Who Are the Bad Guys in Egypt? by Jacob G. Hornberger January 28, 2014 Echoing the official line of the U.S. government, the New York Times has referred to the “terrorist insurgency” that has developed in response to Egypt’s military regime. The Times was specifically referring to the shoot-down of an Egyptian military helicopter by militants. For the life of me, I don’t understand why people who resist tyranny are considered “terrorists.” ...
What’s Wrong with Income Inequality? by Jacob G. Hornberger January 27, 2014 For the life of me, I just don’t understand why leftists are so concerned with income inequality. What’s wrong with some people having more income or wealth than other people? It seems to me that the obsessive concern about income inequality might have something to do with envy and covetousness, something that God says we shouldn’t be engaged in. The ...
The Rule of Law versus the NSA by Jacob G. Hornberger January 24, 2014 In the wake of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s traffic scandal, in which Christie’s aides were punishing a New Jersey mayor for not loyally supporting Christie’s reelection bid, critics were suggesting how dangerous it would be to have Christie in charge of the NSA. Imagine what he could do, people suggested, with all that personal information with which he ...
Is Life So Dear? by Jacob G. Hornberger January 23, 2014 There really isn’t anything shameful about being a serf. What is shameful is the willingness to accept one’s serfdom for the sake of being kept safe and secure. That’s the trade that unfortunately all too many Americans have made, with respect to both the warfare state and the welfare state. On the warfare state side of things, people are willing to ...
If We Had No Constitution and Bill of Rights by Jacob G. Hornberger January 22, 2014 What would life be like without the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? For the answer, all we have to do is look at places where the federal government operates independently of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Consider Guantanamo Bay, for instance, a federal installation that the president and the Pentagon announced from the very beginning would be ...
Unlimited Government by Jacob G. Hornberger January 21, 2014 One of the charades that all too many Americans, especially conservatives, continue to subscribe to is the notion that the federal government is a “limited government” — that is, one whose powers are limited in nature and scope. They like to say that this is what distinguishes the U.S. government from totalitarian regimes. Limited government was the original idea behind ...
Martin Luther King, the White Rose, and the NSA by Jacob G. Hornberger January 20, 2014 Several days ago, the New York Times reported that German officials had found the guillotine that they believe was used to execute Hans and Sophie Scholl and other members of the White Rose organization. I wrote about the White Rose in my essay, “The White Rose: A Lesson in Dissent.” Why did German officials execute the Scholl siblings? They ...
The Immoral Foundation of the Welfare State by Jacob G. Hornberger January 17, 2014 Permit me to propose a welfare program that will expose the foundation of immorality and wrongdoing that undergirds the welfare state way of life. Here’s my proposal: The federal government gives every single American adult an annual dole of $10,000. The money will be free, with no strings attached. No doubt both conservatives and liberals would enthusiastically embrace my proposal. ...
A Warped Measure of Success in the War on Poverty by Jacob G. Hornberger January 16, 2014 Proponents of the federal government’s war on poverty say that even though the war has not defeated poverty after 50 years of fierce warfare, it has been somewhat successful in alleviating poverty. What is the principal measure of success that welfare-statists point to? They point to the large number of people who have been put on the federal dole ...
A Totally Free Market System Is the Way to Defeat Poverty by Jacob G. Hornberger January 15, 2014 In response to my blog post of yesterday, “Failure, Failure Everywhere,” which discussed the manifest failure of the war on poverty, the war on drugs, and military empire and foreign interventionism, a progressive reader wrote me the following: Is freedom the right of corporate entrepreneurs to drive wages to frightfully low, existence-levels so that people who work ...
Failure, Failure Everywhere by Jacob G. Hornberger January 14, 2014 Those of us living today have been accorded the opportunity to witness the manifest failure of the America’s welfare-warfare state, as evidenced by three of the most important welfare-warfare programs of the federal government: the “war on poverty,” the “war on drugs,” and military empire and foreign interventionism. The war on poverty was declared by President Lyndon Johnson, a man ...
Master and Servant by Jacob G. Hornberger January 13, 2014 Imagine that you are a billionaire who, along with your spouse and children, lives in a mansion with 20 full-time servants. One day you discover the existence of a secret video camera in your bedroom. You hire an investigative team that scours your home for other cameras. It discovers that there is a secret camera in every room in ...