Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Free Speech Loses Out in Kahre Case
by Jacob G. Hornberger
A federal judge has ruled against the ACLU’s motion to quash a subpoena that federal prosecutors had issued against the Las Vegas Review Journal in the Robert Kahre legal-tender/tax resistance case in Las Vegas.
During the trial (see my commentaries on the Kahre case here [June 26], and here [June 3], and here [August 17]), the Review Journal published a news story about the trial. On its website, several people posted comments in response to the news article. Most of the comments were critical of the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and the federal prosecution of Kahre.
Such criticisms obviously didn’t sit well with the prosecutors, who served a subpoena on the newspaper demanding production of all identifying information on all the commentators. (See my articles on the subpoena issue here [June 12], here [June 17], here [July 21], and here [June 25]).
The Review Journal opposed the subpoena as being an overbroad attack on the free-speech rights of the citizenry, which caused federal prosecutors to issue a second, modified subpoena seeking identifying information on only two critics: one who suggested that the jury “should be hung” if they returned a conviction and another who waged fictional Star Trek currency that a federal prosecutor would not reach his next birthday.
The ACLU intervened in the case, seeking to have the subpoenas quashed on the basis of the First Amendment. The ACLU also filed a motion seeking the recusal of the judge presiding over its motion.
The ACLU asked the newspaper to not comply with the second subpoena until the judge had ruled on the matter. The newspaper decided to reject the ACLU’s request and turned over the information on the two commentators, apparently under its fear that a possibility existed that the commentators might be planning a terrorist attack. Nonetheless, the ACLU continued with its motion, seeking to have the judge issue an order that the prosecutors return the information to the newspaper and not use it in any way.
Yesterday, September 29, the presiding judge, Kent Dawson, ruled against the ACLU, stating that its motion was now moot given that the jury in the Kahre case had already returned a verdict. See here and here.)
The judge’s ruling strikes me as extremely strange and highly dubious, given the timeline of events:
The ACLU’s motion and request for recusal was filed in mid-June, 2009. The Kahre verdict was reached two months later, in mid-August 2009.
Therefore, the judge obviously had two months to rule on the matter while the Kahre case was taking place. Yet, for some unknown reason he sat on the matter without ruling on it, letting the Kahre case come to a conclusion. Then, after waiting for the trial to end, he issues a ruling declaring the entire matter moot.
The judge’s action — or actually inaction — gives renewed vigor to the old dictum “Justice delayed is justice denied.” The fact that the judge himself was apparently responsible for the delay in ruling makes the matter even more egregious.
Moreover, the ACLU continues to maintain — quite correctly in my opinion — that the matter isn’t moot at all since the Kahre case is still pending, given that his sentencing is in November and given that he might appeal the conviction.
Thus, I think the judge misses the point — which is that the prosecutors’ subpoenas chill criticism of the government, regardless of whether a verdict has already been reached or not.
In an apparent partial recognition of the validity of that argument, the judge indicated that he would modify his ruling to state that the prosecutor’s initial subpoena was, in fact, overbroad. But that still misses the point — the point is that the statements in question do not arise to the level of a criminal offense and, therefore, remain protected speech. If the government can subpoena identifying information on people who make critical comments about the government that don’t violate any laws, then potential critics are chilled from criticizing government misconduct.
The prosecutors now claim that they’re just concerned that the two commentators were trying to intimidate the jury and the prosecutors. That’s palpable nonsense, especially given that jurors aren’t supposed to be reading news accounts of the trial and federal prosecutors are not likely to be the types of people to be intimidated by a few nasty comments posted on the Internet.
Actually, the government’s issuance of its initial subpoena reflects that it was the prosecutors trying to intimidate the citizenry, not the other way around. Too bad a federal judge, who job it is to uphold constitutionally guaranteed rights from government infringement, sees it otherwise.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
“In China, At Least I Would Have a Trial”
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The U.S. government has just received the ultimate put-down from one of its Guantanamo prisoners. Arkin Mahmud, a Chinese Uighur who has been held at the prison camp for 8 years, stated ruefully, “In China, at least I would have a trial and sentence.”
What bigger insult than to be accused of providing less justice than that provided by one of the most vicious and brutal communist regimes in the world?
Meanwhile, a man named Najibullah Zazi is being arraigned in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn on the charge of conspiring to commit terrorism by using weapons of mass destruction.
Separately, two other men, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi and Michael C. Fenton, are being charged in federal court with a terrorist attempt to blow up a building in Dallas.
So, what’s going on here? How can Arkin Mahmud accuse the U.S. government of maintaining a justice system that is worse than that which exists in China while, at the same time, suspected terrorists are being charged in federal court and accorded due process and a trial?
The answer lies in the hijacking of America’s criminal-justice system by the president and Pentagon after the 9/11 attacks, a hijacking that has brought nothing but shame and scorn upon our nation. The hijacking entailed the establishment of a new-fangled “judicial” system that enabled the Pentagon to circumvent the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rights and guarantees provided in those documents to people accused of crimes.
We begin with the fundamental principle for which the United States has stood since the inception of our nation: People who are accused of crimes by the federal government are entitled to certain procedural protections, whose origins stretch back centuries into English jurisprudence. These include such principles as the rights to counsel, trial by jury, due process of law, habeas corpus, bail, speedy trial, and the rights to be free from arbitrary arrest, unreasonable searches and seizures, and cruel and unusual punishments.
Such crimes included the crime of terrorism, a crime that is expressly enumerated in the U.S. Criminal Code. That’s why, for example, Ramzi Yousef, who committed the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, was indicted, convicted, and sentenced in federal district court. The same goes for Zacharias Moussaoui, one of the 9/11 hijackers.
In the fear-laden environment of post-9/11, the president and the Pentagon committed one of the biggest power grabs in history. They set up an alternative “judicial” system in Cuba, one that would serve as an alternative to the federal-court system established by the Constitution.
The Pentagon’s system entailed denial of speedy trial, the use of hearsay, the use of evidence acquired by torture, the denial of effective assistance of counsel, the denial of trial by jury, a presumption of guilt, and the use of kangaroo military tribunals whose verdict was to be preordained.
The alternative system would be the federal court system, which would continue to operate under the principles of the Constitution.
Which system is a person accused of terrorism entitled to? The decision is left entirely to federal officials. It is entirely arbitrary and ad hoc. The lucky ones get the federal-court system. The unlucky ones get Gitmo.
Those who claim that the federal courts are not equipped to handle terrorism case are obviously misguided or uninformed because the federal courts are, in fact, handling terrorism cases and have been doing so, both before and after 9/11. Those who make that invalid claim are defending, knowingly or not, a system whereby the feds wield the stand-by power to circumvent the Constitution by seizing anyone they want, including American citizens, incarcerating them for life, subjecting them to torture and abuse, and denying them due process and a fair and speedy trial.
The Gitmo system is the one that Arkin Mahmud, along with his younger brother Bahtiyar, got shunted into. That’s why they’re still in prison eight years later. It’s worth mentioning that in a habeas corpus proceeding, a U.S. district court, finding no valid reason for their incarceration, ordered their release into United States a year ago, an order that the Justice Department continues to resist.
When you were growing up, did you ever think you would see the day where people would be complaining that America’s criminal-justice system was worse than that of the communists? The sooner we rid our nation of the shameful “judicial” scourge being operated by the feds at Guantanamo, the better off we Americans will be.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Monday, September 28, 2009
My Appearance on Judge Napolitano’s “Freedom Watch”
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Last week I had the good fortune of appearing on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Internet program “Freedom Watch.” You can see the video here. The topic was “Auditing the Fed” but most of the discussion revolved around ending the Federal Reserve System.
I pointed out how the Fed is an engine of government confiscation of wealth, one that enables this omnipotent government agency to steal people’s money secretly and surreptitiously.
I also pointed out that the reason the Framers had chosen a gold standard for the American people, one in which people used gold, silver, nickel, and copper coins for their money, was to protect them from monetary debasement, which is precisely what the Fed is all about.
The gold standard, of course, was abandoned by the generations of Americans living in the 20th century, resulting in decades of monetary chaos and continual debasement of the currency. (See my recent series “Gold and Freedom” in Freedom Daily.)
Given that Judge Napolitano is a libertarian rather than a conservative. I think it’s impressive (and, well, surprising) that Fox News has him there.
Conservatives love to rail against Big Government but you can almost always tell that it’s just a knee-jerk, standard, superficial position that’s designed to defeat Democrats and get Republicans elected to public office. As soon as there is a Republican president or Republican-controlled Congress, for example, the conservative voices exclaiming against Big Government, Big Spending, and Big Debt go silent, especially when Big Government is dropping Big Bombs overseas and engaging in Big Assaults on civil liberties here at home.
Andrew Napolitano falls into a completely different category, a libertarian one — one that understands the real nature of government and its role in a free society. There’s no freedom claptrap with this man.
I’ll never forget my reaction as I was reading his book The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land a few years ago. I was expecting a standard conservative book with the standard conservative tripe.
Not so! As I turned each page, it quickly became obvious to me that here was a man who truly understands the threat that the federal government poses to our freedom, and how the federal government has been taking away people’s freedom especially with its war on terrorism, and how the Constitution was intended by the Framers to protect us from such infringements. The book was filled with no-holds-barred, pure, distilled libertarian perspectives on freedom, government, and the Constitution.
Thus, when we began planning our 2007 conference “Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties,” Andrew Napolitano was on our list of speakers to be invited. His speech, delivered on the same evening as Ron Paul’s speech, was one of the best-received at the conference. You can see it here. As you can imagine, the conference room that evening was filled with electricity!
I’ve just started reading Napolitano’s newest book Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America. After reading just a couple of chapters, it has quickly became clear to me clear that Napolitano has maintained his sharp libertarian edge in this book. Pulling no punches, he points to one major culprit when it comes to slavery — government — federal, state, and local.
With John Stossel’s upcoming switch to Fox, it will be interesting to see if a libertarian synergy develops between Napolitano and Stossel. The libertarian movement is fortunate to have both of them on our side spreading libertarian ideas on television and on the Internet.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Public Schooling Is Like the Army
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The Right is in an uproar over a video that has surfaced on YouTube showing schoolchildren at a public elementary school in New Jersey being trained to sing a paean to President Barack Obama. Conservatives say that the song is no different than what schoolchildren were trained to do in Nazi Germany and Maoist China and which is still being done in North Korea.
Here’s a link to the video:
https://www.yaliberty.org/posts/elementary-students-taught-to-praise-obama
Here’s a link to the lyrics the kids are singing: https://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212258016.shtml
Meanwhile, the Left’s reaction is that this is all much ado about nothing: https://tinyurl.com/y8v7sps.
What the Left and the Right fail to recognize, however, is that the fundamental problem of public (i.e., government) schooling is not so much the indoctrination that inevitably takes place during the 12 years that children are attending.
Instead, the problem is the ultimate goal of government schooling — the molding of each child into a “good, little citizen,” one who will faithfully support the state and never challenge it in fundamental ways. That’s the state’s primary purpose of controlling the educational system in every country.
The best way to look at public schooling is to think about conscription and the military. The military drafts an 18-year-old. Instead of simply training him to shoot and fight, the military sends the draftee to boot camp, where he is required to submit to the most humiliating and meaningless tasks.
The primary purpose of boot camp is to eliminate any sense of personal independence and dignity from the draftee. The purpose of requiring him to perform meaningless tasks is to mold his mindset into one of conformity and obedience. He must be made to understand that he is no longer an individual selfishly seeking his own personal interests but rather a cog in a big machine that is charged with fulfilling an important collective mission.
In principle, that’s what government’s schooling systems are all about. Over a period of 18 years, the mission is to gradually mold each student to have a mindset of conformity and obedience. Any sense of individuality and independence must be grinded out of him. Like draftees in the military, the students must be made to feel like that they are simply cogs in a great big collective machine.
Most children simply submit, just as most draftees do. They think that it’s the right thing to do, especially given that their very own parents have sent them into the system and fully support it.
But a fascinating aspect to the process is that some kids instinctively realize that such a system is aberrational and dysfunctional. They resist the process. They become bored with their classes. They have little respect for the teachers and administrators. They skip school. They rebel.
Obviously, that doesn’t sit well with government-school officials, especially given that such independent-mindedness might begin influencing the other kids who are submitting and conforming. Something must be done. The notion is that something is obviously wrong with these rebellious kids. How else to explain their “irrational” and “unnatural” resistance to this wonderful, state-run system?
That’s where the drugs come in. For example, Ritalin. The children must be drugged in order to end their disinterest and boredom. The kids must be drugged and disciplined until they become one of “us” — the collective mass working together to achieve collective goals.
Unfortunately, all too many parents go along with the drugging of their recalcitrant children, especially given that they themselves were made into “good, little citizens” who now fully support the state’s mission of converting children into proper cogs in the machinery. The whole process is enough to remind one of that scary movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Fortunately, the process is not foolproof. Libertarians, who have broken free of the indoctrinating process, are proof positive. That’s why we know that the solution is not to prohibit state officials from requiring students to sing paeans to public officials. Instead, the solution is to separate school and state entirely and leave families free of this aberrant and dysfunctional state system of control.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Second-Best Solution to Health Care: Do Nothing
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The second-best solution for the health-care crisis? Do nothing.
Of course, that drives the interventionists crazy. “Do nothing?” they cry! “Don’t you realize that we’re in a crisis? We can’t afford to do nothing!”
What they fail to realize is a fundamental principle about interventionism: It produces more crises. Therefore, any new health-care intervention, whether termed “reform” or “modification” or “improvement” is only going to make things worse than they already are. New interventions will produce new and bigger crises, thereby producing calls for more “reform” in the future.
What ultimately happens is that as the crises and interventions grow in number and intensity, people get so frustrated that they end up supporting a complete government takeover of that particular segment of society. In fact, that’s already happening in the health-care debate.
So, if doing nothing is the second-best solution for the health-care crisis, what’s the best solution?
The answer to that question depends on figuring out the root cause of the problem. In a sense, that task is no different from that which a physician faces when an ailing patient comes to visit him. The doctor examines the patient, arrives at a diagnosis, and issues a prescription. The correct prescription usually depends on a correct diagnosis. Get the diagnosis wrong, and more often than not the prescription will be wrong.
It’s really no different in principle with ailments that afflict the body politic. Get the diagnosis wrong and it’s likely that the prescription will be wrong.
The diagnosis that interventionists have reached in America’s health-care crisis is that the crisis is caused by too much freedom and free enterprise in the heath-care arena. Thus, their prescription is not surprising: Socialism and interventionism.
The problem with this diagnosis, however, is that the diagnosticians fail to account for the critical factor in the ailment of the patient: massive socialism and interventionism in health care in the past. It simply never occurs to these people that those things could be the root cause of what ails the body politic — the root cause of the health-care crisis. To socialists and interventionists, it is inconceivable that socialist and interventionist programs are anything but positive, healthy things for a society. That’s why they consider them the medicine, not the source of the ailment.
That, of course, leads us to an opposing diagnosis — that it’s not freedom and free enterprise that have caused America’s health-care crisis but instead the socialism and interventionism that have infected every aspect of the health-care field.
First, on the demand side of health care you’ve got ever-growing Medicare and Medicaid expenditures, which have placed an enormous upward pressure on health-care costs.
Second, you’ve got massive government regulation of both the medical and insurance industries, adversely impacting both the demand side and supply side of health care.
Third, you’ve got income-tax manipulation that has perverted the market with respect to employer-provided health-care insurance.
Fourth, on the supply side of health care you have occupational-licensure laws, which have strictly limited the supply of health-care providers.
Therein lies the root cause of America’s health-care crisis. Thus, the prescription is obvious: radical surgery by removing all of this cancerous material from the body politic. No reform. Simply an immediately repeal of Medicare, Medicaid, health-care and insurance regulations, and medical licensure. End all government involvement in health care. Given the positive power of the free market and the enormous resiliency of human beings, the body politic will immediately begin recovering.
That is the only solution to America’s health-care crisis. But if Americans cannot bring themselves to rid the body politic of all this socialist and interventionist cancer, then the second-best solution is to do nothing at all. Because infecting the body politic with even more cancer will only make the condition worse.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Private Attorneys Are Not “Officers of the Court”
by Jacob G. Hornberger
According to a recent article in the New York Times, a private attorney has been reprimanded by the Florida Bar Association for describing a local judge as an “evil, unfair witch” on his blog. The lawyer was angry over the judge’s practice of giving criminal-defense lawyers only a week to prepare for trial rather than the customary month or more. According to the lawyer, Sean Conway, the judge’s motive was to pressure defense lawyers into seeking a delay, thereby waiving their client’s right to a speedy trial.
What about a principle called freedom of speech? After all, it’s not as if the lawyer was in the courtroom when he described the judge in such nasty terms. He was outside the courthouse, like at his private office or his home.
The rationale for punishing the lawyer arises from one of the most pernicious — and false — doctrines ever promulgated in the legal profession, one that most lawyers unfortunately have come to meekly accept. It’s a doctrine that claims that private lawyers are “officers of the court,” thereby subjecting their conduct, even outside the courtroom, to the control of the state.
Private lawyers are no more “officers of the court” than their clients or, for that matter, spectators in the courtroom.
The “officers of the court” are those people who are on the court payroll — those who receive a paycheck from the government (i.e., the taxpayers). Court bailiffs are officers of the court. So are judges and prosecutors. These people work for the state as court personnel. That’s what makes them “officers of the court.”
Not so with private attorneys. They serve as agents for their clients, not for the state.
Does the judge have the authority to control the conduct of an attorney within the courtroom? Of course. But that’s only because the courtroom is the judge’s arena. As such, he has the authority to set the rules of decorum and conduct within it. Thus, a judge can prohibit lawyers appearing in his court from making insulting statements in the courtroom. But of course the same holds true for the clients and the spectators.
But that doesn’t convert the spectators, the clients, and the lawyers into “officers of the court.” It simply means that when they walk into a courtroom, they subject themselves to the rules that the judge has set forth for the courtroom.
Once the spectators and the clients leave the courtroom, they’re free to say anything they want about the judge, prosecutor, bailiff, jury, or anyone else, no matter how insulting, nasty, or critical. That’s what freedom of speech is all about. And the same holds true for the lawyers who have represented clients in the courtroom.
To suggest that clients and spectators have somehow become “officers of the court” simply because they have appeared in court would, obviously, be ridiculous.
But it’s just as ridiculous to say that a private attorney is an “officer of the court” simply because he has appeared on behalf of a client in court. He remains as much a private citizen as the spectator and the client. Thus, once he walks outside that courtroom, he is as free as every other private citizen to say whatever he wants about the judge, prosecutor, system, or anything else, no matter how vile, nasty, or critical.
Too bad Sean Conway decided not to fight the state’s punishment for his blog post about that judge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It would have given the Court the opportunity to clarify that the Constitution guarantees the fundamental rights of private attorneys as much as those of everyone else.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Pentagon Is Bankrupting Us
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Consider this excerpt from The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman that appeared in yesterday’s Washington Post:
Gorbachev had concluded that the sprawling Soviet defense establishment — the army, navy, air force, strategic rocket forces, air defense forces, and all the institutes, design bureaus and factories that supported them — was a monumental burden on the country. “Defense spending was bleeding the other branches of the economy dry,” he recalled. The extent of the bleeding was concealed by such deep secrecy that even Gorbachev said he had trouble obtaining accurate information.
Why can’t the American people recognize that that’s precisely what is happening in the United States today? The U.S. military — euphemistically called the “defense” establishment — or as President Eisenhower described it, the “military-industrial complex” — is a monumental burden that is bankrupting our country, especially in combination with the ever-increasing burden of the domestic welfare state.
First, it takes tax dollars to support soldiers. That’s a burden — a drain — on the private sector. With the dismantling of the wartime military machine, the taxes necessary to support the machine can be ended, leaving all that money in the hands of the private sector. That means more savings, investment, and consumption and increasing wage rates and profits.
The basic idea is more taxes mean more poverty. Lower taxes mean more prosperity and higher standards of living. That’s what Gorbechev was alluding to when he referred to the enormous burden that the military-industrial complex was placing on the Soviet Union.
Second, by being discharged the soldiers themselves cease being non-productive members of society and become productive members of society. As soldiers, they’re not producing anything. They’re a burden, a drain on the private sector. It’s only the private sector that is productive.
Thus, the dismantling of an enormous military-industrial complex would have the doubly positive effect of ending an enormous tax burden on the citizenry and adding productive people to the marketplace.
After every U.S. war, the custom had been to dismantle the military and discharge the soldiers into the private sector, which would cause economic prosperity to soar. After World War II, however, the U.S. military and military-industrial complex convinced policymakers not to dismantle the wartime machine. The Soviet communist threat, the militarists claimed, required the permanent and ever-growing existence of the military and military-industrial complex in American life.
Ironically, the new enemy that the U.S. militarists claimed justified this enormous and ever-growing military burden was the U.S. government’s very own ally in World War II, an ally into whose control the U.S. had just delivered East Germany and Eastern Europe, including Poland, a country to whom Great Britain had promised freedom at the outset of the war.
What happened when the Soviet communist threat ended in 1989? The Pentagon went desperately searching for a new mission to prevent the dismantling of its permanent wartime machine. After poking hornet’s nests in the Middle East throughout the 1990s, it came up with a new enemy after 9/11 — a permanent one — to justify its existence, an enemy that its very own poking had helped to produce — terrorism.
Today, we’ve got the Pentagon telling President Obama that it needs an increase of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan to succeed against “the terrorists” in Afghanistan. But if 9 years of bombing and killing “terrorists” hasn’t been enough to achieve “success” by now, that’s failure itself. The problem, of course, is that the permanent bombing and killing have only served to generate a perpetual terrorist-producing machine.
Why in the world do we need this enormous permanent military burden on America? Why not bring all the troops home, from Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe, Korea, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and everywhere else and discharge them? Why not dismantle the military and military-industrial complex, thereby relieving the private sector of this tremendous burden? Why not restore a constitutional republic to our land, as the Founding Fathers intended? Why not restore peace, prosperity, and harmony to the United States?
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Monday, September 21, 2009
A Hypothetical Invasion of Bolivia
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Suppose the world had awakened this morning to the news that the Russian army had attacked and invaded Bolivia. Thousands of Russian paratroopers have landed in the country, securing airports, permitting hundreds of Russian transport planes to bring in tens of thousands of Russian soldiers.
Despite being badly outmanned and outgunned, the Bolivians, both military and civilian, are resisting the invasion fiercely. Both the Russians and the Bolivians are suffering hundreds of casualties.
When asked why Russia has decided to invade Bolivia, Russian officials respond, “In order to spread democracy, stability, peace, and freedom in Latin America.”
What would be the reaction of the American people? My hunch is that at least 99 percent of the American people and 100 percent of U.S. officials would be angry and outraged. Immediately, U.S. officials would be denouncing the raw, naked aggression and demanding that Russia exit Bolivia immediately. Many federal officials would even be demanding U.S. intervention on behalf of the Bolivians.
My hunch also is that there would be very little sympathy for the Russian soldiers who were losing the lives in the battles. The attitude among Americans would be that they shouldn’t have invaded Bolivian in the first place. Virtually all the sympathy, I think, would be with the Bolivian people, especially those who were losing their lives in the conflict.
Now, change the identity of the invader. This time the world wakes up to the news that the United States has invaded Bolivia. Fierce battles are taking place and both sides are taking heavy casualties.
When asked why the U.S. has invaded Bolivia, U.S. officials respond, “In order to spread democracy, stability, peace, and freedom in Latin America.”
My hunch is that the reaction of many Americans would be entirely different. Bumper stickers would immediately appear on cars across the land exhorting Americans to “support the troops.” The following Sunday and every Sunday after that, ministers in both Catholic and Protestant churches would be asking their parishioners to bow their heads in silence and pray for the troops who are in harm’s way, working for peace and defending our freedoms in a faraway land. American soldiers being killed would be mourned and medaled as having died in the service of their country. The Bolivian dead would be called “the bad guys.”
How can we be certain that the American reaction to a Russian invasion of Bolivia would be dramatically different from a U.S. invasion of the country?
Two reasons: Afghanistan, which both the Soviet Union and the U.S. invaded, and Iraq, which the U.S. invaded.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Epoch Battle of Our Time
by Jacob G. Hornberger
It seems as though every statist has his favorite health-care reform and, more important, is convinced that his particular reform is the one that is finally going to make socialism and interventionism succeed.
I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but it just ain’t gonna happen. Socialism and interventionism are inherently defective. They cannot be made to succeed. Even if the most brilliant set of minds comes up with the most brilliant health-care reform, the system will remain in chaos and crisis and, before long, people will once again be calling for reform and coming up with their favorite reform plans that they’re convinced will finally make the system work.
The core reason why America’s health care is in such a mess is owing to socialism and interventionism. That’s what these people keep missing, and the reason they keep missing it is because they simply do not want to let go of their socialism and interventionism. They’re too committed to the idea that government should be involved in health care and, for that matter, most everything else.
Thus, all their reform plans presume that socialism and interventionism are a given. No one is supposed to question the role of government in health care. Instead, everyone is supposed to just assume that socialism and interventionism are now a permanent feature in American life and come up with some silver-bullet reform that will finally make them work.
Suppose a group of people start beating their heads against a wall, all day long, day in and day out. After a while, they begin suffering headaches.
So, everyone decides to come up with reforms to cure the headaches. One reformer advises the group to pad the wall. Another reformer suggests taking pain relievers. Another recommends changing the position of the head. Everyone is convinced that his particular reform is ingenious and will succeed in stopping the headaches.
Then, along comes a libertarian and says, “Actually, none of these reforms is going to work because they don’t get to the root of the problem.” His suggestion: “Stop beating your heads against the wall!”
Immediately, the libertarian is hit with all sorts of vile and vituperative reactions: “You’re an extremist! You’re a radical! You’re whacky! We need reform, not eradication. Be practical. Join the mainstream and help us come up with the right reform to cure the headaches.”
In one sense, social problems are much like medical problems. If the doctor gets the diagnosis wrong, he’s likely to get the prescription wrong. The same holds true for political and economic ailments that afflict the body politic.
The health-care crisis is rooted in Medicare and Medicaid, government regulation of the health-care and insurance industries, tax-code incentives for employer-provided medical insurance, and medical licensure.
Thus, there is but one solution to this mess: repeal all of those things. Don’t reform them. Don’t fix them. Just repeal them. Get government entirely out of the health-care business. Separate health care and state as fully and completely as our ancestors separated church and state.
The health-care debate reflects the battle of our age — the battle between those of us who are fighting to restore economic liberty and free markets to our land and those who are battling to extend statism. As Ludwig von Mises stated, “No one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.”
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Operation Northwoods and the 9/11 Truthers
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Writing about the recent resignation of Van Jones, President Obama’s appointee to be green-jobs czar, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer says good riddance.
What set Krauthammer off was not that Jones had once used profanity to describe Republicans or even that he might have been a self-proclaimed communist. What made Krauthammer angry and outraged was that Jones had had the audacity to suggest that the federal government might have had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and knowingly let the attacks go forward.
There could be two possible reasons for Krauthammer’s reaction to those people in the so-called 9/11 Truth movement, people who believe either that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job masterminded by U.S. officials or that federal officials knew that such attacks were going to take place and did nothing to prevent them.
One possible reason for Krauthammer’s reaction is that he simply isn’t convinced by the evidence that the Truthers have produced to make their case.
Personally, this is the category I fall into. I have no doubts that the 9/11 attacks were no different in principle from the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center: that is, that the attacks were motivated by deep anger and hatred arising from the bad things that the U.S. government has done (and continues to do) to people in the Middle East. Or to use the term that Chalmers Johnson used in his book that makes the same contention, the 9/11 attacks were “blowback” from U.S. foreign policy. The 9/11 Truthers have not convinced me otherwise.
My hunch, however, is that that’s not the reason for Krauthammer’s reaction to the 9/11 Truth movement. My hunch is that he falls within the other possible reason — that it is simply inconceivable that federal officials would ever do such a dastardly thing.
Here’s what Krauthammer says: “Unlike the other stuff (see above), this is no trivial matter. It’s beyond radicalism, beyond partisanship. It takes us into the realm of political psychosis, a malignant paranoia that, unlike the Marxist posturing, is not amusing. It’s dangerous.”
Unfortunately, however, in his article Krauthammer failed to address what is a very discomforting fact, one that unequivocally confirms that U.S. officials are indeed capable of committing such a dastardly act. I’m referring, of course, to Operation Northwoods, the plan conceived in 1962 by a unanimous Joint Chiefs of Staff to implement fake hijackings and fake terrorist attacks, with the objective of serving as a pretext for a U.S. military invasion of Cuba.
Click here for the Wikipedia entry on Operation Northwoods.
Here’s what author James Bamford stated about Operation Northwoods in his book Body of Secrets:
Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
Now, there’s always the possibility that Krauthammer has never heard of Operation Northwoods. But really, how likely is that? He’s a well-educated and well-read man who serves as a regular columnist for one of the most prominent newspapers in the world.
So, why wouldn’t Krauthammer address the Operation Northwoods problem in the context of his outrage over people in the 9/11 Truth movement?
My hunch is that the problem is psychological. Operation Northwoods is a reality that conflicts with Krauthammer’s innocent but false reality about the federal government. Therefore, he simply chooses, consciously or subconsciously, to ignore the Northwoods reality in order to maintain his own naïve and false reality about how the federal government operates.
How about it, Krauthammer? How about explaining your shock and outrage about the 9/11 Truthers to the Washington Post’s readers in the context of a discussion about Operation Northwoods? I’m sure lots of people (including me) — would love to read your explanation.
Fortunately, President Kennedy, to whom the Pentagon proposed Operation Northwoods, rejected it.
Ever since then, has the Pentagon denounced, apologized, or expressed any remorse or embarrassment for Operation Northwoods?
No, not in the least!
Thus, while the case made by the 9/11 Truthers might fall for lack of evidence, given Operation Northwoods how can anyone, especially the Pentagon, be surprised that there are people willing to believe that the federal government is capable of such things? Doesn’t the Pentagon bear some responsibility here?
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
China’s Retaliation against Obama’s Protectionism
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Several years ago, neocon supporters of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions didn’t pay much heed to how their adventures were placing our nation in a very precarious financial condition. Ironically, a liberal president, through his devotion to labor unions, might now be making that risk much greater and more likely to materialize.
You’ll recall that after 9/11, neocons were thirsting for vengeance, which ultimately manifested itself with invasions and occupations of two countries, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, we fervently opposed both interventions, primarily on moral grounds.
We argued that an invasion of Afghanistan would result in the killing and maiming of countless innocent people and that it would be better to treat the 9/11 attacks in the same manner that the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was treated — as a criminal justice matter.
We also fervently opposed the invasion of Iraq, a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, on the same ground — that countless Iraqis would be killed and maimed for no good reason.
Our opposition to the invasions was drowned out with the neocon calls for “patriotism,” which meant blind support of whatever the federal government was doing with its troops. Since then, it is impossible to know precisely how many Afghanis and Iraqis have been killed and maimed at the hands of U.S. forces but the number surely exceeds a million. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, remains on the loose, continuing to make threatening videotapes.
Behind the moral argument against invading and occupying these two countries, however, was the financial or monetary argument — that these imperial adventures would be extremely costly in terms of military expenditures.
Again, however, we were drowned out by the neocons. “The federal government is rich,” they cried. “It can afford to do anything — and without raising taxes.”
And as long as taxes weren’t being raised, Americans didn’t much care to know how the federal government was paying the exorbitant costs of these invasions and occupations.
Thus, what people failed to notice was that U.S. officials were borrowing the money to pay for these military escapades, running up mountains of debt for which U.S. taxpayers are ultimately liable.
Even worse was where they were borrowing much of the money: from the communist regime in China, one of the most brutal, anti-democratic regimes in the world. That’s how China has turned out to be one of the U.S. government’s principal creditors.
Today federal spending continues to soar out of control, both for socialist and regulatory programs at home, and interventionist and imperial programs abroad. The hope among U.S. officials is that China will continue not only to lend new sums of money to the U.S. Empire but also that it will continue to roll over the debt it has accumulated.
So, what does all this have to do with Obama’s devotion to labor unions?
Even though it was a Republican, George W. Bush, who racked up the enormous debt, we now have a Democrat, Barack Obama, in office who continues to do the same.
To compound the problem, however, Obama has decided to instigate a trade war with the Chinese government. To show his loyalty to American labor unions, Obama has imposed a 35% protective tariff on tires imported from China.
Not surprisingly, China isn’t taking the measure lightly. It is retaliating by imposing protective tariffs on U.S. poultry and automobile imports.
Of course, this type of trade war is not good for the American people. But the real question is whether the Chinese government will limit its reaction to retaliatory tariffs. According to the New York Times, Chinese websites have been filled with “nationalistic vitriol” against the United States, with one blogger calling on the Chinese government to sell its entire holdings of U.S. treasury bonds.
Would the Chinese regime ever get so angry that it would do such a thing? Some people say no because they say it would be too costly to them.
Don’t be too sure though. When regimes get angry with each other, there is no telling what they’re capable of, no matter how irrational. If China decides to raise the stakes to a higher level by suddenly dumping its holdings of U.S. bonds on the market, Americans are likely to finally get a first-hand, direct look at the financial cost of U.S. socialism at home and imperialism abroad, beginning with an unfathomable plunge in the value of the dollar.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Interventionism, Empire, and the Taliban
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The U.S. government’s primary justification for continuing the occupation of Afghanistan is to prevent the Taliban from regaining power and providing a sanctuary for al-Qaeda. Ironically, however, this is another example of the disastrous consequences of imperialism and interventionism, for it was the U.S. invasion itself that created the problem that now serves as the main justification for the indefinite occupation of the country.
Interventionists often delude themselves with respect to why the U.S. government attacked both al-Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11. They say that the Taliban had provided a “sanctuary” for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Yet, what exactly is a “sanctuary”? Does it mean simply that terrorists are living in a country when they are planning a terrorist attack on another country?
If so, then what about the 9/11 terrorists who were living here in the United States prior to the attacks, especially those who were living here by permission of the U.S. government? Would that mean that the U.S. government provided a “sanctuary” for the 9/11 terrorists?
Or how about Germany, where some of the 9/11 terrorists had some of their planning sessions? Was Germany providing a “sanctuary” to them?
Of course not. Simply because terrorists are residing in a country when they’re conspiring to commit a terrorist act is insufficient to hold the particular regime of that country responsible for the criminal act. Obviously, more is needed to justify an attack against a nation state. Complicity in the attack has to be a necessary prerequisite to justify going to war against a foreign regime.
Did the Taliban regime actually conspire with Osama bin Laden to commit the 9/11 attacks? Did the Taliban even know that bin Laden was planning the attacks and fail to do anything to prevent it?
If the U.S. government had any evidence whatsoever that established Taliban complicity in the attacks, don’t you think it would have released such evidence by now? Yet, 8 years after the attacks it still hasn’t done so, and the only possible reason for that is that no such evidence exists.
After 9/11, Bush requested the Taliban to voluntarily turn bin Laden over to the U.S. Does anyone think that Bush would have made such a request if he actually possessed evidence that the Taliban had participated in the attacks? Not a chance. If Bush had had such evidence, he wouldn’t have asked the Taliban to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. He would have simply attacked both Afghanistan and al-Qaeda, perhaps even with the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war.
In fact, if the Taliban had complied with Bush’s request to deliver bin Laden to U.S. forces, it is a virtual certainty that the U.S. would never have attacked the Taliban regime and ousted it from power.
Why didn’t Bush limit his military attacks in Afghanistan to going after bin Laden and al-Qaeda? Why did he use his military forces to also oust the Taliban from power? Simply because the Taliban had refused to grant his request to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. In a world in which the U.S. government is the sole remaining empire, third-world regimes either comply with the Empire’s requests or suffer the consequences.
(Although there was no extradition agreement between Afghanistan and the U.S., the Taliban did indicate a willingness to turn bin Laden over to an independent tribunal if Bush could provide evidence to justify his extradition request.)
We should also keep in mind that in 2001 prior to the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government had already provided $125 million in foreign aid to Afghanistan. In an article dated November 5, 2001, Ron Paul observed that as late as May 2001, “the U.S announced that we would reward the Taliban with an additional $43 million in aid for its actions in banning the cultivation of poppy used to produce heroin and opium.”
We also shouldn’t forget the Taliban was nothing more than the outgrowth of the very group that the CIA had funded and supported to oppose the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan.
So, after having previously supported the Taliban, by choosing to oust it from power when it invaded Afghanistan the U.S. government converted the Taliban into a force that U.S. officials now feel must be prevented from regaining power at all costs, even if that means a permanent U.S. military occupation of the country. It’s just one more interventionist “success” story in the life of the U.S. Empire.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Monday, September 14, 2009
McGovern’s Socialism
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Liberal George McGovern has a simple solution to the health-care crisis. In an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post, McGovern recommended that we simply extend Medicare, which currently is limited to people over 65, to everyone else.
Like most other people on the dole, McGovern loves his government-provided health care: “Those of us over 65 have been enjoying this program for years. I go to the doctor or hospital of my choice, and my taxes pay all the bills. It’s wonderful…. I want every American, from birth to death, to get the kind of health care I now receive.”
But hey, why limit McGovern’s simple idea to health care? Don’t people have a right to food as much as they have a right to health care? Isn’t food more important than health care? Why not extend the federal food-stamp program, which is currently limited to poor people, to everyone? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to walk into any grocery store you wanted and get all the groceries you needed without having to pay for them?
What about housing? Today, countless people are losing their houses through foreclosure. Millions more can’t even afford to buy their own homes. Don’t people have a right to a home? Why shouldn’t the government provide everyone with a home at no cost, just like Medicare would provide free health care for everyone?
What about the right to clothing? Isn’t it important too, especially in the winter season? Why should people have to worry about spending money on clothing any more than they should worry about purchasing health care? Why shouldn’t people be free to walk into any clothing store and walk out with the clothes they need, just as they would be able to do with health care if McGovern’s idea were to be adopted?
There’s also the right to a car. Automobile transportation is vital in most parts of the country. What good is free health care if you can’t get to the doctor’s office to receive it?
How about education? Don’t people have a right to an education? Why should it be free just for elementary, secondary, and high school? Why shouldn’t everyone get a free college and post-college education? Doesn’t society benefit when everyone is educated?
McGovern makes an insightful observation, one that most other statists block out of their minds — that taxes are what pay for all this.
Would taxes have to be raised to pay for free health care, food, clothing, auto, and education for everyone?
Undoubtedly, but what’s the big deal with that? All it will mean is that the younger generations will have a bigger portion of their income taken from them by the IRS. Why should we concern ourselves about that? Think about all those freebies they and everyone will be getting in return!
In fact, maybe we ought to take McGovern’s suggestion to its logical conclusion. Why don’t we have the federal government tax 100 percent of everyone’s income and then provide everything for free?
Better yet, wouldn’t it be easier if everyone simply went to work for the government? Wouldn’t that simultaneously guarantee everyone’s right to a job? In turn, the government could provide us with all the essentials of life, for free. That would obviously be a lot easier than filing annual income tax returns and sending in the 100 percent tax on our incomes.
The federal government has already gotten into the car business and the banking business and now wants to get into the health care business. Why not simply let the government take over all the businesses and industries in the country? Wouldn’t that save a lot of money by eliminating unnecessary profit and wasteful competition?
Is there a model for this paradigm? There sure is. Cuba and North Korea come to mind, societies that are a dream-come-true for statists. In those socialist societies, the state is the sole employer and everything, including health care, is provided for free.
Never mind that people in Cuba and North Korea are mired in near-starvation poverty and are under the total control of the state. Statists like McGovern would undoubtedly say that that’s just a coincidence.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Faith in Freedom
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Whenever libertarians suggest that America’s socialist programs should be immediately repealed, rather than reformed or gradually reduced, statists inevitably react with shock and horror. The statists feel that Americans could never survive if their welfare-state dole was suddenly ended.
What would happen if public schooling, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, income taxation, and all other welfare-state programs were suddenly eliminated today? According to the statists, thousands of people would be dying of starvation and illness in the streets and the nation would quickly fill up with dumb, uneducated people.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, it would be the exact opposite. There would immediately be a tremendous outburst of creative energy, enterprise, prosperity, and charity throughout American society.
Consider 19th-century American slaves who picked cotton on some Southern plantation. In a sense, they lived under a welfare program. While they were required to work hard, they had free housing, food, clothing, retirement, and health care provided to them by their employer.
Their job skills were limited to picking cotton. Since work was mandated, they had not developed a work ethic that required them to voluntarily be at work on time. Moreover, they certainly had not acquired any skills in running their own businesses. They had lived like this for generations.
Undoubtedly, some people in the 1800s argued that it would be cruel and brutal to free the slaves all at once. How would they survive, especially after several generations of life on the dole, with no real job skills, work ethic, and business experience? If the slaves were freed all at once and, therefore, no longer guaranteed the basic essentials of life, thousands of them would surely starve to death. They wouldn’t even have a few cents in savings to get them through a couple of weeks.
Yet, when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, that’s precisely what happened. Slaves were freed all at once. No gradualism. No weaning. They were suddenly deprived of their guaranteed housing, clothing, food, health care, and job. They were suddenly on their own.
While life was difficult for them, just as it was difficult for lots of people after the war, there were no mass deaths from starvation or from being deprived of health care or other essentials. The freeing of the slaves showed the remarkable resiliency of human beings. Some of them opened businesses, others went to work for businesses. Over time, some of the former slaves even began outcompeting whites, which was why whites began enacting Jim Crow laws.
Another example was Franklin Roosevelt’s fascist National Industrial Recovery Act, which converted American industries into cartels that had the power to set their own prices. More and more people began realizing what a horrible disaster this program was for America, but the argument was that the NIRA had become too entrenched in the American economy to suddenly end it. Millions of Americans, both producers and consumers had become dependent on the NIRA and, therefore, people felt that if it were to be ended, it should be done gradually.
One day, the Supreme Court declared the NIRA unconstitutional. On that day, the program suddenly ended. It’s as if the Court had pushed a magic button that immediately eradicated the law. The result? An outburst of creative energy and prosperity from having this fascist burden suddenly lifted off the American economy.
The third example involves the extensive wage-and-price controls that the Allied Powers levied on Germany after World War II. Germans wanted them lifted but the Allies said that since people had become so dependent on them, there would be chaos if they were suddenly lifted. One day, and much to the chagrin of the Allied leaders, the German leader Ludwig Ehard suddenly announced that the controls were lifted. That was the start of the post-war German “economic miracle.”
The best thing that could ever happen to the American people is to have all welfare-state programs repealed, immediately. Given the resiliency of human beings, there is no doubt that there would be a tremendous outburst of creative energy, prosperity, and charity.
The problem we face is that all too many Americans just don’t believe it. Given the decades of dependency on the welfare state, Americans have lost their sense of self-reliance and self-esteem.
Thus, the problem we face in our day is not only economic and political in nature but also psychological in nature. To get our nation back on the right track, we libertarians have the task of not only showing people that economic liberty and free markets are moral and that they work, we must also inspire people to restore their faith in themselves, in others, in freedom, in free markets, and in God.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Intellectual Paralysis of Statists
by Jacob G. Hornberger
A standard liberal argument for opposing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is that if the federal government wasn’t spending so much money over there, it could afford to pay for a national health-care program.
Conservatives look at it the other way around. If Barack Obama wasn’t spending so much money on federal welfare, the federal government would be better able to maintain its overseas empire.
And then there are those many liberals and conservatives — I’d venture to say most — who say that the federal government should do both — spend money on both socialism at home and imperialism abroad. The federal government is rich, they say, and is able to afford all of this, notwithstanding the already high level of taxes, debt, and inflation.
This is what passes for debate in both the mainstream press and on the television talk shows. Conservative and liberals present “opposing” views, arguing over how the federal government should spend “its” money. And newspaper editors and talk-show hosts eat it up because they’re presenting a “lively” debate that shows “both” sides.
What a crock all this is!
How often do you ever see the mainstream media and the television commentators presenting the libertarian view? Hardly ever. Why is that? For two reasons: One, as statists they are absolutely terrified over the fact that libertarianism is a growing phenomenon but, more important, they simply lack the competence to counteract libertarian arguments in a substantive way.
It’s really not difficult to participate in the conservative vs. liberal debate because they both accept the same core premise: that a legitimate role of the federal government is to tax people’s income and spend the money on socialist, regulatory, or imperialist programs.
Thus, the argument between conservatives and liberals ultimately boils down to how the federal government should spend money that the IRS has forcibly taken from the citizenry.
Conservatives argue that people’s money should be spent this way, and liberals argue that it should be spent that way.
Yawn! How boring is that?
Now, consider the libertarian argument: People should be free to keep their own income and decide for themselves what to do with it. No more income taxation, IRS, or income-tax returns.
That also means no more federal welfare programs and regulatory programs, especially the drug war. It also means no more overseas military adventures, invasions, wars of aggression, occupations, foreign aid, and foreign wars.
How do liberals and conservatives, the mainstream media, and the talk-show hosts handle these fundamental libertarian principles? They don’t. Quite honestly, they lack the intellectual ability to take on libertarians. Having grown so accustomed to “debating” domestic issues and foreign-policy issues at the conservative-liberal level, they are lost and befuddled when dealing with libertarianism at a fundamental level. That’s why you often see them limiting their attacks to such snide or superficial statements as “Libertarians are whacky” or “Libertarian ideas aren’t mainstream.”
Consider the health-care debate. The liberals favor some sort of federal health-care plan. Conservatives oppose that but want to keep Medicare and Medicaid in place. So, the “debate” is actually over how much the federal government should be involved in health care.
It’s difficult to get a more boring debate than that.
Enter the libertarians. Abolish Medicare, Medicaid, health-care regulations, and occupational-licensure laws. Separate health care and state as fully and completely as our ancestors separated church and state. End all government involvement in health care. Leave people free to keep their own money and handle their health care. Totally free the health-care market for both the consumer and the producer.
“Oh my gosh!” the statists cry. “That’s so radical. That’s so whacky. That’s so non-mainstream.”
But that’s generally their only line of attack. Having grown accustomed to “debating” which form of statism Americans should embrace, the statists simply lack the competence and expertise to defend their statism against the free-market arguments presented by libertarians, both at the moral level and the practical level.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Public School Indoctrination
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Yesterday, I blogged about the indoctrination that is an inherent part of any government school system, whether in Cuba, the U.S., England, North Korea, or any other country. Government officials have a vested interest in ensuring a citizenry that accepts the official version of things and a citizenry that is compliant, obedient, and supportive of the government. Over a period of many years, people’s mindsets are molded to encourage them as adults to let off steam by carping about the foibles and inefficiencies of politicians and bureaucrats but never to challenge, in a fundamental sense, the role that government plays in people’s lives.
Let’s compare the public school systems in Cuba and the United States. They are similar in the fact that governments in both countries own and operate the systems. Children who attend the schools are there because the law has mandated their attendance. The schoolteachers and administrators are government personnel. Whether at a national, state, or local level, the textbooks must be approved by the government and the curriculum is set by the government. In both countries, attendance is “free.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the indoctrination is the same in both countries. In Cuba, for example, it is ingrained in schoolchildren that the CIA, with its program of assassination, torture, and regime change, is a force for evil in the world. In the United States, Americans schoolchildren are taught that the CIA is a force for good in the world and that it is essential to the national security of the country.
It would be difficult to find a better example of a purely socialist program than public (i.e., government) schooling, especially given its central-planning features. Thus, it’s not a coincidence that Cuba’s public-school system is the pride and joy of Fidel Castro, one of the world’s most ardent devotees of socialism.
Interestingly, while public schooling is also the pride and joy of Americans, most of them have no idea that America’s public school systems are socialist in nature, which itself is a testament to the success of the indoctrination that takes place in the institution. From the first grade to the twelfth, Americans are taught that public schooling is one of the core features of America’s “free enterprise system.”
An even better testament to the power of indoctrination in public schooling, however, is the conviction that it instills in students that socialist programs are essential to society. A good example of this phenomenon occurs in the health-care debate. Whenever libertarians suggest that the solution to the health-care crisis is simply to repeal Medicare and Medicaid, health-care regulations, and medical-licensure laws, most Americans go ballistic. Without Medicare and Medicaid, the poor and the elderly would die from lack of medical care, they cry. Without regulations and medical licensure, quacks would be conducting brain surgery on people, they say. Free markets are fine but not in such an important area as health care, they claim.
How have people arrived at such deeply held convictions? Take a wild guess!
Oh, by the way, national health care in Cuba is also a pride and joy of Fidel Castro.
Perhaps the best example though of the power of indoctrination in public schooling is with respect to the very idea of public schooling itself. Whenever libertarians suggest that this entire socialist system should be junked, that school and state should be separated, and that a total free market in education should be established, statists go haywire. Free enterprise is great, they say again, but not in an important area like education. Why, how would the poor get educated without public schooling? they ask. With a free market in education, we’d quickly end up with a nation of dumb, illiterate people, they say.
Another example of what public schooling has done to instill a faith in socialism and to damage people’s faith in freedom and free markets is with respect to the overall welfare state itself. Whenever libertarians call for a repeal, not a reform, of this immoral and destructive way of life, statists respond, “Without the welfare state, the poor would die in the streets.”
Of course, that’s ludicrous, especially given that free markets are the means by which the poor are able to maintain increasingly higher standards of living. For example, compare a nun here in the United States who has taken a vow of poverty with a nun in Guatemala who has done the same. The nun here will have a much nicer standard of living as a result of the positive economic spillover that inevitably takes place in a wealthier society.
An important prerequisite to getting America back on the right track is a restoration of people’s faith in freedom and free markets and an understanding of why socialism is so immoral and destructive. Fortunately, what public schooling has done to inculcate a love for socialism and to inculcate doubts about freedom and free markets is reversible. Libertarians are proof positive of that.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Is Obama’s Speech Indoctrination?
by Jacob G. Hornberger
You can always count on conservatives for injecting a bit of humor, albeit unintentionally, into any national political debate. The latest example involves their railing against President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to the public-school students of America. The conservatives are calling the president’s speech “indoctrination.”
Why is that funny? No, not for the reason liberals are giving — that the very notion that a presidential speech to public-school students could be considered “indoctrination” is just plain loony.
No, the reason this whole controversy is funny is because it is obvious that neither conservatives nor liberals have given any consideration to where those students will be located when the president delivers his speech: at government centers of learning that their parents have been forced to send them to, thanks to compulsory-attendance laws.
What do conservatives and liberals think takes place in a government center of learning?
The best indoctrination, of course, is where the people who have been indoctrinated don’t even know that they have been indoctrinated. Most public-school graduates, whether in Cuba or the U.S. or elsewhere, are prime examples of this type of success story.
For example, most Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, honestly believe that the Industrial Revolution was something horrible, that the wealthy industrialists in the late 1800s were evil “robber barons,” that American parents in the 1800s hated their wives and children which caused them to send them into factories, that the failure of free enterprise caused the Great Depression, that FDR’s New Deal schemes saved America’s free-enterprise system, and that minimum-wage laws help the poor.
Yet, very few of them have any idea as to the roots of these conclusions — the centers of government learning they were required to attend for 12 long years, where they received indoctrination — I mean, education — from government-approved schoolteachers using government-approved textbooks following a government-approved curriculum.
But hey, let’s all get up in arms about indoctrination when one more government official decides to add his perspective to those that the other government officials are placing in the minds of the children every day for 12 years.
Oh, also, let’s not forget to drug those children who find all this boring and weird. You know, like with Ritalin. What better evidence that something’s wrong with a kid than natural resistance to government-approved indoctrination in a government center of learning to which his parents are mandated by law to send him?
Is it possible to break free of the indoctrination that children receive in government schools? Sure! Libertarians are good examples. Most of us went to government schools but we’ve been able to break free of what they did to us with their political indoctrination. Thus, we libertarians now know the lies and myths, for example, about the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and the welfare-state, regulated-economy way of life.
But it’s not an easy achievement, especially given the deep regimentation, conformity, and respect for authoritarianism that is drilled into public-school students for 12 years.
Several years ago, I had a first-hand reminder of this phenomenon. I was delivering a lecture on libertarianism to a libertarian club on a local high-school campus. The lecture was after school hours in one of the school’s classrooms. There were about 35 students in the audience.
I delivered my lecture and opened up the session to Q&A. Lots of students immediately raised their hands and began badgering me with questions. Others began having side discussions with each other. You could just feel the intellectual excitement in the room.
Then, all of a sudden, a teacher in the school, who had been quietly sitting there listening, stood up, interrupted the discussion, and began angrily screaming at me. He said that everything I was saying about the Industrial Revolution and FDR and the welfare state was nonsense and announced that he wasn’t going to sit there and listen to one more minute of it. He angrily invited the students to follow him out of the classroom.
As he reached the door, he looked back and noticed that no one was following. He returned to his seat, sullen and angry. What he did accomplish, however, was a total suppression of the intellectual excitement that had been in the room up that point. No more excited questions, discussions, arguments. Most everyone just sat there in stunned silence.
Today, the indoctrination goes on. While libertarian ideas are periodically sneaked into the classroom by libertarian schoolteachers, it is done with caution and discretion. Nothing must be permitted to interfere with the political indoctrination of American schoolchildren, especially with respect to economic principles.
Is counter-indoctrination the solution? No. The solution is a separation of school and state, an end to all governmental involvement in education. Don’t count on President Obama to share that idea in his speech to the public-school children of America.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Enough Is Enough in Afghanistan
by Jacob G. Hornberger
As Americans are gradually discovering, the 8-year occupation of Afghanistan is about opposing the Taliban’s attempt to regain political power, not about capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Thus, the occupation is about empire. That’s the way empires operate — placing their people into positions of power in foreign countries. The idea is that if Afghan president Karzai or some other U.S. puppet remains in power, Americans can feel safe and secure knowing that Afghanistan is “pro-U.S.” If the Taliban regains power, Americans will supposedly need to feel insecure because an “anti-U.S.” regime will be in power, one that supposedly could provide sanctuary for terrorists, such as al-Qaeda.
This is all very dangerous and destructive imperial nonsense. It’s involving the United States in the middle of a civil war, much like the case with Vietnam. In the process of taking sides in such a war, the U.S. military continues killing multitudes of Afghani people, including those who are not even actively engaged in the civil war, such as wedding parties.
Those killings are not a good thing as far as Americans are concerned. Of course, if any of the victims ever retaliates against the U.S. with a terrorist attack, U.S. officials will undoubtedly announce that the attack was motivated by hatred for America’s freedom and values, not out of anger because, say, a daughter or wife was killed by an American bomb.
The U.S. government has never produced one iota of evidence that the Taliban conspired with Osama bin Laden to commit the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration decided to attack the Taliban regime for one reason: the Taliban refused to comply with Bush’s orders to arrest bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. government.
That’s it! That’s the reason the U.S. government went after the Taliban. If the Taliban had complied with the order, they would still be in power today.
Why didn’t the Taliban comply with the order? Well, for one, there was no extradition agreement with the U.S. Second, the Taliban did express a willingness to deliver bin Laden to an independent tribunal, something that Bush was unwilling to consider.
Yet, Bush himself, along with his successor Barack Obama, have themselves been unwilling to deliver an accused terrorist to Venezuela for trial. The man’s name is Jose Posada Carriles The case is actually much more egregious than the case against the Taliban because there is an extradition agreement between Venezuela and the U.S.
What is the U.S. government’s reason for denying Venezuela’s request for extradition? They say that they’re afraid that Venezuela might torture Posada, who has previous ties to the CIA.
Would the Taliban have been unreasonable in assuming that the CIA would have tortured bin Laden?
Let’s not forget also that the war against Afghanistan and subsequent occupation have been illegal under our form of government, whose Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war against another nation state as a condition for waging war against it, something that Bush did not secure.
What about the case that the U.S. government is killing al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan? That’s ludicrous. They’ve been dropping bombs now for more than 8 years. That’s more than enough time to kill all the al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan. Indeed, how many al-Qaeda terrorists could there be left to kill in Afghanistan? Isn’t it possible that the occupation itself is producing new anti-U.S. terrorists every day?
Moreover, how important really is a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan for al-Qaeda terrorists? Aren’t there plenty of other countries whose regimes are anti-U.S. for al-Qaeda terrorists to hold meetings and planning sessions? North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela come to mind. But what’s the likelihood of an anti-U.S. regime, including one controlled by the Taliban, risking war with the U.S. by conspiring with some terrorist gang to commit a criminal act in the United States?
Why do al-Qaeda terrorists need Afghanistan to hold their meetings? What prevents them from meeting in some hotel room in any country in the Middle East or, for that matter, anywhere in the world? In fact, didn’t some of the 9/11 terrorists have meetings in Germany?
Eight years is plenty time to kill all the al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan. Sure, it’s true that they still haven’t gotten bin Laden but what are the chances that he didn’t skedaddle out of Afghanistan a long time ago? The U.S. has no business being involved in the civil war in Afghanistan. All that the occupation of Afghanistan is accomplishing is producing more potential terrorists for the United States. After 8 years, it’s time to exit Afghanistan. Enough is enough.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Who Won World War II?
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is embroiled in a tiff with the Poles over World War II. Like U.S. interventionists, Putin takes the position that World War II constituted a great victory for the Soviet Union, the United States, and the Allied Powers. They defeated Nazi Germany, after all, saving Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe from Nazi tyranny.
What better evidence of victory than that?
Alas, however, the Poles take a different position, much to the chagrin of Putin and U.S. interventionists.
First of all, the Poles point out that the Soviet Union invaded Poland soon after Nazi Germany did and that this was done pursuant to a secret pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (Interestingly, while Great Britain and France declared war on Germany purportedly to save Poland, they did not declare war on the Soviet Union.)
Second, soon after the Soviet invasion of Poland, Soviet forces rounded up thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, and others and shot them dead in cold blood in Poland’s Katyn Forest. It was a war crime of the first magnitude. Yet, no Soviet official was ever brought to trial for the murders. Perversely, the Soviet Union even served as one of the judges at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, where Nazi officials were placed on trial for war crimes.
Poland has never forgotten that mass murder, and many Poles remain angry over Russia’s failure to acknowledge and sufficiently repent the Katyn atrocities.
Third, what the Poles recognize — and what U.S. interventionists and Putin fail to recognize — is that being saved from Hitler and the Nazis only to be turned over to Stalin and the communists was no victory, at least insofar as the Poles were concerned.
Look at this way: Suppose you were given a choice between living under the Nazis or the Soviet communists. Which would you prefer? It’s not really a meaningful choice, is it? In principle, there was no difference between the Nazis, the Soviet communists, Hitler, and Stalin. They were equally cruel, murderous, and brutal.
At the end of World War II — after tens of millions of people had been killed — Poland has been saved from Nazi oppression, only to be subjected to subsequent decades of communist oppression. Thus, it’s not surprising that Putin would consider that a great victory. But why do U.S. interventionists consider it a victory for the United States, especially since soon after the war, the interventionists converted “our” ally, the Soviet communists, into “our” new official enemy, launching the Cold War, two hot wars in Korea and Vietnam, and ever-soaring military budgets?
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Jaycee Lee Dugard and the Drug War
by Jacob G. Hornberger
An interesting question arises in the case of Phillip Garrido, the man who allegedly kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard, raped her, and kept her captive for almost 20 years: Did the drug war play a role in this horrible event?
Having previously been convicted of kidnapping and rape, Garrido had been released from a federal penitentiary after serving less than 11 years and from a Nevada state prison after serving less than 7 months. Yet, his original sentence had been 50 years!
Why was he released so early? Could the drug war have had anything to do with that?
According to an article posted today in the Reno Gazette-Journal, “Newspaper articles from the late 1980s show Nevada prisons were overcrowded at the time and the parole board was coming under fire for releasing large numbers of inmates, particularly sex offenders who had served fractions of their sentences.”
Was that prison-overcrowding problem due in large part to crackdowns in the war on drugs and the need to make room for non-violent drug offenders in jail by releasing the violent criminals, like Phillip Garrido?
I don’t know the answer to that question. But given the manifest failure of the war on drugs, it deserves to be asked, especially since ending the war on drugs could perhaps help save the lives and freedom of victims of violent crimes in the future by focusing the attention of government officials where it should be focused — on the commission of violent crimes, not non-violent ones.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
A Need for Some Soul-Searching
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Close your eyes, let your mind roam, and imagine the following: You are living in a country where the government has the power to round up whomever it wants, incarcerate them for as long it is wants, deny them due process and a trial, and torture them. The government is attacking and occupying other countries. It is confiscating everyone’s income and wealth and doling it out to others. The government is jailing people on a myriad of economic crimes and tax violations.
Now, open your eyes. Welcome to reality. This is the America in which we now live. It is a country whose government is torturing people with impunity and is even proud of it. It is a government that has the power to actually ignore the Bill of Rights by simply labeling people terrorists. It is a country in which vast numbers of people are living off money that the IRS confiscates from others and fighting vociferously for their right to do so, no matter how much damage they are inflicting on the victims. It is country whose government is occupying two foreign countries and has military bases in more than 100 others. It is a country whose government is punishing people for economic crimes and tax crimes.
What a mess this country is in. On the domestic side, you have the liberals, with their deeply engrained socialist philosophy, whose programs forcibly take money from Peter and give it to Paul, magically converting everyone into caring and compassionate saints. Never mind that they’re bankrupting America with their ever-soaring spending, taxes, and debt.
On the foreign side, you have the conservatives, with their deeply engrained imperialist philosophy, whose programs entail militarism, invasions, occupations, torture, kangaroo tribunals, and destruction of civil liberties. Never mind that they’re too bankrupting America with ever-soaring spending, taxes, and debts.
And then you have those multitudes of liberals and conservatives who favor both socialism and imperialism.
But even those two isms are not the major threat that faces our nation. Instead, the biggest threat comes from within ourselves — the moral degeneracy that all this produces within us, a degeneracy that is reflected by increasing numbers of people who see nothing wrong with torture, political confiscation and redistribution of wealth, wars of aggression and occupations, destruction of civil liberties, and the prosecution and punishment of people committing economic crimes and tax violations.
Clearly America is in desperate need of a reexamination of what this nation has become and how far it has strayed from its founding principles, principles that once made America the marvel of the world. Those principles included no income tax, no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, bailouts, food stamps, farm subsides, and other welfare, no militarism, no wars of aggression and foreign occupations, no torture, and a deep and abiding respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
But what is most needed at this point of our existence is some mighty deep soul-searching.
Is this what we as a people are all about?
Rather than look to themselves and to their Creator to help them get through the difficulties of life, as our American ancestors did, modern-day Americans have chosen to render unto Caesar their lives, fortunes, and well-being, the very things that should be rendered to God. And Americans are now reaping the whirlwind, as reflected by the crises, chaos, and disharmony in our daily lives.
The political and economic solution to America’s woes lies in abandoning socialism and imperialism and restoring a free-market, limited-government republic to our land. More fundamentally, however, the solution involves a restoration within the American people of faith in themselves, in others, in freedom, and in God.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
