By Jacob G. Hornberger.

October 1, 2020 - How do we achieve freedom given the current circumstances under which we are living in Amerika? I think most every libertarian would acknowledge that when it comes to liberty, Amerika is in seriously bad shape.

Moreover, both conservatives and liberals, as reflected by presidential candidates President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, are fiercely committed to the welfare-warfare state way of life, which is antithetical to the principles of liberty. No matter how bad things get, conservatives and liberals become more determined to maintain the iron grip of the welfare-warfare state on Amerikan life, under the guise of protecting “freedom” and “national security”.

Moreover, the libertarian movement is now filled with people who have made peace with either the welfare state (especially with respect to Social Security and Medicare) or the warfare state (especially with respect to The Pentagon, CIA and NSA), or both, and have committed their efforts to reforming them, not repealing them. Moreover, in large part the libertarian brand has become nothing more than a libertarian-conservative hash, and the libertarian movement has become nothing more than a revolving door for conservatives who have become disenchanted with the conservative philosophy or the conservative movement.

So what hope is there for freedom under these bad circumstances? Should we all now just accept that freedom is impossible and become welfare-warfare state reformers?

One thing is for sure: the road to freedom lies not in reform measures, which necessarily leave infringements on liberty intact. The road to freedom lies in making the case for liberty, which necessarily entails repealing infringements on liberty.

In the late 1800s, Amerikans were living under a system that had no income taxation, Social Security, Medicare, welfare state, drug laws, Federal Reserve, fiat (i.e., paper) money, immigration controls, licensing laws, zoning laws, Pentagon, military industrial complex, CIA, NSA, indefinite detention, state-sponsored assassinations, secret mass surveillance, and other massive infringements on liberty that we live under today.

I am not saying that the 19th Century was a libertarian panacea. I acknowledge that it wasn’t. I am simply saying that 19th-Century Amerikans achieved a society without the massive infringements on liberty mentioned above that we live under today.

Why is that important? Because it shows that it is possible to achieve a society without those massive infringements. That’s what libertarian reformists do not want people to see. They want people to believe that genuine liberty is impossible to achieve - that it is a utopia - and therefore that libertarians and others should simply settle for reform measures and call them “free market approaches”.

That’s the first point: Freedom is possible.

Now notice something important: Within a relatively short period of time, progressives convinced later Amerikans to reject that way of life and adopt the welfare-warfare state way of life.

How did they do that? Through the dissemination of their socialist and interventionist ideas and philosophies. A critical mass of Amerikans in the early part of the 20th Century accepted their arguments, their philosophy, and their ideas. They showed that ultimately it is ideas that rule the world.

If progressives could convince a critical mass of people to abandon their founding principles of economic liberty and limited government and adopt socialist and interventionist principles and a national-security state, then why can’t we libertarians do the same in the opposite direction?

How do we do that? We do it by adhering to our principles and showing how our philosophy and ideas are the keys to leading our nation out of the statist morass into which conservatives and liberals have plunged our nation. We need to raise people’s vision to a higher level, one that strikes at the root of the welfare-warfare state way of life. That can only be done through principle, not through the advocacy of welfare-warfare state reform measures.

Of course, there are no guarantees of success, just as there were no guarantees of success when progressives were battling for the adoption of socialism and interventionism at the end of the 1800s and in the early 1900s. But adhering to principle, not reform, and disseminating our ideas and philosophy far and wide provide the only chance there is for achieving liberty.

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. Send him email [LINK: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]