tour, work, invest, open businesses, or visit people frightens them to death. Actually, however, it’s an irrational fear. Today, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in ...
No U.S. Soldier Should Have Died in Korea (or Vietnam) by Jacob G. Hornberger February 11, 2014 As the Los Angeles Times reported, four days before Christmas last year 94-year-old Clara Gantt received the remains of her husband, whom she had married in 1948. Army Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Gantt had gone missing during the Korean War and had always been presumed dead. Although he had told Clara to remarry in the event of his ...
Why Do Progressives Hate Black Teenagers? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 10, 2014 One of the favorite responses of progressives to libertarian calls to dismantle the welfare state is to ask, “Why do you hate the poor?” That question can be modified and turned back on progressives: “Why do you hate black teenagers, the people whom you condemn to unemployment and poverty with your minimum-wage laws?” After all, black teenage unemployment is a ...
Our “Conference within a Conference” by Jacob G. Hornberger February 7, 2014 I can’t begin to tell you how psyched we are about our “conference within a conference” that we are having at the 2014 Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. The entire conference goes from February 14-16 but all of FFF’s sessions occur on Saturday, February 15. Keep in mind: While the conference is oriented toward students, it is not ...
Trade-Deficit Nonsense by Jacob G. Hornberger February 6, 2014 Do you ever wish that the federal government would stop publishing data on the so-called trade deficit? It would be one of the best things the government could ever do. At the very least, it would bring an end to the nonsensical obsessiveness over the trade deficit that characterizes so many mainstream economists. The latest example of concern over the ...
Nice Job, Conservatives! by Jacob G. Hornberger February 5, 2014 When Barack Obama was elected president, the chickens came home to roost above the sordid nest that conservatives made for us after the 9/11 attacks. It was after those attacks that conservatives, quivering and quaking in their shoes over the thought that the terrorists were coming to get us, traded away the freedom of the American people to the ...
Welfare and the California Drought by Jacob G. Hornberger February 4, 2014 The drought in California and Southwestern United States remind us of the two different economic systems in U.S. history, each of which involved fundamentally different roles for the U.S. government in the economic lives of the American people. California Governor Jerry Brown has reached out to the federal government for help with the drought. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Such a ...
Military Socialism in Afghanistan by Future of Freedom Foundation February 3, 2014 Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman once pointed out that with the possible exception of the war on drugs, the U.S. military is the biggest socialist enterprise in the United States. Therefore, it shouldn’t surprise us that when the military embarks on a rebuilding campaign for foreign countries it invades and destroys, among the first things it does is adopt socialist ...
Two Opposite Systems in U.S. History by Jacob G. Hornberger January 31, 2014 There have been two opposite systems in American history. Here are the two systems: Program Social Security Medicare Medicaid Welfare Public Housing Farm Subsidies SBA Loans Education grants Economic Regulations Minimum Wage Laws Price Controls Licensure Laws Immigration Controls Public Schooling Gun Control Income Taxation Federal Reserve System Fiat Money Drug Laws War on Poverty Standing Army Military Industrial Complex CIA NSA Foreign Military Bases Foreign Policing Foreign Alliances Foreign Aid Foreign Wars Foreign Interventions Regime Change Operations Sanctions and Embargoes War on Terrorism Torture Indefinite Detention Denial of Due Process Denial of ...
Don’t Forget Financial Privacy by Jacob G. Hornberger January 30, 2014 Amidst all the revelations about how the American people, many of whom are absolutely convinced they live in a free society, have their telephone calls, emails, website visits, and who knows what else under surveillance by their own government, let’s not forget the massive infringements on financial privacy that have gone on for decades. Consider, for example, that ridiculous $10,000 ...
Racket Protection in China and the U.S. by Jacob G. Hornberger January 29, 2014 A Beijing court has just convicted two more activists of the crime of “gathering a crowd to disturb public order.” One of them, Yuan Dong, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison. The other Hou Xin was spared any incarceration. What did these two convicts do to merit their convictions? They displayed a banner in public calling ...
