The 40th Anniversary of Chile’s 9/11 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 10, 2013 Tomorrow, September 11, marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile that ousted the democratically elected socialist-communist Salvador Allende from power and installed the brutal right-wing military dictator General Augusto Pinochet. It was a coup that was not only supported by the U.S. national-security state but also one that the CIA actually helped to foment. Even ...
Interventionists Should Hang Their Heads in Shame by Jacob G. Hornberger September 9, 2013 As if on cue, mainstream media types, both on the left and right, are trotting out their old Hitler-World War II card to justify another U.S. war, this time against Syria. Two notable examples: Bill Keller, former editor of the New York Times, in a piece entitled “Our New Isolationism” and Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal columnist, in ...
An Awesome Book on the Warfare State by Jacob G. Hornberger September 6, 2013 I just finished reading an absolutely awesome book. It’s entitled The War State: The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite, 1945-1963. (Order hard copy here and Kindle version here). I’ll be writing a more extensive discussion of the book in FFF’s monthly journal Future of Freedom. (If you’re not a subscriber, this ...
Dress-Code Controversies in Public Schools by Jacob G. Hornberger September 5, 2013 An op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times entitled “School Dress Codes: Miniskirt Madness” by a New York law professor named Ruthann Robson demonstrates perfectly the difference between libertarians and statists. Robson is upset over the increasingly strict enforcement of dress codes within America’s public schools. She says that enforcement of such codes interferes with what public schools should be ...
Who’s Really Getting Punished? by Jacob G. Hornberger September 4, 2013 I find it interesting how President Obama intends to punish Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad for his purported use of chemical weapons against Syrian rebels. It provides a fascinating insight into the collectivist mindset. To punish Assad, Obama says that he will use his military to “degrade” Assad’s military. That inevitably means that Obama will bomb certain segments of Assad’s military, ...
Perpetual Chaos and Crises by Jacob G. Hornberger September 3, 2013 I find it absolutely fascinating how the president, along with his national-security state apparatus, can instantaneously throw the entire nation into crisis mode, this time with everyone in angst over whether the president should or should not bomb Syria. It’s a perfect demonstration of the power and influence that the U.S. national-security state and its military empire around the ...
Obama’s Sham Move on Syria by Jacob G. Hornberger September 2, 2013 After producing another classic national-security state crisis environment for the American people — this time over whether President Obama should order his military to bomb Syria — the president announced that he would first seek approval from Congress for his bombing run. Notice that he didn’t say he was seeking permission from Congress. He says that he doesn’t need permission ...
An Impeachable Offense by Jacob G. Hornberger August 30, 2013 Make no mistake about it: President Obama’s 90-minute telephone conference call with a group of congressional “leaders” to consult about his plans to initiate a military attack on Syria does not comport with the U.S. Constitution, the higher law that the American people have imposed on federal officials. The Constitution is clear: The power to declare war lies with Congress, ...
The Empire’s WMD Hypocrisy by Jacob G. Hornberger August 29, 2013 With much righteous indignation, President Obama is somberly indicating to the American people that he effectively has no choice — he must go to war, on his own initiative and employing what is effectively his private army, against Syria owing to the Syrian government’s purported use of chemical weapons against its own people. Where have we heard that one before? Come ...
The Fascinating Interventionist Mindset by Jacob G. Hornberger August 28, 2013 I sometimes wonder why interventionists don’t donate their brains to science, after they die of course. It would be interesting to know whether they are born with interventionist mindsets or whether their mindsets are the result of the many years of indoctrination they received in the public (i.e., government) schools their parents were forced to send them to. The situation ...
A Conflict of Visions by Jacob G. Hornberger August 27, 2013 An upside to all the domestic and international crises is that they are providing the American people with the opportunity to consider two alternative paradigms for the future of our nation: the paradigm of statism under which we all have been born and raised and the paradigm of liberty, free markets, and limited government that we libertarians are fighting ...
The Dictatorial Power to Punish a Dictator by Jacob G. Hornberger August 26, 2013 President Obama is considering what military action the U.S. government should take against Syria in retaliation for its purported use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. At the risk of asking an indelicate question, where in the Constitution does it authorize the president to undertake such action? When our American ancestors were calling the federal government into existence, they ...
