Social Security Insults the Young by Jacob G. Hornberger February 6, 2020 Contrary to popular opinion, especially among seniors, Social Security is not a retirement program. There is no fund into which people have been contributing their money. Instead, from the very beginning Social Security has been nothing more than a welfare program, one in which the federal government taxes younger people and gives the money to seniors. The question, of course, ...
Should the State Mandate Tipping? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 5, 2020 When I was in law school, I waited tables in a restaurant in Texas for a couple of months. The tips were good, but every once in while a customer would stiff me. The customer would be nice and friendly and never complain about the service but then just walk out of the restaurant without leaving a tip. It ...
Ignoring the Constitution by Jacob G. Hornberger February 4, 2020 Constitutional violations have become so commonplace in American life that when they occur, the reaction among many Americans is ho-hum. There are two classic examples of this phenomenon: the declaration of war requirement and gold and silver as legal tender. Article 1, Section 8, enumerates the powers of Congress. It states in ...
Do We Need the First Amendment? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 3, 2020 Many years ago, I was giving a lecture on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to a class at a public high school here in Virginia. During the course of my talk, I made the following statement: “The First Amendment does not give people the right of free speech.” I asked the students whether my statement was correct or ...
School Vouchers versus Educational Liberty by Jacob G. Hornberger January 31, 2020 It shouldn’t surprise anyone that America’s public school systems are in perpetual crisis. That’s what socialism does. It produces crises or what the economist Ludwig von Mises called “planned chaos.” It would be difficult to find a better model for socialism than public schooling. We call it “public schooling” but the more accurate name would be government schooling. This ...
The Folly of Healthcare Reform by Jacob G. Hornberger January 30, 2020 One of the popular healthcare reforms advanced by conservatives is healthcare savings accounts. Conservatives maintain that this reform is the solution to the decades-long healthcare crisis. By having everyone deposit money into a healthcare savings account, much like people put their money into IRAs, the healthcare crisis, they say, will finally be brought to an end. These conservative reformers are ...
Gun Control Folly in D.C. by Jacob G. Hornberger January 29, 2020 Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the homicide rate in Washington, D.C., in 2019 was higher than it was in 2018. There were 166 people killed in 2019, compared to 160 in 2018. In fact, the 2019 D.C. homicide rate is the highest number since 2008. But isn’t that impossible? After all, our nation’s capital has one of ...
An Unusual Lawsuit against Iran by Jacob G. Hornberger January 28, 2020 The Washington Post recently published an article about a lawsuit that American citizens have brought against Iran. The plaintiffs are Iraq veterans and families of veterans who suffered horrendous injuries or deaths while serving in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs are claiming that Iran sent roadside bombs into Iraq that wreaked massive injuries ...
Killing, Dying, and Destroying Liberty for Interventionism by Jacob G. Hornberger January 27, 2020 Take a trip to the east coast of the United States, or the west coast, or the Canadian-U.S. border, or the U.S.-Mexico border. You will notice one important thing: There is no foreign army invading the United States. Recently, Iran fired missiles at a U.S. military base in Iraq, which, as it turns out, ended up injuring dozens of U.S. ...
Copying the Communists by Jacob G. Hornberger January 24, 2020 The incarceration of 56-year-old Chinese citizen Huang Qi at the hands of Chinese authorities helps to remind us of how the conversion of the U.S. government to a national-security state fundamentally altered life in America in an adverse way. Huang is a human-rights advocate in China, one who has courageously publicized and disclosed human-rights violations ...
Two Different Americas by Jacob G. Hornberger January 23, 2020 There have been two completely different Americas in U.S. history. Let’s examine twelve ways in which they differ. 1. For more than a century after the United States came into existence, there was no income taxation or IRS. People were free to keep everything they earned and decide for themselves what to do with it.
Our American Ancestors Didn’t Trust the Federal Government by Jacob G. Hornberger January 22, 2020 The U.S. Constitution brought into existence a federal government whose powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution itself. If a power wasn’t enumerated, it simply could not be exercised. That’s because our American ancestors didn’t trust governmental power. They clearly understood, based on both historical knowledge and life experience, that the greatest threat to their freedom and well-being ...
