How to Avoid Nuclear War by Jacob G. Hornberger July 27, 2023 The new movie Oppenheimer has caused many people to rededicate themselves to the goal of achieving an international ban on nuclear weapons. But that’s never going to happen. There is no reasonable possibility whatsoever that the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA) would ever agree to dismantle its nuclear stockpile, especially since there ...
Abolish the Minimum Wage by Jacob G. Hornberger July 26, 2023 According to an article on the website Common Dreams, leftists are lamenting the fact that the federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. They are saying that the current $7.25 federal minimum wage is an “abomination.” They want it raised to at least $15 an hour and, preferably, higher. It is amazing to ...
A Constantly Shifting Array of Official Enemies by Jacob G. Hornberger July 25, 2023 I entered Virginia Military Institute as a freshman in 1968. By that time, the Vietnam War was in full swing. During the four years that I was at the school, VMI graduates were among the tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers who were being killed or injured for nothing. Everyone at VMI was required to be in the ...
Should the U.S. Invade Belarus? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 24, 2023 A couple of days ago, the New York Times published a story about the brutal authoritarian regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus. The article points out that after winning a “widely disputed” election three years ago, Lukashenko has crushed dissent and “ushered in a chilling era of repression.” According to the article, “even the ...
Intervene Only When It’s In “Our National Interest”? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 21, 2023 One of the popular mantras for some conservatives and some libertarians when it comes to foreign interventionism is the following: “We should never intervene abroad except when it is in ‘our national interest.’” There is one great big problem, however, with that qualifier: It serves as no limitation whatsoever with respect to foreign interventionism. Why is that?
Lt. Ehren Watada, War Hero by Jacob G. Hornberger July 20, 2023 Four facts about the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq are not in dispute: 1. The Constitution required a congressional declaration of war against Iraq as a prerequisite to invading the country. 2. Congress never issued a declaration of war against Iraq. 3. The U.S. government had no legal authority to enforce WMD resolutions enacted by the United Nations. Only ...
Abolish the Postal Service by Jacob G. Hornberger July 19, 2023 According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, rural communities are hopping mad at the U.S. Postal Service. The reason? They’re not getting their mail — well, at least not without a long delay, sometimes several weeks. In Silverthorne, Colorado, Christmas cards started arriving in February. Residents of Crested Butte, Colorado, are banding together to ...
Libertarian Reform Is Not Freedom by Jacob G. Hornberger July 18, 2023 For the past 25 years or so, the libertarian movement has been dominated by libertarian reformers — that is, those libertarians who have dedicated their lives, energy, time, and money to reform proposals intended to make the welfare-warfare state work more efficiently and more effectively. In the process, they have convinced themselves and others that they are advancing ...
Jury Nullification in Memphis! by Jacob G. Hornberger July 17, 2023 As I indicated in my blog post last week, “Freedom Fun at FreedomFest,” I was headed down to Memphis this past week for Mark Skousen’s annual FreedomFest, where I would be criminally prosecuted for the offense of supporting open borders. I had two co-defendants, Bryan Caplan, one of the most brilliant economics professors in the ...
The Achilles Heel of the JFK Assassination by Jacob G. Hornberger July 14, 2023 The autopsy that the U.S. national-security establishment conducted on President Kennedy’s body has always been the Achilles heel of the assassination. That’s because the autopsy was fraudulent. But because the military “classified” the autopsy, forcing enlisted personnel to sign secrecy oaths and threatening them with court martial or criminal prosecution if they ever revealed what they saw or ...
Dismantle NATO, or At Least Get Out by Jacob G. Hornberger July 13, 2023 The United States and other countries are debating whether to admit Ukraine into NATO which, of course, would virtually guarantee an all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia. I’ve got a better idea: Dismantle this old Cold War dinosaur, or at the very least, the United States should withdraw from it, which would undoubtedly lead to ...
Why Shouldn’t a University Be Free to Adopt Affirmative Action? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 11, 2023 Not surprisingly, right-wingers are celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to declare affirmative-action policies at American universities to be unconstitutional. In the process, conservatives fail to recognize that they are, at the same time, celebrating the further destruction of American liberty and private-property rights. After all, why shouldn’t a private university, like Harvard, be free to establish any policy ...
