Laura Dekker: Public School Failure or Free-Market Success Story? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 17, 2015 One of the real downsides of living under a socialist system for a long period of time is that people lose their faith in freedom and free markets. One of the best examples of this phenomenon involves public schooling, the governmental program to which American children are required to submit when they reach six years of age. The common notion ...
The Inherent Defectiveness of Public Schooling by Jacob G. Hornberger February 16, 2015 The Washington Post reported yesterday that an outgoing superintendent of public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, Joshua P. Starr, is lamenting the short tenure of school superintendents. Starr took the job of school superintendent in 2011 and is now leaving because he failed to garner the support of the local school board. Starr stated, “I think the expectations for ...
On Naming Names in My Oliver Stone Article by Jacob G. Hornberger February 13, 2015 An interesting discussion broke out yesterday on Facebook over my article “Conservative Hypocrisy on Oliver Stone.” One of the discussants asked why I hadn’t identified the people I was critiquing. Ordinarily, when dealing with conservatives, I have no reservations in identifying the people I am critiquing. For example, as the Guardian reported, the conservative Wall Street Journal published ...
Why Protect the Rich from Competition? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 12, 2015 One of the things that drive statists batty is the fact that some people have more wealth than other people. They think that life’s just unfair in that sense. They feel that everyone should have the same amount of wealth. They let the sins of envy and covetousness get the best of them. And so the statists have the federal ...
Why Did Our Ancestors Approve the Constitution? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 11, 2015 Suppose our American ancestors in 1787 had been told that the proposed Constitution, which they were being asked to approve, was going to bring into existence a federal government that would have the following powers: The power to tax people’s incomes in any amount government officials deemed appropriate. The power to regulate people’s economic activities. The power to incarcerate and fine people ...
Are Embargo Supporters and the Castro Brothers on the Same Statist Page? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 10, 2015 Fifteen years ago, I visited Cuba with the permission of both the U.S. government and the Cuban government. In the course of interviewing academic and educational organizations at the University of Havana, I was extremely surprised to discover a group of libertarians there. I also asked them the following question: If the U.S. government were to unilaterally lift its ...
ISIS Fears by Jacob G. Hornberger February 9, 2015 ISIS madness is what I call it. ISIS has become the newest fear that has taken over the lives of the American people. People are convinced that ISIS proses a grave threat to “national security.” Unless it is stopped, the American people might have to start learning how to speak Arabic or terrorist. The phenomenon is really no different from ...
The Disastrous Marriage of Public Schooling and the National-Security State by Jacob G. Hornberger February 6, 2015 Among the biggest disasters in U.S history has been the adoption of public (i.e., government) schooling and the national-security state and the subsequent marriage of these two governmental apparatuses. Public schooling has inculcated a mindset of conformity, regimentation, and deference to authority within the American people. That was its purpose. That’s why governments throughout the world, including those in communist ...
FDR’s Smashing of America’s Monetary System by Jacob G. Hornberger February 5, 2015 Among President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s notable “achievements” was his smashing of America’s monetary system into oblivion. It is impossible to overstate the significance of what Roosevelt did and the fact that he did it without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment. The Framers established the most revolutionary monetary system in history. It was a monetary system in which the ...
Who’s the War Hero? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 4, 2015 Yesterday, a Chilean court ruled that a U.S. Navy captain, Ray E. Davis, participated in the murder of two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, in Chile in 1973. The murders were committed as part of a regime-change operation in which the U.S. national-security state and the Chilean national-security state were working together to oust democratically elected President Salvador ...
McDaniel and Botkin Are Wrong: The Troops Never Defended Our Freedom in Iraq and Vietnam by Jacob G. Hornberger February 3, 2015 The controversy surrounding Sheldon Richman’s article “The American Sniper Was No Hero” generated the repeated use of a bromide that is inculcated in the American people from the time they enter the first grade in the public (i.e., government) schools that their parents are forced to send them to — a bromide that holds that the troops defend ...
Aggression and the American Sniper by Jacob G. Hornberger February 2, 2015 FFF Vice President Sheldon Richman stirred up quite a bit of controversy over his article last week entitled “The American Sniper Was No Hero.” Defenders of Chris Kyle, the U.S. military sniper around which the movie American Sniper revolved, took Sheldon to task for daring to criticize the members of the U.S. military who killed people in Iraq, ...
