Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 3, 2011

The ongoing upheaval in Egypt offers a potent illustration of the fact that government police agencies are instruments of plunder, rather than protection -- and that protection of person and property is best handled privately.

When they weren't beating people in the streets or hauling them off to be murdered, plainclothes thugs from Egypt's Central Security Service brazenly looted private businesses or provided protection to looters. Much of the damage was done by deputized criminals, former prisoners who were released from jail by the Mubarak regime to act as subcontractors for the secret police.

Egyptians not employed in the coercive sector responded by creating private anti-looting patrols. Some western news correspondents, including CNN?s Anderson Cooper, were beaten by government security forces; others found safety in the company of private vigilante patrols. "I do not recall ever being so pleased to be surrounded by blade-wielding Arab vigilantes,? reported Graeme Wood of The Atlantic magazine.

Civilization is the product of the spontaneous cooperation of free people, not the imposition of ?order? by government.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.