Private Property, Freedom, and Prosperity by Jacob G. Hornberger December 29, 2008 Two separate articles in yesterday’s New York Times reflect the meaning of private property. One article was about white farmers in Zimbabwe and the other was about a woman in Seattle named Edith Macefield. In Zimbabwe the government has been taking farms away from white owners and giving them to black citizens. When one of the ...
Bernard Madoff: Another Regulation Success Story by Jacob G. Hornberger December 19, 2008 The $50 billion fraud allegedly committed by Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff has got to be false. After all, we’ve got the SEC. Right? It’s been in existence since the 1930s. Right? Its purpose is to ensure that the American people are protected from fraud in the financial markets. Right? Well, then how is it ...
Why Not Treat the Shoe-Thrower As an Enemy Combatant? by Jacob G. Hornberger December 18, 2008 After being severely beaten by government officials in the free nation of Iraq, Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi man who threw his shoes at President Bush, is being charged with the crime of attacking a head of state, a crime that entails a possible prison sentence of 7 to 15 years.
Our Federal Daddy-God by Jacob G. Hornberger December 17, 2008 A short paragraph in an editorial in today’s New York Times provides an excellent symptom of the cancer that infects the body politic in America. The editorial addresses Caroline Kennedy’s bid to replace Hillary Clinton as New York’s U.S. senator. The paragraph reads as follows: “Another question being asked quietly among government and business types ...
Did the Shoe Thrower Hate America for Its Freedom and Values? by Jacob G. Hornberger December 16, 2008 Notice an important aspect of the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq: No one is suggesting that the reason that the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush did so because of his hatred for America’s “freedom and values.” That was the line that Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other U.S. officials immediately issued and repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseam ...
Democracy, American-Style by Jacob G. Hornberger December 15, 2008 American schoolchildren are receiving some valuable lessons in democracy, American-style. There is the matter of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is accused of soliciting bribes in return for the appointment of a U.S. Senator to replace Barack Obama. I really don’t see what all the hub-hub is about. After all, bribery is the name of the game ...
Is Mexico’s Drug War a Model for the U.S.? by Jacob G. Hornberger December 12, 2008 Throughout the decades-long history of the drug war, its proponents have had a favorite line when confronted with the abject failure of the war: “Well, it really hasn’t been waged at all. If they really fought it hard, we would have won long ago.” Thus, no matter how many people were incarcerated, no matter how ...
Stimulating a New Planet by Jacob G. Hornberger December 11, 2008 In the 1951 sci-fi movie “When Worlds Collide,” a giant asteroid is headed toward our solar system and is going collide with Earth, destroying the planet and everyone on it. However, a smaller planet, whose atmosphere is similar to that of Earth, is circulating around the asteroid and provides hope for a ...
Enemy Combatants and Freedom of Speech by Jacob G. Hornberger December 10, 2008 Some Americans favor the federal government’s post-9/11 assumption of power to arrest Americans and treat them as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terrorism.” It doesn’t matter to them that the Pentagon now has the power to round up Americans, keep them in prison camps indefinitely, torture them, and deny them all the rights ...
Hitler Favored Public Works Too by Jacob G. Hornberger December 9, 2008 As part of his plan to revive the economy, President-elect Obama is promising the largest public-works project since the Interstate Highway System. I realize that some people get upset when comparisons are made to Adolf Hitler but wouldn’t we be remiss if we didn’t recognize that public works was one of Hitler’s core programs for Nazi Germany? And yes, ...
The Nullification of the Bill of Rights by Jacob G. Hornberger December 8, 2008 Last Friday the U.S. Supreme decided to hear the Ali al-Marri case, about which we have written extensively during the past several years. See my November 25 blog post entitled “The al-Marri Case Affects Us All,” which includes links to most of the commentaries we have published on the al-Marri case. The case involves the power of the U.S. ...
Chemical Ali and U.S. Hypocrisy in Iraq by Jacob G. Hornberger December 5, 2008 Saddam Hussein’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed, also known as “Chemical Ali,” has just received a death sentence by an Iraqi court. According to the Washington Post, the punishment was for “his role in crushing a Shiite revolt in 1991, after the Persian Gulf War.” The context in which the crushing of that revolt took place is an interesting one and ...