The Statist Approach to the Postal Service by Jacob G. Hornberger October 11, 2013 A perfect demonstration of the statist mindset appears in an editorial entitled “Free the Postal Service” published this week by the Los Angeles Times. The editorial shows how statists, unlike libertarians, are simply unable to break free of the statist box in which they have been born and raised. The result is that they live their lives coming ...
Don’t Lift the Debt Ceiling by Jacob G. Hornberger October 10, 2013 Why is there even a debt ceiling? The reason is simple: Because even the members of Congress, who are the biggest spenders in the world, understand that too much government debt is a bad thing. That’s the message conveyed by the ceiling: It says that this is the maximum amount of debt that the government is permitted to accumulate. ...
The Fourth Branch of Government by Jacob G. Hornberger October 9, 2013 One of the most interesting aspects of President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in 1960 was his warning to the American people regarding the danger that America’s military-industrial complex posed to our democratic processes. Eisenhower didn’t make it clear whether he was referring to the economic dimension associated with warfare-state spending or to the possibility of a military takeover here in ...
The War Between JFK and the National-Security State by Jacob G. Hornberger October 8, 2013 The Atlantic has published a fascinating article entitled “JFK vs. the Military” by Kennedy biographer Robert Dallek which details the war that was taking place between President Kennedy and the U.S. national-security state establishment. While this has long been a subject of interest to Kennedy assassination researchers, it’s not the type of thing that mainstream authors and mainstream ...
The Brothers Is a Fantastic Book by Jacob G. Hornberger October 7, 2013 I just finished reading one of the best and most important books I’ve ever read. It’s The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret War by Stephen Kinzer. The book is fascinating and gripping. I couldn’t put it down. It goes a long way in explaining the plight in which the United States finds itself today. The ...
Why Do Conservatives Support Medicare and Medicaid? by Jacob G. Hornberger October 4, 2013 For the life of me, I just don’t get conservatives. They profess to love free enterprise and free markets and they say they hate socialism. Okay, then why do they never call for the repeal of Medicare and Medicaid? After all, it’s not surprising that progressives (or liberals) favor Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. They don’t make any pretenses of loving the ...
Hero Joseph Nacchio Is Released from Jail by Jacob G. Hornberger October 3, 2013 From the standpoint of government officials, one of the greatest things about a highly regulated economy, banking system, and healthcare system, as well as a complex tax system, is that it provides officials with the ability to prosecute businessmen, bankers, physicians, and others whenever they get out of line. In that way, officials can claim that they’re not going ...
Shut Down the Nonessential National-Security State by Jacob G. Hornberger October 2, 2013 The national-security state apparatus under which all of us have been born and raised was established for one and only one purpose: to wage the Cold War against the Soviet Union. From the inception of the country to the aftermath of World War II, the American people had lived without an enormous permanent peacetime military establishment, a CIA with ...
Shut Down the Nonessential Drug War by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2013 A few days ago, I wrote about my experience crossing the Canadian border on the train in an article entitled “Dismantle the International Checkpoints.” The article focused on my experience with immigration checkpoints between the United States and Canada. This article will focus on another aspect of my experience at the border — the drug war. Going into Canada, ...
Shutdown Anxiety by Jacob G. Hornberger September 30, 2013 Isn’t it great seeing all those statists pacing the floor and wringing their hands over the possible “shutdown” of the federal government? Given that their entire world revolves around the federal government — which is their parent or their god — the possible shutdown of the federal government is one of the most frightening events in the life of ...
Dismantle the International Checkpoints by Jacob G. Hornberger September 27, 2013 Yesterday, I was returning to the United States from Canada on the train, which is my favorite form of travel. As I (and everyone else on the train) was being made to wait at the border for about two hours by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials, I had plenty of time to reflect on the inanity of the ...
Permanently Lay Off the Parasitic Sector by Jacob G. Hornberger September 26, 2013 One of the most amusing -- and fallacious -- aspects of the government-shutdown debate is when statists argue that a layoff of public-sector personnel would spell economic disaster for America. Laying off all those people, statists say, would add to the ranks of the unemployed, thereby increasing welfare payments. It would also, they say, be a death knell to ...
