by Jacob G. Hornberger

March 17, 2026

Given the horrific consequences of U.S. interventionism into World War I, why in the world must the American people continue living under the tyrannical legislative garbage that was enacted during that intervention? Why wasn’t that garbage legislation repealed immediately after that horrific war came to an end?

Let’s remember some important things about U.S. interventionism into World War I. First, it did not make the world “safe for democracy,” which was one of President Wilson’s goals for intervening in the European conflict. Second, it did not bring an end to war, which was another of Wilson’s interventionist goals.

Thus, more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers were sacrificed for nothing — a phenomenon that would continue to characterize the United States and its interventionist foreign policy for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century; that includes the meaningless sacrifice of 58,000 men of my generation in the Vietnam War.

But it’s actually worse than that. That’s because U.S. interventionism into World War I was ultimately responsible for the rise of Adolf Hitler and World War II, along with all the horrific consequences of that conflict.

Prior to Wilson’s interventionism, the war had brought the opposing sides to a standstill. Notwithstanding the horrific loss of life on both sides, neither side was able to achieve a breakthrough in the war’s horrific trench warfare. The war had become a deadly stalemate.

Therefore, there was only one way to bring an end to the carnage that was ending the lives of millions of young men on both sides of the war. That one way was a negotiated settlement, one in which both sides would have to give up things that they wanted but were unable to achieve through military victory.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, Wilson persuaded Congress to give him a declaration of war against the Central Powers, which were led by Germany and Austria-Hungary, neither of which had ever attacked the United States. The fresh American troops and the industrial might of the United States produced the breakthrough that brought about the total defeat of Germany and the Central Powers.

Germany was led to believe that if it put down its arms, it would be treated justly and fairly. In fact, the assurance turned out to be false. Once Germany surrendered and no longer posed a threat, the Allied powers double-crossed the Germans and imposed vicious terms and conditions that were encapsulated in the Treaty of Versailles.

Afterward and for many years, many prominent and reputable people around the world, recognizing the fundamental injustice that had taken place, advocated a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. But the powers-that-be rejected those entreaties.

The result? Emphasizing the betrayal that had taken place at the end of World War I, Adolf Hitler used the harsh, vicious terms and conditions of the Treaty of Versailles as a way to garner support among the German people in his rise to power. Then, Hitler’s use of force to gain a revision of the vicious and unjust terms set forth in the Versailles Treaty led to World War II, the Holocaust, and the enormously large death toll and destruction of the war itself, which, of course, then led to the adoption of a U.S. national-security state, the Cold War racket, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the never-ending deadly and destructive obsessive embargo on Cuba, followed by the never-ending war on terrorism, and the wars of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran, and more.

Is it really any surprise that the American people were overwhelmingly opposed to entry into World War II and that it took President Roosevelt’s intentional provocation of Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor in order to get the United States embroiled in the Second World War?

What are some of those World War I garbage measures under which we are forced to live today? Let’s consider some of them.

1. The Trading with the Enemy Act. It banned American citizens from engaging in economic activity with people in the Central Powers. In other words, the law was used to destroy the principles of private property and economic liberty of the American people themselves. Of course, one might say that this was justified because this was war. Well, it only goes to show that war destroys liberty. Equally important, the law should have been repealed at the end of the war. Instead, more than 100 years later, U.S. officials today trot out that World War I garbage law and prohibit Americans from trading with nations that the U.S. empire designates as official enemies, rivals, opponents, and competitors. In other words, the tyrannical garbage that destroyed the liberty of the American people in World War I continues to do so today.

2. Conscription. When a regime has to force its citizens to kill and die on the orders of the government, that’s a strong sign that that is a very bad war. Yet, that’s precisely what Wilson did — he forced Americans to go to Europe to fight his war. It was a total inversion of the master-servant relationship between the citizen and the federal government. The fact that the Supreme Court upheld the draft, notwithstanding the 13th Amendment, was a dark, cowardly day in the history of the Court. Needless to say, American young men still have to register for the draft in today’s America, where people continue to insist that they live in a free society.

3. The Espionage Act of 1917. It’s legacy is incorporated in the massive surveillance state under which Americans today live, one that even targets with criminal prosecution Americans who fail to register as “agents” for foreign regimes with which they are interacting.

4. The Sedition Act, which made it a criminal offense to criticize the government or question the war. While that piece of tyrannical garbage was later repealed, its spirit lives on with exhortations to “patriotically” support the illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran. Why, the federal government is today even threatening to revoke licenses of broadcasters that fail to deliver the many alternating and shifting official government lines on the war.

It’s time to bury the dark, sordid, tyrannical legacy of World War I, once and for all. Every World War I law and measure needs to be cast into the trash can of history for the tyrannical garbage it is.