History Repeats Itself in Honduran Drug-War Killings by Jacob G. Hornberger May 23, 2012 With Hondurans angrily demanding that the U.S. government withdraw its drug-war personnel from the country, we shouldn’t forget that this isn’t the first time that U.S. drug officials have participated in the drug-war killing of innocent people. Almost 11 years ago, the CIA helped Peruvian drug-war personnel kill a 35-year-old missionary named Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old baby Charity ...
End State Support of Colleges and Universities by Jacob G. Hornberger May 22, 2012 In an era in which many statists are doing their best to assure themselves and others that they are not socialists, this might be a good time to visit one of the most deeply entrenched and popular socialistic programs in our time — state-supported colleges and universities. State-supported colleges and universities receive their revenues in two ways: voluntarily (e.g., through ...
The Debt Ceiling Is Coming Again by Jacob G. Hornberger May 21, 2012 Just as I have repeatedly predicted since the last debt-ceiling debate, statists are already gearing up for another lifting of the debt ceiling. A good example comes in a New York Times editorial, which is already trying to pressure Republicans into lifting the new debt ceiling when it comes due, which is expected to happen soon after ...
Torture and the Innocent by Jacob G. Hornberger May 17, 2012 One of the main arguments made by pro-torture Americans is that the information acquired by torture can lead to important information that can save the lives of innocent people. Their argument is a classic example of the old maxim, “The end justifies the means.” But even if we were to accept that utilitarian argument for torture, doesn’t it necessarily involve ...
1993: A Fateful Year in the War on Terrorism by Jacob G. Hornberger May 16, 2012 Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and other U.S. officials immediately proclaimed that the terrorists were motivated by their hatred for America’s “freedom and values.” Let’s examine that position in light of two important events that took place in 1993, some eight years before the 9/11 attacks. In 1993, the United States was hit with two terrorist attacks, right here ...
Believing You’re Free Doesn’t Make It So by Jacob G. Hornberger May 15, 2012 The George W. Bush Presidential Center in Washington, D.C., is holding a special event today to celebrate “the brave efforts of dissidents and activists around the world in their fight to be free.” Wow! How exciting is that! At least one thing’s for sure: these people aren’t going to be celebrating the brave efforts of libertarians here in the United States ...
Separate Banking and the State by Jacob G. Hornberger May 14, 2012 Have you noticed that whenever something goes wrong in life, statists call for more government regulations? How come they never seem to notice that their beloved regulated economy failed to prevent the thing that went wrong? No matter how highly regulated the activity, in the mind of the statist the fact that something went wrong doesn’t connote the failure ...
Jim Crow’s Drug War by Jacob G. Hornberger May 11, 2012 After the Civil War, Washington, D.C., became a model Jim Crow city for the United States. Having supposedly waged the war for the purpose of ending slavery, U.S. officials proceeded to keep the nation’s capital city segregated all the way through the 1950s. U.S. officials like to point to the 1964 Civil Rights Act as evidence of how enlightened they ...
Put the Postal Service Out of Its Misery by Jacob G. Hornberger May 10, 2012 In perpetual financial agony, the Postal Service has announced that it no longer intends to close thousands of rural post offices, notwithstanding the fact that, according to the New York Times, such offices earn an average of $15,000 while costing $114,000 to operate. Apparently constituent political pressures in those rural areas have caused the Postal Service to ...
Hitler’s Tribunals by Jacob G. Hornberger May 9, 2012 After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government came up with the idea of instituting military tribunals for trying suspected terrorists as a possible alternative to prosecuting them under the U.S. Code in regular federal courts. Since then, some terrorist suspects have been accorded the federal court route, others have been accorded the tribunal route, and at least one ...
Totalitarian Show Trials by Jacob G. Hornberger May 8, 2012 If there is anything good about the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, it is that the American people will get to see how trials are conducted in totalitarian countries. One thing is for sure: The procedural protections found in the Bill of Rights that are employed in our federal court system here at home are nowhere to be found ...
It’s Again Time to Dismantle the Cold War Military Machine by Jacob G. Hornberger May 7, 2012 In 1989, when the Soviet Union dismantled, the American people had a grand opportunity, one in which they could have dismantled the massive national-security state apparatus that had come into existence at the end of World War II for the purpose of confronting America’s wartime ally and partner, the Soviet Union. Instead, the U.S. national-security state sought out ways ...
