Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 27, 2011

James Miller is a professor of theater at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Like millions of others ? including your correspondent ? Miller is a fan of the short-lived science fiction series ?Firefly,? which depicts the adventures of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the crew of the spaceship Serenity.

In the premiere episode, Captain Reynolds ? a man capable of violence and willing to use it when necessary ? was asked by an ambivalent passenger: ?How do I know you won?t kill me in my sleep?? The Captain replied: ?You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed.?

As an act of whimsy, Miller displayed a poster of Captain Reynolds ? and that statement ? on his office door. Campus police stole the poster, claiming that it violated a campus speech code. Miller displayed a second poster containing an anti-Fascism slogan and depicting a riot policeman beating a helpless person; that, too, was confiscated ? and now the professor has been summoned by the campus ?threat assessment team.?

Strutting around in a government-issued costume advertising your intent to kill people who don't comply is fine. Displaying whimsical posters expressing the non-aggression principle, however, is a "threat."

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