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 limited to students. Anyone can attend. The registration fee is only $50 for non-students. It’s the best deal you will ever get! If you can make it, you will be treated to a fantastic overall libertarian conference, which includes many talks on economic issues. FFF’s “conference within a conference” focuses on one general theme: “Civil Liberties and the National Security State.” Why that particular theme? I think it’s safe to say that most of us libertarians discovered libertarianism as a result of economic issues. That certainly applies to me. I discovered libertarianism in the late 1970s when I was practicing law in my hometown ...
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 the formation of the federal government. To allay people’s concerns about the new government becoming totalitarian in nature, the Framers set forth in the Constitution a small list of limited, specific, enumerated powers that the federal government was permitted to wield and exercise. If a particular power wasn’t enumerated, the federal government didn’t have it. To make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people demanded the passage of the Bill of Rights immediately after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly guaranteed fundamental rights of the people from federal infringement as well as procedural rights and guarantees when the ...
The Pipe Dream of NSA Reformers by Jacob G. Hornberger January 10, 2014 The pipe dream of many of those who are complaining about the NSA’s massive surveillance scheme is that the NSA can be “reined in” by some type of congressional legislation. They just don’t get it. As long as the NSA exists, it’s going to do whatever it needs to do to protect “national security,” even if that means breaking the law. After all, protecting “national security” is paramount. It is everything. Does anyone honestly believe that the NSA is going to let the country go down if breaking the law enables the NSA to save it? Haven’t these people ever heard the old adage, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact”? Equally important, every single NSA official knows that nothing is ever going to happen to him if he is caught breaking the law, so long as he is doing it to protect “national security.” Consider Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. When asked under oath by Congress if the NSA was ...
Morality versus the National Security State by Jacob G. Hornberger January 9, 2014 One of the horrible consequences of the national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto America’s governmental system is how it has oftentimes placed Americans in the position of choosing between morality and obedience to the law. Just this week, we have been reminded of the conflict between morality and law back in 1971, during the height of the Cold War, ...
Deliver Us from Evil in Egypt by Jacob G. Hornberger January 7, 2014 Every Sunday millions of American Christians go to church, where they recite the Lord’s Prayer, which includes the following plea to God: “Deliver us from evil.” I wonder how many of them think about their own government’s support of evil in Egypt when they say that prayer. Evil is really the only way to describe Egypt’s military dictatorship. It’s not ...
Conspiracies Are Inherent to the National-Security State by Jacob G. Hornberger December 23, 2013 I’m always fascinated — and somewhat amused — by articles that pooh-pooh the possibility of a national-security state conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The authors of such articles say that national-security state conspiracies just don’t happen. They say that the reason that assassination researchers point to a conspiracy involving the CIA and the military in ...
The CIA vs. Kennedy, Horman, and Teruggi by Jacob G. Hornberger December 9, 2013 Ten years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, agents of General Augusto Pinochet, the leader of the 1973 military coup in Chile, took tens of thousands of people into custody, brutally tortured and raped them, and murdered some 3,000 of them. Their crime? They were all accused of believing in socialism or communism or of having supported the ...
Judge John R. Tunheim and the Presumed Innocence of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jacob G. Hornberger December 2, 2013 In the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim, not surprisingly, was in the news. He served as chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board during the 1990s. The ARRB had been established by Congress in the wake of the outcry among the American people resulting from the movie JFK in ...
The Murder of Frank Teruggi by Jacob G. Hornberger September 24, 2013 Those who are familiar with my articles know that for many years I have written lots of articles about the role of the U.S. government in the 1973 regime-change operation in Chile. The most recent of my articles, entitled "The 40th Anniversary of Chile's 9/11" was published just a few days ago. After the Chilean people had democratically elected ...
The Strange Love for Pinochet by Jacob G. Hornberger September 11, 2013 As part of its coverage on President Obama’s plan to bomb Syria, yesterday’s New York Times reported the results of a survey it recently conducted. The article stated in part: When asked whether the United States should intervene to turn dictatorships into democracies, 72 percent said no while only 15 percent said yes. That is the highest level ...
The 40th Anniversary of Chile’s 9/11 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 10, 2013 Tomorrow, September 11, marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile that ousted the democratically elected socialist-communist Salvador Allende from power and installed the brutal right-wing military dictator General Augusto Pinochet. It was a coup that was not only supported by the U.S. national-security state but also one that the CIA actually helped to foment. Even ...
The Fascinating Interventionist Mindset by Jacob G. Hornberger August 28, 2013 I sometimes wonder why interventionists don’t donate their brains to science, after they die of course. It would be interesting to know whether they are born with interventionist mindsets or whether their mindsets are the result of the many years of indoctrination they received in the public (i.e., government) schools their parents were forced to send them to. The situation ...
