Jacob G. Hornberger Quotes

• If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Libertarian Party, Liberty, Libertarianism

  48 Copy quote

• Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not - and is not - a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Exercise, Rights, Government

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• Every day, IRS agents levy liens on homes, bank accounts, and businesses; they confiscate cars, furniture, boats, and other personal property without the constitutional protections of due notice, hearing, and due process. If a person forcibly resists, government agents kill him for resisting arrest.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Home, Government, Car

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• For libertarians, freedom entails the right of people to live their lives any way they choose, so long as their conduct is peaceful. For conservatives, freedom entails the right of government to do just about anything it wants, even if its conduct is violent.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Government, Libertarian Party, Long

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• Is there another way? Of course there is. There is a way based on simple moral principles: Everyone keeps his own money. Everyone decides what to do with his own money. No income tax. No IRS. No government grants or assistance to anyone. All charity is voluntary. It's called freedom. It's a peaceful, harmonious way of life, one that Americans once believed in.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Simple, Government, Peaceful

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• [D]ecade after decade, through taxes and regulations, governments at all levels took ever-increasing control over people's lives, wealth, and property. The control grew exponentially, decade after decade. The rationale was that the control was necessary -- for society, for the poor, for the nation, even for freedom itself. Americans continued living their life of the lie: they continued believing that the more control government exercised over their lives and property, the freer they became.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Lying, Believe, Government

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• Individual freedom and drug laws contradict each other. In a genuinely free society, people are free to ingest whatever they want to ingest, no matter how harmful or destructive. What people ingest is none of the government's business. If drug users or drug addicts wish to get help, a free society provides the means to do so.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Mean, Government, Law

  4 Copy quote

• By the very nature of government schooling, the matter of what goes into school textbooks must necessarily be a political matter, to be decided by those I political power.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  School, Government, Political

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• The reason people hate America is because they don't like being treated like garbage by arrogant, pompous, hypocritical, self-righteous, duplicitous, imperialist political and bureaucratic hacks.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Hate, America, Self

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• The true patriot scrutinizes the actions of his own government with unceasing vigilance. And when his government violates the morality and rightness associated with principles of individual freedom and private property, he immediately rises in opposition to his government.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Government, Principles, Morality

  Jacob G. Hornberger (1997). “The tyranny of gun control”

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• Those who advocate either slavery or income taxation should be ashamed of themselves. Genuine freedom entails the abolition, not the reform, of income taxation and the IRS, just as genuine freedom entailed the abolition, not the reform, of slavery.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Irs, Taxation, Slavery

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• The lesson that Americans today have forgotten or never learned - the lesson which our ancestors tried so hard to teach - is that the greatest threat to our lives, liberty, property, and security is not some foreign government, as our rulers so often tell us. The greatest threat to our freedom and well-being lies with our own government!.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Lying, Government, Liberty

  4 Copy quote

• There is no difference in principle, ... between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Philosophy, Differences, Principles

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• A minimum-wage law, a law that prevents employers and employees from entering into mutually beneficial economic exchanges, is as far from a free market or free enterprise as one can get. That's why it causes so much damage and destruction, especially to black teenagers and others whose labor, for one reason or another, is valued by employers at less than the government-established minimum wage.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Teenager, Government, Law

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• The Trouble with liberals is twofold: They have a horrible blind spot with respect to moral principles and they have an abysmal understanding of economic principles.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Blind Spots, Understanding, Principles

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• No matter what federal program one selects - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the drug war, the income tax and the IRS, education, foreign interventions and wars - they are all a giant mess.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  War, Drug, Matter

  4 Copy quote

• There is a common perception that there are two alternative libertarian positions on immigration: government-controlled borders and open borders. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one libertarian position on immigration, and that position is open immigration or open borders.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Government, Two, Perception

  4 Copy quote

• Unfortunately, liberals didn't stop with welfare-statism. They also turned to economic regulations, not understanding that such interventions, again, harmed the very people they were supposedly truing to help - the poor and destitute.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  People, Understanding, Regulation

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• There is one-and only one-way to end the violence in Latin America. There is one-and only one-way to terminate the drug gangs. That way is by legalizing drugs. Legalizing drugs today would put an immediate end to the drug gangs and the drug-war violence.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Latin, War, America

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• The biggest threat to the American people today lies with the United States government. ... [T]he long-term solution is to dismantle, not reform, the iron fist of the welfare state and the controlled economy. This includes the end (not the reform) of the IRS, the DEA, the BATF, the SEC, the FDA, HUD, the departments of HHS, Labor, Agriculture, and energy, and every other agency that takes money from some and gives it to others or interferes with peaceful behavior.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Lying, Government, Iron

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• The many woes that afflict out nation are rooted in the morally bankrupt paradigms of socialism, interventionism, and empire that have held our nation in their grip for decades and that the only real solution to such woes is libertarianism.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Real, Woe, Empires

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• From the inception of our nation our American ancestors intended for the United States to operate under a precious-metals monetary system or, more specifically, under a monetary system in which people used gold and silver coins rather than paper money as the media of exchange.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Media, People, Gold

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• It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Rights, People, Liberty

  "Do Our Rights Come From The Constitution?". www.fff.org. June 1, 1999.

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• [T]ake the war on drugs. The average American says, "The war on drugs has been beneficial." The rest of us see reality. This war has destroyed thousands of Americans. It is also a pretext for government agents to rob innocent people in airports and on the highways - they seize and confiscate large amounts of cash and say to their victims: "Sue us if you don't like it." And more and more judges, politicians, intelligence agents, and law-enforcement officers are on the take - as dependent on the drug-war largess as the drug lords themselves.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  War, Reality, Average

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• History has shown more than once that when people surrender totalitarian powers to their rulers, they are inevitably exercised in the next big crisis. And let's not forget here that the next president who wields this power and who will be in charge of military might well be Hillary Clinton.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  Military, People, President

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