Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 24, 2010

Much like serfs who were permitted to live on land owned by a feudal lord who could evict them at his pleasure, residents of the western United States can be dispossessed at the arbitrary whim of a distant ruler.

Most western land is controlled by the federal government, which has no constitutional warrant to own or control any property beyond the minimal amount necessary to carry out its limited legitimate functions.

In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton signed an order seizing more than 1.7 million acres of land to create the Grand Staircase-Escalate National Monument . In doing so Clinton locked up huge supplies of clean-burning coal as well as vast reserves of other valuable resources. That whimsical decree inflicted immense economic harm on southern Utah.

A leaked Interior Department document lists 14 sites in 9 states as possible targets for similar seizures, which can occur by the stroke of the presidential pen. Such dispossession by decree is a hallmark of feudalism, not freedom.

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