JACOB HORNBERGER
Libertarian for President
A Campaign of Principle for the Party of Principle
My positions on the Important issues facing OUR country
OPEN THE BORDERS
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.
REPEAL SOCIAL SECURITY
Contrary to popular opinion, especially among seniors, no one has ever put his money into a Social Security retirement account. No such account has ever existed. People have paid taxes, and those taxes were spent in the year of receipt, on such things as the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan or to send money to the crooked and corrupt regime in Ukraine.
From its very beginning in 1935, Social Security has been nothing more than a massive coercive socialist program, no different from food stamps and other welfare-state programs. The concept for Social Security originated among socialists in Germany and was then imported into the United States.
To fund Social Security, the IRS seizes money from young people through the force of taxation and gives it to seniors. There is no care or compassion involved in this process. If people refuse to pay their taxes, U.S. officials come after them with a vengeance, with liens, attachments, garnishments, investigative audits, criminal prosecution, fines, and imprisonment.
Our American ancestors lived without Social Security and other welfare-state programs for more than a century. That’s because our American ancestors were opposed to socialism. They understood that genuine charity comes from the willing heart of an individual, such as when children willingly honor their mother and father, not because of the coercive apparatus of taxation and welfare.
Socialism has proven to be the bane of mankind. Supported by both Republicans and Democrats, this socialist program has no legitimate place in a genuinely free society. It is an immoral and fraudulent Ponzi scheme that fleeces young people and destroys family values. It also produces a mindset of dependency on socialism among American seniors. Social Security needs to be repealed immediately, not reformed or phased out.
If Social Security were repealed, everyone would be fine. Many seniors are sufficiently wealthy and don’t need the money. Others will need to return to work. There is nothing wrong with that. There are lots of seniors in the workplace, which keeps them young and active. For the truly needy — e.g., cancer patients with few resources — there are children and grandchildren (who no longer would be paying FICA taxes), charitable foundations, church groups, neighborhood groups, and physicians and hospitals wiling to help out those in need. We just need to recapture our faith in freedom, ourselves, others, voluntary charity, and God.
REPEAL MEDICARE
America once had the finest healthcare system in the world. Hardly anyone had major medical insurance because it wasn’t necessary. Prices were low and stable. Going to the doctor was like going to the grocery store. Physicians loved what they did in life. Many doctors even made house calls. Medical improvements were skyrocketing.
And then in 1965 came Medicare and Medicaid, two socialist programs that ended up destroying the finest healthcare system in history. Medicare and Medicaid, which are supported by both Republicans and Democrats, are the cause of America’s ongoing, never-ending healthcare crisis. That’s why healthcare prices began soaring through the roof. That’s when doctors started hating what they do and retiring early.
Socialism cannot be fixed or reformed. There is but one genuine solution to America’s healthcare crisis. That solution is not a full-fledged socialist healthcare system similar to the ones in Cuba and North Korea, which Democrats wish to impose on us. That would only make the healthcare crisis even worse than it already is. The only — repeat only — solution to America’s healthcare crisis lies in the repeal, not reform, of Medicare and Medicaid and the restoration of a genuine free-market healthcare system. That’s the only way we can restore the finest healthcare system in history to our land.
REPEAL DRUG LAWS
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.
RESTORE SOUND MONEY
A free and prosperous society necessarily depends on sound money. Unfortunately, however, both Republicans and Democrats have destroyed what was once the finest monetary system in history.
The Constitution, by its express terms, established a monetary system based on gold coins and silver coins. It was not a monetary system of “paper money backed by gold,” as Republicans and Democrats claim. Our American ancestors rejected paper money, fully and completely. All government debt instruments were promises to pay money — that is, gold coins and silver coins.
Gold and silver were our official money for more than 125 years. Our American ancestors wanted it that way. They knew that with paper money, government officials would plunder and loot the populace through monetary debasement and devaluation — that is, through inflation.
In 1933, in one of the most shocking and morally repugnant acts in U.S. history, President Franklin Roosevelt declared an end to America’s constitutional system of gold coins and silver coins and the start of a paper-money monetary system. With a dictatorial decree that would have made fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proud, FDR commanded all Americans to deliver their gold coins to the federal government in return for irredeemable paper notes and then proceeded to devalue his paper money after Americans complied with his order. FDR also ordered that any American who got caught holding what had been the country’s official money for more than a century would face a felony conviction, a 10-year jail sentence, a $10,000 fine, and forfeiture of his gold coins.
The Federal Reserve, which had been established in 1913, was now empowered to plunder and loot the American people through the printing of vast amounts of paper money to pay for the ever-increasing expenditures of the welfare-warfare state. That’s why the purchasing power of the dollar has plummeted, decade after decade.
A free and prosperous society necessarily depends on the restoration of sound money. That necessarily entails abolishing the Federal Reserve System. The second-best solution to America’s monetary woes is to restore America’s constitutional system of gold coins and silver coins. The best solution is adopt the libertarian Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek’s concept of a free-market monetary system.
RESTORE THE REPUBLIC
Our nation was founded as a limited-government republic. That’s the type of government that the Constitution called into existence. Its powers were weak and few, limited to those enumerated in the Constitution. Its powers were even further restricted by the Bill of Rights. That’s the way our ancestors wanted it. They didn’t trust the federal government.
Our limited-government republic entailed a relatively small, basic military force and no Pentagon, military-industrial complex, CIA, or NSA. Our American ancestors were fiercely opposed to standing armies because they knew that standing armies, not foreign regimes, were the greatest threat to their freedom and well-being.
The worst mistake our nation has ever made was to convert the federal government into a national-security state after World War II. A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. North Korea is a national-security state. So are Cuba, Egypt, China, and Russia. And post-World War II United States.
By converting the federal government to a national-security state, Republicans and Democrats destroyed our rights and liberties by vesting the federal government with omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers. These include the powers of assassination, torture, mass secret surveillance, and indefinite detention, both for foreigners and Americans.
Democrats and Republicans did not seek or secure a constitutional amendment that authorized the abandonment of a limited-government republic and the conversion to a national-security state. That means that the national-security state is illegitimate under our form of constitutional government.
Democrats and Republicans say that the national-security state keeps us safe. It’s actually the exact opposite. Through its foreign policy of interventionism, invasions, wars of aggression, occupations, foreign aid, alliances with dictatorial regimes, crises, and coups, the national-security state makes us less safe, especially through terrorist blowback and retaliation. As our American ancestors clearly understood, a national-security state is the biggest threat to our freedom and well-being.
The restoration of our rights and liberties necessarily depends on the dismantling of the national-security state form of government and the restoration of our founding governmental system of a limited government republic and a small, basic military force.
NO NUCLEAR WAR
Using NATO to absorb former members of the Warsaw Pact, the U.S. national-security establishment has, once again, brought us perilously close to nuclear war with Russia, just as it did back in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
NATO is a Cold War dinosaur that should have been dismantled at the end of the Cold War. Instead, the Pentagon has used NATO to reignite its Cold War against Russia, to ensure ever-increasing budgets for the national-security establishment and its army of voracious “defense” contractors who feed at the public trough.
We need to adhere to President Washington’s and President Jefferson’s admonitions to avoid entangling alliances. We need to embrace President Kennedy’s policy of bringing an end to the obsessive anti-Russia hostility that the Pentagon and the CIA have inculcated in the American people since the end of World War II.
We need to immediately withdraw from NATO and terminate all foreign aid to Ukraine (and every other regime). Our lives, liberty, well-being, and perhaps even our survival depend on it.