Jacob G. Hornberger famous quotes

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.
-- Jacob G. Hornberger

#Liberty

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

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

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

[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

Every single American can exclaim, 'Nothing justifies what they did in New York and Washington,' not even the bombs that our government has dropped on them for ten years or the embargo that has caused the deaths of so many children. That's of course true...The issue is simply an acceptance of reality and a fundamental fact of life: When governments do bad things to people, people sometimes retaliate.
-- Jacob G. Hornberger

#New York #Children #Acceptance

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 #Agriculture #Fda

The cult of the omnipotent state has millions of followers in the united States. Americans of today view their government in the same way as Christians view their God; they worship and adore the state and they render their lives and fortunes to it. Statists believe that their lives - their very being - are a privilege that the state has given to them. They believe that everything they do is - and should be - dependent on the consent of the government. Thus, statists support such devices as income taxation, licensing laws, regulations, passports, trade restrictions, and the like.
-- Jacob G. Hornberger

#Christian #Believe #Government

[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 #Airports

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

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

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

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 #Long #People

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

#Reform #Income #Irs