Another Official Enemy for the Empire by Jacob G. Hornberger September 26, 2011 For statists who have been depressed over the killing of Osama bin Laden and the near-destruction of al-Qaeda, fear not: the U.S. Empire has come up with another new official enemy as part of its never-ending war on terrorism. This time the official enemy is an Afghan group called the Haqqanis, who theNew York Times described in a front-page article on ...
The Legal Tender Cases by Jacob G. Hornberger September 23, 2011 What a high I had last night! It was the first session of my informal seminar on law and economics at George Mason University. The seminar is being co-sponsored by FFF and the GMU Econ Society. The Econ Society is a student-run group composed of students who are interested in libertarianism and Austrian economics. That's the group that cosponsors ...
Why Save an Immoral, Illegal, Fraudulent Program? by Jacob G. Hornberger September 22, 2011 GOP president candidate Rick Perry says that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, a monstrous lie, and unconstitutional. His GOP opponent, an ardent supporter of Social Security and, for that matter, socialized medicine, Mitt Romney, says that Perry can’t be trusted because he wants to kill Social Security. Kill Social Security? Where did Romney get that? Perry has made it ...
Blaming America by Jacob G. Hornberger September 21, 2011 One of the most fascinating aspects of the post-9/11 debate has been the “Blame America” phenomenon. Whenever libertarians have pointed to the role that U.S. foreign policy played in producing the anger and rage that ultimately manifested itself with terrorist retaliation on 9/11, statists have responded, “Oh, so you’re blaming America for the attacks.” Here at The Future of Freedom ...
Losing Liberty for Security with the Padilla Case by Jacob G. Hornberger September 20, 2011 The Jose Padilla case is back in the news. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the 17-year sentence handed down by the presiding district judge was too lenient. The court has ordered the case remanded to the judge with instructions to consider a much higher sentence. Although it might be little-known among the American people, the Jose ...
The LPAC Conference by Jacob G. Hornberger September 19, 2011 We had a great time at the Liberty Political Action Conference in Reno sponsored by the Campaign for Liberty. About 500-600 people attended the event, which featured many speakers, including both Ron Paul and Rand Paul. Ron created a bit of a stir when he walked into Rand’s book-signing session accompanied by the actor Vince Vaughn who obviously is ...
Iran and America’s 9/11 Judicial Revolution by Jacob G. Hornberger September 14, 2011 The news media is reporting the possibility of an imminent release of the two American hikers who have been jailed in Iran since July 31, 2009. Shane Bauer, his fiancée Sarah Shourd, and their close friend Josh Fattal were arrested by Iranian authorities after allegedly crossing into Iran while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Shourd was released on bail, and ...
Déjà vu With Santorum’s Attack on Ron Paul by Jacob G. Hornberger September 13, 2011 Well, shades of 2008 and former presidential candidate Rudolf Guliani! During last night’s Republican presidential debate, it was déjà vu, all over again. Taking a page from Rudy Guliani’s now-famous attack against Ron Paul in one of the early Republican presidential debates four years ago, Santorum went on the attack last night against Paul’s libertarian foreign-policy views. Specifically, Santorum attacked Paul ...
Yearning for the Iron Fist by Jacob G. Hornberger September 12, 2011 Last Friday’s New York Times carried a front-page article entitled “Desperate Guatemalans Embrace an ‘Iron Fist,’” which showed how the failures of government interventionism inevitably lead toward calls for dictatorship to bring “order and stability” to society. The article is about the drug war, perhaps the most failed interventionist program in history. Like Mexico and other Latin American countries, Guatemala ...
9/11 and the Degradation of Liberty and Conscience by Jacob G. Hornberger September 9, 2011 Statists love to say that 9/11 changed the world. Actually, it didn’t change anything insofar as the federal government is concerned. It continued doing the same things it was doing prior to 9/11 and even expanded them. 9/11 did change our country though, especially with respect to the degradation of liberty and conscience. Prior to 9/11 and especially after the ...
Libya and Mainstream Pundits, Part 3 by Jacob G. Hornberger September 8, 2011 Last Friday and last Tuesday, I wrote about New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof’s paeans to the U.S. government’s intervention in Libya, paeans that contained no reference to the U.S. government’s torture partnership with Libya’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. I indicated that Kristof, like most other mainstream journalists, lives in a universe in which the U.S. government roams the ...
Conservative Support of Socialism and Fascism by Jacob G. Hornberger September 7, 2011 Tonight’s Republican presidential debate might well witness the surrender of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. I don’t mean his dropping out of the race but rather the almost-certain abandonment of his principles, in the hopes of being taken seriously by the mainstream press and public. In an article last Friday, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson wrote an interesting article entitled “Rick ...
