Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 10, 2011

The conservative political philosopher Robert Nisbet lamented that many of his fellow conservatives were enamored with the Warfare State. War, wrote Nisbet, is a form of ?licensed immorality? ? not only with respect to killing other human beings, but in matters of sexual conduct.

"What is in the first instance licensed ? by war stays on to develop into forms which have their own momentum," warned Nisbet. The consequences of that State-authorized depravity proliferate in ways people can?t anticipate.

A remarkable example was revealed last October, when the federal government disclosed that for two years following World War II, U.S. officials deliberately infected hundreds of innocent Guatemalans with syphilis. This was done in order to test the effectiveness of penicillin as an antibiotic to treat GIs who returned with venereal diseases.

Test subjects included Guatemalan conscripts, mental patients, and even orphans. These impoverished, unwilling victims ?were seen as things to be experimented on,? observes Guatemalan medical official Carlos Mejia. Nazi doctors who did such things were prosecuted ? and some of them executed ? at Nuremberg.

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