Hornberger's Blog

The Role of Foreign Policy in Security-State Surveillance

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 10, 2013

In the national discussion over the national-security state’s massive surveillance scheme over the American people, it’s imperative that we keep in mind how the national-security state’s foreign policy of empire and interventionism play into how we have ended up with an Orwellian system of national surveillance at the hands of the federal government. How are statists justifying the NSA’s ...

Surveillance-State Communism

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 7, 2013

In the name of keeping us safe, it’s now indisputable that the U.S. national-security state has enveloped the American people in an extensive web of surveillance, one that characterizes communist regimes. It’s just the latest episode in the sordid, dark-side history of the national-security state apparatus that was grafted onto our constitutional order as part ...

Why Do Conservatives Favor Immigration Socialism?

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 6, 2013

Last month Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint and Heritage scholar Robert Rector presented the Heritage Foundation’s solution to the latest immigration crisis. The premier conservative foundation in the country thinks the federal government should focus on bringing in immigrants who have high-school degrees because they’re more likely to bring more benefits and lower costs to American society. As columnist Dana ...

FFF’s Income-Tax Webinar

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 5, 2013

If you haven’t been participating in FFF’s new webinar series, you’re missing a valuable and enjoyable intellectual treat. The webinar is conducted by FFF vice president Sheldon Richman. The first webinar was on the economy and the second one was on Frederic Bastiat’s great book Economic Harmonies. The next webinar will be held on Wednesday, June 19, at ...

JFK and the Deferentials

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 4, 2013

Proponents of the government’s lone-nut assassination theory in the John Kennedy assassination oftentimes suggest that those who reject the official version of what happened have some sort of psychological need to place the assassination within the context of a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists, they say, simply cannot accept the idea that a lone nut succeeded in killing a president of ...

Syria and the U.S. Are Partners in Crime

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 3, 2013

I know it’s considered heresy to criticize the U.S. government with respect to foreign affairs, but sometimes it’s just necessary to point out the disingenuousness and hypocrisy of the U.S. national-security state. There are lots of good examples that one can draw upon but since Syria is in the news, that’s a good one to focus on. Today, the official ...

An Example of Deference to Authority

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 31, 2013

In yesterday’s blog post, I pointed out that the real purpose of public (i.e., government) schooling is to produce good little citizens who defer to the authority of the federal government. Through 12 years of regimentation within an army-lite structure, the minds of people are gradually molded from childhood to trustingly defer to the judgment of federal officials, ...

Public Schooling Teaches Deference to Authority

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 30, 2013

Following up on my blog post of yesterday regarding public schooling, yesterday’s New York Times had a really interesting article about public schooling in Thailand that demonstrated perfectly the real purpose of this socialistic program—to produce good little citizens who loyally defer to the authority of the government. Through of a system of imposed regimentation and conformity ...

Conservatives Favor Competitive Socialism in Education

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 29, 2013

An excellent example of how differently libertarians and conservatives view the concepts of freedom and free markets with respect to the area of education appears in an article entitled “The Twinkification of American Education” by John Zmirak, which is posted on the website of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a longtime conservative organization. Zmirak is a conservative himself ...

Why Not Separate Charity and the State?

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 28, 2013

The welfare state is founded on force. With Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, foreign aid, and every other welfare-state program, the government forces people to share part of their money with others, including the elderly, the poor, farmers, students, foreign dictators, and many others. This coercive process is based on the government’s seizure of people’s income ...

Obama Spoke the Truth on Freedom and War

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 27, 2013

President Obama undoubtedly stunned proponents of the “war on terrorism” by quoting James Madison in his recent foreign-policy speech: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” In fact, Obama even shocked me with his use of that quote, given that The Future of Freedom Foundation has cited Madison’s quote innumerable times ever since the 9/11 ...

The Evil of Humanitarian Interventionism

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 24, 2013

American statists sometimes justify U.S. military interventionism in foreign countries by saying that it’s necessary to save people from the tyranny and oppression at the hands of their own government. When a dictator is killing his people, they argue, it is up to the U.S. military to invade the country, oust the dictator, and install a new, more benevolent ...