Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 9, 2010

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, has testified under oath that the Bush administration knew that most of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent men and children. Yes, children: The detainees included boys as young as 12.

Most of those sent to Gitmo were scooped up by Afghan and Pakistani bounty-hunters. Yet they were described as the ?worst of the worst,? detained indefinitely, and often tortured -- for purely political reasons. Releasing the innocent would have undermined the Bush administration?s credibility in carrying out the needless war in Iraq.

When the captors of Idaho native Bowe Bergdahl Idaho native Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier who has been held by the Taliban for nearly a year, released a video in which he pleads for the war to end, a NATO spokesman denounced it as a ?deplorable? act of propaganda. Yet it was in the service of war propaganda that the Bush administration imprisoned and abused people it knew to be innocent.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free ? and may God grant us peace.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 8, 2010

A few days after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Officer Michael Hunter and another officer, Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, encountered a group of unarmed residents crossing the Danziger Bridge.

After Hunter fired what he described as ?warning shots,? the group scattered. Bowen grabbed an assault rifle and shot at the terrified citizens.

It quickly became apparent that the men were injured and unarmed. Yet Bowen shot the wounded as they were bleeding on the ground. When he encountered a civilian who had fled, Bowen shot him in the back with a shotgun, then kicked and stomped the man as he bled to death.

In court documents outlining these events, Hunter ? who served as a police officer until he was charged on March 30 ? describes a police conspiracy to cover up the murders.

Federal Judge Sarah Vance described herself as ?sickened? by the ?raw brutality of the shooting and craven lawlessness of the cover-up.? But this is how government operates when those in power are free to behave as they wish.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 7, 2010

Scooped up in a three-state federal raid, the members of Michigan?s Hutaree militia stand accused of ?seditious conspiracy? for allegedly plotting to kill a police officer and then ambush other law enforcement personnel at the murdered man?s funeral.

The indictment against the militia offers no substantive evidence that anybody in that group did more than engage in wrong-headed, ill-considered speculative talk.

Federal authorities have admitted that the individual who offered to build bombs on behalf of the group was a federal agent. This underscores the strong possibility that the Hutaree militia ? like many previous groups ? was deliberately goaded by a federal provocateur into saying or doing something that could be described as a federal offense, or a conspiracy to commit the same.

Tens of thousands of informants and provocateurs are kept on the federal payroll. Their services are employed so frequently that we?re justified in the suspicion that any violent political group is a public-private partnership created for propaganda purposes by the Feds.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 5, 2010

After lying about the matter for nearly two months, the U.S. military command in Afghanistan has grudgingly admitted that U.S. Special Forces slaughtered five Afghan civilians ? including two pregnant women and a teenage girl ? in a February 12 nighttime raid.

The original story disseminated by officials of NATO ? the UN affiliate directing the Afghan occupation ? was that the women had been found ?tied up, gagged and killed.?

This wasn?t true. In fact, the home was hosting a gathering of relatives to celebrate the naming of a newborn child. Among the guests who were killed in the raid were a local police chief and a prosecutor who had cooperated with the US-led occupation.

The survivors were forced to stand barefoot and unprotected in the cold for several hours while bullets were dug from the bodies of victims and other steps taken to cover up the crime.

This atrocity and cover-up provoked widespread ? and understandable ? hostility toward foreign troops who weren?t invited into Afghanistan and are not welcome there. Would we react any differently?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 2, 2010

During the debate over the recently enacted health care legislation, media elites and other partisans of unlimited government lambasted critics who insisted that the measure would lead to rationing by way of a federal ?death panel.?

At least some of those who took up that derisive chorus are now extolling the same death panel ? the Independent Medicare Advisory Board ? for its supposed cost-saving benefits.

New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman is enchanted with the Advisory Board, which he says ?has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular treatment doesn?t do any good medically and so we are not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save a lot of money.?

What this means, of course, is that critical care decisions would be made by bureaucrats, rather than doctors and patients ? and that people will die because of those decisions, just as critics of ?Obamacare? warned all along.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 1, 2010

The Book of Isaiah condemns those who make a person ?an offender for a word.? Thanks to hate crimes laws and other spurious enactments, what Isaiah condemned is public policy.

A roadside sign near Acampo, California refers to President Obama as ?niggardly,? an adjective referring to stinginess. The critical expression is unmistakably a play on a very offensive epithet, but is not itself a term of racial abuse. In this case, the sign ? which contained another word play involving a vulgar expression -- criticized the Obama administration?s economic policies as inimical to small business.

The sign was taken down after it was criticized by the owner of the property on which it was displayed. According to a local news account,A ?San Joaquin County Sheriff?s investigators documented the scene ? and said they would be contacting federal authorities to determine whether a crime was committed.?

This would not only make someone an offender for a word, it would punish him for something he didn?t say.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 31, 2010

Half of the states have banned it as a dangerous substance, yet it remains available by way of a clandestine smuggling network. Paramilitary raids have been mounted to crack down on those who sell and consume it in defiance of the law.

The notorious contraband under discussion is raw, unpasteurized milk, regarded by the FDA and its allies as dangerously impure, and extolled by millions as a potent source of unadulterated nutrients. Those who advocate consumption of raw milk contend, plausibly, that the government-approved corporate version is implicated in severe health problems, including coronary artery disease.

Two years ago, Mark Nolt, a devout Mennonite dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, was found guilty of the supposed offense of selling raw milk without a state permit. ?The government doesn?t have the right to dictate what I eat, and never will,? Nolt objected.

Nolt is correct, and the principle he invokes applies to any other substance informed people want to consume.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 30, 2010

Between September 1939 and June 1941, members of the Communist Party of the USA opposed American involvement in the European war. This was a dramatic change in the Party?s official line, which had supported military action against Nazi Germany. But during that period, Berlin and Moscow were allies.

When Hitler?s regime invaded Soviet Russia in June 1941, the Communists switched sides again, angrily demanding U.S. intervention against Stalin?s erstwhile ally and partner in crimes against humanity.

For the revolutionary Left, World War II was a holy crusade to defend the Homeland of international socialism, and then to propagate that political doctrine through military conquest.

For this reason there is potent and troubling symbolism in the fact that this year?s Russian ?victory? parade celebrating the 65th anniversary of Hitler?s defeat will include troops from Britain, France, and the U.S. Army, all of whom will parade in Red Square beneath a portrait of the true victor in that conflict ? history?s most prolific mass murderer and Hitler?s one-time ally, Josef Stalin.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 29, 2010

In the early 1800s, a British commentator lamented government?s insatiable appetite for tax revenue. Helpless human beings would be plundered until ? exhausted and penniless after supporting the parasite class?their depleted mortal remains would be deposited in the grave, for which their survivors would have to pay a government surcharge.

Americans are similarly besieged by revenue-hungry parasites at every level of government.

The Washington Post describes how a Los Angeles resident fined $70 for not wearing a seatbelt was hit with nearly $200 worth of ?penalty assessments,? as well as additional fees ranging from one to 35 dollars. Essentially, he was being taxed for paying a citation issued for something over which government has no legitimate authority.

Governments seeking to fund lush pension and benefit programs are also imposing new taxes and fees on ?garbage pickup, dating services, bowling night, haircuts, even clowns,? adds the New York Times.

Again the question urges itself on us: What will the parasites do when they have bled the host dry?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 26 2010

Days after Congress enacted the largest and most expensive socialist entitlement program in history, the New York Times reported that Social Security, the foundational entitlement program, is no longer financially viable.

Stephen Goss, chief actuary for Social Security, says the program will be paying out more than it takes in this year. This tipping point wasn?t expected for another six years . However, owing to the job losses caused by the catastrophic economic contraction, Social Security tax confiscations are down sharply.

Goss insists that benefits won?t be cut, and that the so-called trust fund is large enough to last until 2037. However, the Social Security ?trust fund? is an illusion: The money stolen from paychecks in the name of Social Security goes into the general revenue fund, and it will be devoured by mounting deficits and interest payments.

The administration must have known last week that Social Security is on the brink of collapse, but withheld that news in order to ensure passage of its nationalized health care program.

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