by Jacob G. Hornberger

March 13, 2026

Unfortunately, all too many Americans continue to believe that people who live in a democracy are people who are automatically living in a free society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Democracy simply enables people to elect their public officials. It’s the limitations on the powers of those who are elected (and those who they appoint) that determines freedom.

For example, let’s assume that a democratically elected government wields the power to kill whomever it wants for whatever reason it wants. How can that possibly be considered to be a free society, even if the officials who are doing the killing are democratically elected (or appointed)? A genuinely free society is one in which the government is prohibited from killing anyone without due process of law, which necessarily entails notice and hearing.

There is something else to consider: If the government wields the power to kill anyone it wants for whatever reason it wants, that obviously is going to have an impact on freedom of speech. Even if the government lacks the power to infringe on people’s freedom of speech, people are nonetheless going to be extremely careful about what they say about the government, given that the government wields the power to kill them whenever it wants for whatever reason it wants.

Moreover, the omnipotent power to kill necessarily entails the power to kidnap or arrest people, cart them away to some dark dungeon, and torture or rape them mercilessly before killing them. Even if the government is not legally supposed to do such things, who is going to try to stop them, given that the government wields the power to kill anyone it wants for whatever reason it wants?

Why are these points important? Because the U.S. government is one of the governments in the world that now wields the power to kill anyone it wants anywhere in the world for whatever reason it wants. That’s includes the American people. Yet, all too many Americans continue to  innocently believe that they live in a free society.

It wasn’t always that way. For more than a century after our nation was established, the federal government lacked the power to kill people without first according them the procedural rights of due process of law and trial by jury. Due process of law required formal notice of why the government wanted to kill them and a criminal trial in which the person was presumed innocent and in which the government was required to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was, in fact, guilty of what the government was accusing him of.

Even that wasn’t enough to kill the person, however. It was also necessary that a duly enacted law empowered the government to kill a person who had been convicted of having violated that law. Thus, if the law stated that the maximum punishment for violating the law was 20 years in prison, the government was prohibited from killing the person instead of incarcerating him for 20 years.

Not anymore. Americans now live in a society in which the federal government can kill anyone it wants for whatever reason it wants. We see this power being exercised in the Caribbean, where the Pentagon is killing people in little boats. The ostensible rationale is that the people who are being killed are violating U.S. drug laws.

But there are two big problems with that rationale:

1. The rationale is based simply on the government’s accusation. Keep in mind that in a genuinely free society, the government is prohibited from killing people without according them the rights of due process of law and a trial by jury. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, when the Pentagon is killing people based simply on a governmental accusation, that means the government now wields the omnipotent, totalitarian power to kill whomever it wants for whatever reason it wants. After all, who is there to second-guess the president’s and the Pentagon’s decision to kill those people? No one, including the U.S. federal judiciary. The president and the Pentagon wield the omnipotent, totalitarian power to make the final call on who lives and dies.

2. U.S. drug laws are not death-penalty offenses. Under the law, the most the government is permitted to do is incarcerate people who are found guilty of violating its drug laws. Yet, incarceration is not what the Pentagon is doing with those people in those little boats. It is killing them, with impunity and immunity.

There is something else that is worth noting: The U.S. drug war is not limited to the Caribbean or to foreign nations. The U.S. drug war is principally a domestic war. That means that the federal government’s omnipotent totalitarian power to kill people is not limited to foreigners. It extends to everyone who is accused of violating U.S. drug laws here at home. The fact that such power is not being exercised widely here at home is irrelevant. What matters is that federal officials now wield the power to kill people everywhere based simply on a non-reviewable accusation.

Finally, it’s also worth noting that the omnipotent power to kill people is not limited to accused drug-war violators. It also extends to suspected terrorists as part of the federal government’s post-9/11 “war on terrorism.” Don’t forget the killing of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son Abdulrahman. Don’t forget also the CIA’s kidnapping/murder of Chilean Gen. Rene Schneider or, for that matter, the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s assassination of many other people.

For that matter, let’s not forget the president’s and the U.S. national-security establishment’s omnipotent, totalitarian power to initiate deadly and destructive wars against weak Third World nations — wars that enable them to kill and maim whoever they want, including defenseless little girls.

If Americans are ever going to regain their freedom, a necessary prerequisite is the removal of the federal government’s omnipotent, totalitarian power to kill people. Perhaps one way to do that would be to reenact the Fifth Amendment in the following way: “No person shall be killed without due process of law and no foreign nation shall be attacked without a congressional declaration of war — and this time we mean it.”