30 November 2016
By Jacob G. Hornberger
Dear President Trump:
You have a choice: to become an ordinary president, just like George W. Bush
and Barack Obama, or one who goes down in history has having left an
extraordinary legacy for freedom in America and the world.
Why do the ordinary? Why follow the path of Bush and Obama? Why not an
extraordinarily different and positive direction—one that points toward
liberty, prosperity, and peace?
Here are the three ways you could achieve such a legacy:
1. Declare that the United States is unilaterally going to adopt a policy of
free trade with every other nation in the world. No negotiations with other
countries. No trade agreements. No NAFTA or TPP. No sanctions or embargoes. No
protective tariffs. Just unilateral free trade. If the rest of the world
follows, great. If not, so be it. Lead by example.
In other words, free the American private sector — including businessmen like
yourself — to freely travel and trade anywhere in the world without any type
of restriction, regulation, or tax by the U.S. government.
The model for this is the domestic United States, which the Framers, through
the Constitution, made the biggest free-trade zone in history. Americans are
free to travel from state to state and trade with whomever they want without
any governmental restrictions.
That's what you could accomplish for Americans on an international basis — the
same freedom to travel and trade with the people of the world that Americans
have to travel and trade with others within the several states.
Think of the economic prosperity that a system of total free trade would
produce. In every economic exchange, both sides benefit. Therefore, people can
raise their standard of living through the simple act of trade. That means
that when people are free to trade with anyone and everyone, the potential for
raising their standard of living increases as well. By the same token, to the
extent that government rules and regulations interfere with people's ability
to trade, to that extent people's standard of living is lowered.
Of course, there is also the moral argument for free trade — that is, the fact
that people have the fundamental, God-given right to pursue happiness in their
own way by engaging in economic exchanges with others. That's one of the
points that Jefferson made in the Declaration of Independence.
If you instead accept the current system of managed trade, negotiated trade
agreements, economic protectionism, embargoes, sanctions, trade wars, and the
like, as Bush and Obama did, you will end up with just an ordinary presidency,
just like they did. You are in a position to do something extraordinary as
president. A system of unilateral free trade would accomplish that.
2. End the drug war. This federal program has been going on for decades. At
the risk of stating the obvious, it has failed to achieve its objectives. But
it's done more than just fail. It has also produced an array of horrific
consequences: ruination of lives, governmental corruption, drug gangs and drug
cartels, violence, robberies, thefts, burglaries, muggings, asset-forfeiture
laws, mandatory-minimum laws, assaults on the Constitution, invasions of
privacy, deaths, racism, disrespect for law and law enforcement, and ruination
of lives.
All for what? To provide employment for an army of judges, prosecutors, court
clerks, and law-enforcement personnel, not to mention the drug gangs and drug
cartels that the drug war has brought into existence and nurtures through its
very existence? That's not a good enough reason to maintain this horrific
government program.
As in trade, we also have the moral argument to contend with: What business is
it of the federal government what people decide to ingest? No matter how
dangerous and destructive drugs might be, it's no business of the federal
government to be people's nanny or daddy. Adults have the fundamental right to
be adults, and that necessarily means the right to engage in self-destructive
behavior.
If you want another ordinary presidency, just like that of Bush and Obama,
then just keep on keeping on with the drug war. But if you want an
extraordinary presidency, then lead America out of this drug-war morass by
insisting that Congress repeal all drug laws.
3. End foreign interventionism on the part of the U.S. national-security
establishment, including a withdrawal from the old Cold War era NATO. End all
foreign aid. Bring all the troops home from everywhere – -Europe, the Middle
East, Afghanistan, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the rest. Discharge them.
They're not needed. The United States is in no danger of a foreign invasion.
All those foreign military bases, foreign aid, and foreign interventionism
have brought America and the world nothing but death, maiming, corruption, and
destruction.
Just think: No more anti-American terrorist blowback, ''war on terrorism, USA
Patriot Act, Homeland Security, assassination program, torture program,
perpetual foreign policy emergencies and crises, renditions, and all the rest
of the adverse consequences that come with foreign interventionism.
Given that you're clearly not part of the political establishment, you,
President-Elect Trump, don't have to be like them or follow the well-worn
immoral and destructive path that they have made for America. You have the
opportunity to lead our country and the world in an entirely new direction, a
positive direction, one that heads toward liberty, free markets, and a
limited-government republic.
Just ask yourself: Four years from now, are you going to be satisfied with
just another ordinary presidency, like Bush's and Obama's? Or would you prefer
that your presidency go down in history as one of the most extraordinary in
U.S. history?
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. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full
Context.
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