Free Trade: A Key to a Rising Standard of Living by Jacob G. Hornberger March 19, 2019 Trade is a key to a rising standard of living in society, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. In every exchange, both sides benefit from their own individual subjective perspective. That’s because at the moment of the trade, they are both giving up something they value less for something they value more. Thus, trade enables people ...
The U.S. Death Star and the New Zealand Massacre by Jacob G. Hornberger March 18, 2019 White supremacy, we are told, is the cause of the New Zealand massacre, and gun control is the solution. That’s what the statists are saying. Their response is entirely predictable. My only surprise is that no one, as far as I know, is attributing the shooting to hatred for New Zealand’s “freedom and values.” What few are pointing to, not ...
The Horrific Long-Term Consequences of Regime Change by Jacob G. Hornberger March 15, 2019 84-year-old Emma Thiessen Alvarez has never forgotten the day in 1981 when Guatemalan officials came to her house looking for her daughter, a student leader who had escaped from military custody. Unable to find her, the officials settled for Thiessen’s 14-year-old son. She never saw him again. Thiesen’s story was highlighted in a recent New York ...
The Ongoing, Never-Ending U.S. Death Star by Jacob G. Hornberger March 14, 2019 The U.S. national-security establishment’s death star continues operating at full-speed and on auto-pilot. According to an article in Newsweek, the Pentagon and the CIA have now killed half-a-million people since 9/11. The article didn’t say how many of those dead people are estimated to have participated in the 9/11 attacks but I’d say that a ...
Conservatives and Progressives Are Denialists by Jacob G. Hornberger March 13, 2019 One of the major differences between libertarians, on the one hand, and conservatives and progressives, on the other, is with respect to freedom and reality. When it comes to the concept of freedom, libertarians have a grip on reality. Conservatives and progressives don’t. Both conservatives and liberals are convinced that they live in a free society. This mindset is reflected ...
Statist Obtuseness at the Atlantic by Jacob G. Hornberger March 12, 2019 The Atlantic has just published an article by Rene Chun, a contributing editor at Wired magazine, that perfectly demonstrates political obtuseness. Entitled “Why Americans Don’t Cheat on Their Taxes,” the point of the article is to explain why Americans have a high compliance rate with respect to the payment of income taxes. Chun’s explanation? Patriotism and loyalty. That’s what ...
Should Libertarians Support a Police State? by Jacob G. Hornberger March 11, 2019 A system of immigration controls inevitably entails the destruction of a free society. That’s because of the enforcement measures that inevitably come with immigration controls, just as thunder inevitably comes with lightning. Immigration enforcement measures always and inevitably bring into existence an immigration police state, which, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, is the opposite of a free ...
How to End Poverty by Jacob G. Hornberger March 8, 2019 For socialists, the solution to poverty is easy. All that needs to be done is for government to take money from the rich and middle class through taxation and give it to the poor. Or have government force employers, through minimum-wage laws, to pay more money to their workers. Voilà! Poverty solved! Wasn’t that easy?
Idolizing Nazism by Jacob G. Hornberger March 7, 2019 A group of public high-school students in Newport Beach, California, has provoked a huge controversy for arranging red cups in the shape of a swastika and doing a Nazi salute at a drinking party. Even though the party was a private affair, school officials and even law-enforcement officers are investigating the matter, especially since the party apparently involved some ...
The Free Market: A Powerful Redistributor of Wealth by Jacob G. Hornberger March 6, 2019 Leftists are notorious for wanting to use the force of government to confiscate money from the rich in order to equalize wealth in society. They lament large “disparities of wealth” — e.g., the fact that there are billionaires and paupers living in the same society. Sometimes leftists call for giving the IRS-confiscated money to people who have less. Sometimes they ...
Honesty About Socialism by Jacob G. Hornberger March 5, 2019 Conservatives and some liberals/progressives indignantly exclaim: “I am a capitalist, not a socialist … except for my support of: Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid; Public (i.e., government) schooling; The Federal Reserve; Immigration controls; The national income tax; The military-industrial complex; The welfare state; Foreign aid; Farm subsidies; The government-managed economy; The Postal Service; Amtrak; Public works; The Interstate Highway System; ...
The Immorality and Destructiveness of Wealth Equalization by Jacob G. Hornberger March 4, 2019 One of the hallmarks of the leftist/progressive/liberal/socialist philosophy is wealth redistribution through the force of government. Leftists/progressives/liberals/socialists lament the enormous disparities of wealth and income that exist in American society. They believe, therefore, that a legitimate function of government is to take money from the rich and either keep it for governmental expenditures or give it to the poor ...
