Jacob Hornberger

As a Catholic, I believe that life begins at conception. It is important, however, to point out the rank hypocrisy of both Republicans and Democrats on the abortion issue.

Republicans claim to be “pro-life” but, unfortunately, that claim has never manifested itself when it comes to the lives of foreigners. The Pentagon’s and CIA’s foreign wars have killed millions of foreigners, with not a whit of concern by Republicans (or Democrats). Moreover, U.S. sanctions and embargoes intentionally target innocent foreigners with death and suffering as a way to achieve regime change, just like terrorists do. The killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through U.S. sanctions, with the full support of Republicans (and Democrats) comes to mind.

Democrats claim to be “pro-choice” but have long denied people freedom of choice when it comes to the right to ingest, possess, and distribute drugs that haven’t been approved by the government. I’m referring of the course to the decades-long, deadly, destructive, and racially bigoted war on drugs that Democrats (and Republicans) have long supported and kept in existence.

All criminal charges against Julian Assange and Edward Snowden should be immediately dismissed. Their only “crime” was to disclose the truth about the evil and immoral conduct of the U.S. national-security state, including the war crimes it committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange and Snowden should be hailed as heroes for their courage and patriotism. If the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA nonetheless persist in prosecuting Assange and Snowden, they should be immediately pardoned.

All non-violent drug-war offenders should also be immediately pardoned. It is actually Republicans and Democrats who should be apologizing and seeking our pardon for what they have done to destroy so many people, especially Blacks, with their beloved deadly, destructive, and racist war on drugs.

Everyone who has been convicted of any non-violent offense should also be pardoned, including 37-year-old Ross Ulbricht, whose double-life sentence plus 40 years without possibility of parole is repugnant to the extreme and shocking to any well-formed conscience.

People have the natural, God-given right to enter into any economic transactions with others. That’s the way people improve their economic well-being. All that regulation does is interfere with that process, thereby decreasing people’s economic prosperity.

The government has no more business interfering with economic activity than it does interfering with religious, educational, and healthcare activity. A genuine free-enterprise is one in which economic enterprise is free of government control, regulation, and interference.

We need to restore America’s heritage of free enterprise and free markets that both Republicans and Democrats have destroyed. The ideal would be a constitutional amendment patterned after the First and the Fourteenth Amendments: “No law shall be enacted by either the federal or state governments respecting the regulation of commerce or abridging the free exercise thereof.

It would be difficult to find a better example of a socialist system than public (i.e., government) schooling. The system is run like the army — in a top, down, command-and-control manner. Attendance is mandatory under the state’s compulsory-attendance laws. Funding is through force of taxation. The state decides the curriculum and the textbooks. Teachers are state employees.

 

Is it any wonder that America’s public school systems have been in perpetual crisis and chaos for decades? That’s what socialism always brings — crises and chaos.

 

The government has no more role in education than it does in religion and healthcare. Public (i.e., government) schooling has been a disaster. With its army-lite structure, mandatory attendance laws, and funding through taxation, public schooling destroys a child’s natural love of learning and molds students into becoming deferential, compliant, obedient, and submissive adults.

 

The children who pay the biggest price for government schooling are those in the inner city, where public schools are oftentimes cesspools of violence and drugs rather than the peaceful and healthy centers of learning they should be.

 

None of this is the fault of teachers or administrators, many of which are highly dedicated people. When you combine an inherently bad system with good people, the system will win out every time.

 

Republicans say that “school vouchers” are the answer to the public-schooling morass. They are wrong. School vouchers are nothing more than another socialist device (using taxation to take money from some people to give it to others) to make public schooling work more efficiently through “choice” and “competition.” In actuality, what school vouchers do is more deeply embed the state in the educational process by making private schools dependent on the state’s voucher dole and subject to greater state control and regulation.

 

The free market produces the best of everything. It would produce the best education possible for all children. The ideal would a constitutional amendment patterned after the First and Fourteenth Amendments: “Neither the federal government nor the states shall make any law establishing or supporting education or abridging the free exercise thereof.”

It would be difficult to find a better example of a socialist system than public (i.e., government) schooling. The system is run like the army — in a top, down, command-and-control manner. Attendance is mandatory under the state’s compulsory-attendance laws. Funding is through force of taxation. The state decides the curriculum and the textbooks. Teachers are state employees.

 

Is it any wonder that America’s public school systems have been in perpetual crisis and chaos for decades? That’s what socialism always brings — crises and chaos.

 

The government has no more role in education than it does in religion and healthcare. Public (i.e., government) schooling has been a disaster. With its army-lite structure, mandatory attendance laws, and funding through taxation, public schooling destroys a child’s natural love of learning and molds students into becoming deferential, compliant, obedient, and submissive adults.

 

The children who pay the biggest price for government schooling are those in the inner city, where public schools are oftentimes cesspools of violence and drugs rather than the peaceful and healthy centers of learning they should be.

 

None of this is the fault of teachers or administrators, many of which are highly dedicated people. When you combine an inherently bad system with good people, the system will win out every time.

 

Republicans say that “school vouchers” are the answer to the public-schooling morass. They are wrong. School vouchers are nothing more than another socialist device (using taxation to take money from some people to give it to others) to make public schooling work more efficiently through “choice” and “competition.” In actuality, what school vouchers do is more deeply embed the state in the educational process by making private schools dependent on the state’s voucher dole and subject to greater state control and regulation.

 

The free market produces the best of everything. It would produce the best education possible for all children. The ideal would a constitutional amendment patterned after the First and Fourteenth Amendments: “Neither the federal government nor the states shall make any law establishing or supporting education or abridging the free exercise thereof.”

The solution to environmental problems lies with a private-property order and the free market. Socialism and regulation will only make matters worse and destroy economic liberty in the process.

The EPA is one of the most abusive and tyrannical agencies within the federal government. In the name of protecting the environment, it has tyrannized and destroyed countless landowners.

Moreover, consider the Interstate Highway System, one of the biggest socialist projects in U.S. history. Using the power of eminent domain, it destroyed countless families and neighborhoods all across America. It also provided a free subsidy to the automobile industry, which ended up producing millions of cars that are now one of the major causes of air pollution. Without the Interstate Highway System, America’s transportation system would have developed in a more balanced, non-polluting way.

The federal government is good at killing and destroying. It should not be entrusted with caring for the environment.

America’s founding foreign policy was one of non-intervention. This non-interventionist foreign policy was captured by the famous Fourth of July speech to Congress by John Quincy Adams, entitled “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.”

The abandonment of our founding foreign policy in favor of foreign interventionism has been an absolute disaster for America and the world. Invasions, wars of aggression, occupations, forever wars, coups, foreign aid, sanctions, embargoes, alliances with dictatorial regimes, and now, once again, getting us perilously close to life-destroying nuclear war.

With their joint, bipartisan support of foreign interventionism, Republicans and Democrats have unleashed the Pentagon and the CIA to wreak death and destruction around the world, while, at the same time, isolating our nation with sanctions, embargoes, trade wars, travel restrictions, and trade restrictions.

We need to do the opposite. We need to rein in and dismantle the Pentagon and the CIA and unleash the American private sector to interact with the people of the world.

We also need to reject the national-security establishment’s obsessive mindset of extreme hostility toward Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua, and other nations and instead restore and maintain peaceful and harmonious relations with the people of the world.

The restoration of non-interventionism necessarily includes the closure and abandonment of all U.S. military bases in foreign countries, starting with the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s torture and prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That property rightly belongs to Cuba, not the United States.

The time has come to restore our nation’s founding foreign policy of non-interventionism. Our lives, freedom, and well-being depend on it.

People have the natural, God-given right to keep and bear arms. They have a right of self-defense from violent criminals, such as murderers and rapists. They also have the right to resist the tyranny of their own government, should that need ever arises. A gun-free society inevitably becomes a submissive, compliant, obedient, and subservient society.

What about gun violence in America? No, it’s not because of widespread gun ownership. After all, the Swiss people are armed to the teeth and yet are not besieged by periodic bouts of irrational mass violence.

America’s gun violence is rooted in (1) the drug war and (2) in the federal government’s killing machine abroad, which shows no regard for the value of human life when it comes to foreigners. For whatever reason, that killing machine is triggering something within off-kilter people here at home that is motivating them to copy that same killing pattern.

Legalize drugs and dismantle the federal killing machine abroad and you bring an end to irrational mass killings here at home.

People have the natural, God-given right to keep and bear arms. They have a right of self-defense from violent criminals, such as murderers and rapists. They also have the right to resist the tyranny of their own government, should that need ever arises. A gun-free society inevitably becomes a submissive, compliant, obedient, and subservient society.

What about gun violence in America? No, it’s not because of widespread gun ownership. After all, the Swiss people are armed to the teeth and yet are not besieged by periodic bouts of irrational mass violence.

America’s gun violence is rooted in (1) the drug war and (2) in the federal government’s killing machine abroad, which shows no regard for the value of human life when it comes to foreigners. For whatever reason, that killing machine is triggering something within off-kilter people here at home that is motivating them to copy that same killing pattern.

Legalize drugs and dismantle the federal killing machine abroad and you bring an end to irrational mass killings here at home.

Government has no more business involving itself in healthcare than it does in religion and education. The imposition of mask requirements, vaccine mandates, and lockdowns by the federal government and the state governments is the hallmark of tyrannical regimes.

But it’s not enough to simply terminate those infringements on liberty. To achieve genuine liberty, it is necessary to abolish the Centers for Disease Control and all other federal and state agencies that involve themselves in healthcare.

Leave healthcare to the free market. The free market produces the best of everything. Leave businesses free to establish their own mask and vaccine requirements. Leave consumers free to make their own healthcare decisions.

The ideal is a constitutional amendment patterned after the First and Fourteenth Amendments: “No law shall be enacted by ether the federal or state governments respecting the establishment or support of healthcare or abridging the free exercise thereof.”

America’s decades-long immigration crisis has long been characterized by death, suffering, and the destruction of liberty. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. America’s system of immigration controls is a socialist system, one that is characterized by the central principle of socialism — central planning. As the libertarian economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, central planning produces “planned chaos,” a term that perfectly describes America’s decades-long, ongoing, never-ending deadly and destructive immigration crisis.

America’s system of immigration controls, which are fully supported by both Republicans and Democrats, has come with massive death and suffering for immigrants, in the form of suffocation in the backs of tractor-trailers, drowning in the Rio Grande, dying of thirst on lonely deserts in the American Southwest, or from bullets fired by Border Patrol agents.

This socialist system has also come with a brutal immigration police state in the American Southwest, which includes highway checkpoints, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, warrantless trespasses and searches of farms and ranches, violent raids on American businesses, forced deportations, a Berlin Wall that is based on the stealing of private land through eminent domain, immigration prisons, drone surveillance of private activity, and boarding of Greyhound buses to check people’s papers. These are the types of things found in communist and other totalitarian regimes.

“Comprehensive immigration reform” is a ridiculous and nonsensical term. Every immigration “reform” ever enacted has only made the situation worse. There is one — and only one — moral and practical solution to America’s decades-long, ongoing, never-ending immigration crisis: restore America’s heritage of open borders — that is, the free movements of people back and forth across borders, just as we have domestically with state borders.

Abolish the Border Patrol and ICE and all controls on the free movements of people across borders. Leave people free to retain their citizenship. Genuine open borders is the only system that is consistent with the principles of liberty, morality, religion (“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”), free markets, and a limited-government republic.

Republicans and Democrats have an obsessive need to control and interfere with the lives of others. That’s, of course, what their drug laws are all about. Republicans and Democrats have an obsessive need to control what adults put into their mouths.

 

Republicans have a special obsessive need to condemn people for the private choices they make with respect to sexual orientation. Republicans also have a special obsessive need to monitor and control what people do within the privacy of their own homes and, especially, in their bedrooms. They want the state to punish people when their private behavior doesn’t meet with Republican approval.

 

Democrats have a special obsessive need to control what people do with their own money and their own privately owned property. That’s why they want the state to punish vendors who choose not to sell their products to people because of their sexual orientation. Private business owners have the right to sell their products to whomever they choose. It’s their privately owned business, not the state’s.

 

With their system of educational socialism, Republicans and Democrats politicize their obsessions in the public-school classroom. There is a simple solution to this politicized socialist morass: end state involvement in education and leave families free to choose the best educational vehicles for their children in a free market.

 

Life can be difficult at times. We don’t need Republicans or Democrats making it more difficult with their obsessive need to have the state control and interfere with the peaceful choices that people make in their lives. Let’s leave people free to make their own way through life, each in their own way.

It would be difficult to find a better example of the destruction of liberty that both Republicans and Democrats have foisted upon our land than their deadly and destructive war on drugs. It has brought massive violence, death, corruption, and destruction of liberty and privacy to our nation and also foreign nations. It is also one of the most racist government programs in our lifetime, perhaps even more so than segregation, given the disproportionate impact it has had on Blacks.

Adults have the fundamental, natural, God-given right to possess, ingest, and distribute whatever they want, no matter how harmful or dangerous it might be. That includes alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, opioids, fentanyl, sugar, fatty foods ,and everything else. It simply is no business of the government to control, monitor, or interfere with what a person puts into his mouth. Government is not our daddy.

The drug war is nothing more than a repeat of Prohibition, which also brought nothing but death, destruction of liberty and privacy, and the rise of black-market gangs and cartels.

Drug use and drug addiction belong in the private sector with therapy and rehabilitation. That’s where compassion resides, not in the coercive apparatus of the DEA and the criminal-justice system.

The only ones who benefit from the drug war are the drug lords and the enormous drug-war criminal-justice bureaucracy whose salaries and bribes depend on this gigantic immoral and destructive federal program.

Republicans and Democrats have done enough damage with their deadly, destructive, and racist drug war. Legalize all drugs. Our freedom, privacy, and well-being require it.

People have a fundamental, God-given right to keep everything they earn and decide for themselves what to do with it. Their earnings belong to them, not to the government, not to others, and not to society.

The right to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth necessarily leads to higher standards of living for everyone. That’s because when wealth is accumulated in the form of savings, it is invested in capital, which makes people more productive. More productivity means higher wages and higher standards of living.

A progressive income tax is one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. Given that our American ancestors opposed socialism, it’s no surprise that the United States had no income tax or IRS for more than a century. The result was the most prosperous and charitable nation in history.