Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 20, 2011

It seems like a spectacle out of a Third World dictatorship: A frail woman addressing a public meeting is set upon by police, who tear away the microphone, seize her in a painful compliance hold, and drag her off to jail.

The top elected official orders the police to stand down and leave the woman alone. The Town Council, on the other hand, votes to silence the woman, and the police carry out that decree.

This videotaped outrage happened on June 28 in Quartzsite, a town of about 3,600 in western Arizona. Two years ago a retired engineer named Ed Foster was elected mayor and pledged to clean up municipal corruption. An impasse developed between two factions ? the mayor and most of the city?s police force, on the one hand, and the Town Council, Police Chief, and a rump police force, on the other. The city government has announced a state of emergency and discontinued public meetings.

In a fashion reminiscent of a Third World junta, the Town Council?s power depends not on the written law, but the loyalty of men with guns. We can expect similar spectacles to play out elsewhere as the economy ? and civic amity ? continue to degenerate.

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