Secrecy and Lies: Chernobyl and the U.S. Government by Jacob G. Hornberger June 11, 2019 SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet seen the excellent HBO miniseries Chernobyl and might yet do so, you might want to wait to read this article until after you have seen the series, as it contains spoilers. The five-part series documents the catastrophic nuclear explosion that took place at a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union in the ...
More U.S. Dictatorship against Cuba by Jacob G. Hornberger June 10, 2019 Lamenting dictatorship in Cuba, the U.S. government has decided to tighten restrictions on the freedom of Americans to travel to Cuba. Never mind that the restrictions were not enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. When it comes to fighting totalitarian dictatorship, the reasoning goes, it’s necessary to adopt dictatorial policies here at home. Freedom of travel ...
China’s Scary Rise as a Regional Hegemon by Jacob G. Hornberger June 7, 2019 What could be scarier than the rise of a regional hegemon? Right? It conjures up an image of a giant Transformer, one who is going on the march and stomping through smaller nearby nations and imposing its will on them. Scary! That’s the situation with China. While President Trump’s trade war that he has initiated ...
Discomforting Facts about World War II by Jacob G. Hornberger June 6, 2019 Given the predictable accolades regarding the 75th anniversary of D-Day in World War II — it’s important for Americans to keep in mind some discomforting facts about the so-called good war: Prior to U.S. entry into World War II, the American people were overwhelmingly opposed to entering the conflict. That’s because of two things: (1) the non-interventionist foreign policy ...
Who Is the Real Enemy of Freedom? by Jacob G. Hornberger June 5, 2019 The Fresno Grizzlies, a farm team of the Washington Nationals baseball team, are in hot water. At a Memorial Day game, the team showed an annual Cold War-era tribute video by Ronald Reagan that extolled the U.S. military and its foreign wars, including the Vietnam War, which, the film said, defended our freedoms here at home. The film ...
Would Trump’s Impeachment Lead to Freedom? by Jacob G. Hornberger June 4, 2019 For libertarians, the obvious question arises: Would the impeachment of Donald Trump lead to the free society for which we libertarians yearn? There is a simple answer to that question: The answer is No. Even if Trump is impeached in the U.S. House of Representatives, convicted in the U.S. Senate, and removed from office, we will not be any closer ...
Repeal the Espionage Act by Jacob G. Hornberger June 3, 2019 World War I is the gift that just keeps on giving. Although the U.S. government’s intervention into this senseless, immoral, and destructive war occurred 100 years ago, the adverse effects of the war continue to besiege our nation. Among the most notable examples is the Espionage Act, a tyrannical law that was enacted two months after the U.S. entered ...
The Drug War Is Totally Idiotic by Jacob G. Hornberger May 31, 2019 Pardon me for being blunt, but it would be difficult to find anything more idiotic than the war on drugs, an ongoing federal program that has been enacted and enforced by both Republicans and Democrats for decades. The program is sheer idiocy in that its supporters continue to keep it going despite the manifest failure, violence, ruination ...
Abolish the FBI by Jacob G. Hornberger May 30, 2019 As a libertarian, let me make my position clear with respect to the FBI: It should be abolished, not reformed or reined in. That’s because in a free society there is no national police force. Criminal justice, along with all the power a criminal-justice system entails, is best left at the state and local level. National police forces are ...
What American Culture Are Immigration-Control Advocates Trying to Protect? by Jacob G. Hornberger May 29, 2019 Supporters of America’s system of immigration controls often say that a system of open borders, which we libertarians favor, would destroy America’s culture. We've got to build a wall around America, they say, to keep out foreigners in order to protect our culture. But what culture exactly are they trying to protect? Maybe they ...
Iraq War Veterans Waged an Illegal War by Jacob G. Hornberger May 28, 2019 As I was reading an article in Sunday’s New York Times by a former Marine named Elliot Ackerman, an Iraq War veteran, about the battle of Fallujah, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Iraq War veterans would be better off downplaying, rather than highlighting, their military exploits in Iraq. Why do I say ...
Fallacies of Conservative Immigration Arguments by Jacob G. Hornberger May 24, 2019 Conservatives often use the national-home argument to justify their support of a system of immigration controls. They say that America is a “national home,” one owned and controlled by the U.S. government. As the owner of the “home,” the argument goes, the U.S. government has the “right” to lock the door and determine who to let into its home. ...