Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 18, 2010

Atlanta resident Minnie Carey was peaceably assembled with three of her friends on a sidewalk outside a convenience store when a cop car pulled up beside them.

?Move it,? grunted police officer Brandy Dolson. Although her three friends complied, Carey asked why they were being ordered to vacate a public sidewalk. ?Because I said so,? Dolson declared.

?I?m a citizen and a taxpayer and I have a right to be here,? a puzzled Carey replied. Within seconds, she was ?cuffed and stuffed? in the patrol car. The 61-year-old Carey, a diabetic, was held for an hour and a half with her hands cuffed behind her back.

Merely for asking ?why,? Carey was cited for ?disorderly conduct,? a charge eventually dismissed after three court hearings.

Atlanta?s Civilian Police Review Board recently sustained Carey?s false arrest complaint. Officer Dolson, who has racked up 18 citizen complaints since 2001, faces no criminal or professional consequences for his assault on the 61-year-old woman. Such is life in the supposed land of the free.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 17, 2010

The ongoing siege of Marja in Afghanistan?s Helmand Province is the largest military engagement of a war that has now consumed more than eight years. As the assault on the Taliban stronghold continues, evidence is tardily emerging that undermines the rationale for the war.

A declassified US State Department report publicized in the CTC Sentinel, the journal of West Point?s Combating Terrorism Center, describes efforts by Afghanistan?s Taliban junta, beginning in 1998, to isolate and contain Osama bin Laden in the country?s Kandahar Province.

Two days after an August 1998 U.S. missile strike on Osama?s training camps, Taliban leader Mullah Omar opened a channel to the State Department to request evidence of Osama?s involvement in anti-American terrorist acts. Within a year, the Taliban ? which did not share Osama?s jihadist ambitions ? was considering measures to eliminate the training camps.

Timely action by Washington and a modest amount of diplomatic flexibility in dealing with the Taliban could have eliminated any threat by Osama years before 9-11.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 16, 2010

Since 1995, fewer than 3,300 Americans have been killed by terrorists. Roughly the same number of Americans lost their lives in 2008 as a result of fires, and more that 34,000 perished in automobile accidents.

Despite the fact that terrorism is a statistically insignificant threat, observes commentator Thomas Englehardt, America is ?a country perversely convulsed by, and that can?t seem to get enough of, fantasies of being besieged by terrorists.?

A similar disjunction can be seen regarding the issue of violent crime. Writing in the Boston Globe, Joe Keohane points out that ?the vast majority of Americans ? nearly three-quarters of the population ? [thinks that]crime got worse in 2009,? despite FBI data demonstrating that crime of all kinds fell to levels not seen since the 1960s.

As H.L. Mencken pointed out decades ago, the entire point of practical politics is to keep the public perpetually frightened and constantly seeking the state?s protection. Although our nation?s manufacturing sector has all but disappeared, the government?s fear factory is working at full capacity

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 15, 2010

An unemployed truck driver from East Nashville was stunned to seehateful graffiti smeared across the walls of a local house of worship.

?When I saw it, I just broke down crying,? said the truck driver, who gave his name as ?Tim.? He bought paint, brushes, and other supplies which he donated to congregants as they, along with 75 Christian and Jewish volunteers, worked to repair the damage done to the religious sanctuary ? the Nashville Al-Farooq Mosque.

Apparently riled by a local news story that darkly insinuated terrible things about Tennessee?s Muslim population, someone had defaced the building and left a note calling for the extermination of all Muslims.

The chief figure in the parable teaching that God requires us to love our neighbor is a Samaritan, someone who followed a religion detested by those who worshipped the God of Abraham. When He commanded us to love our neighbor, Jesus didn?t carve out an exception for Muslims.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 12, 2010

Gregory D. Girard of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, believes that martial law ? including paramilitary raids by police to confiscate legally owned private firearms ? will soon descend upon us.

Since it?s apparently impermissible to believe such things in our splendidly free country, a paramilitary raid was conducted against Girard?s home to confiscate his legally owned private firearms.

Girard himself was arrested on charges unrelated to gun ownership. Police and prosecutors offered vague but insistent insinuations that Girard?s beliefs are the product of mental illness.

Whatever we may learn about Girard?s personal issues, this act of pre-emptive civilian disarmament was not the first of its kind and most likely won?t be the last. A decade ago, Connecticut enacted a measure empowering police to confiscate legally obtained firearms from anybody deemed to be ?dangerous,? whether or not a crime had been committed.

The police official who supervised the raid against Girard insisted that the community was now ?safer? because of it. Law-abiding gun owners who understand the lethal dangers of civilian disarmament know better.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 11, 2010

During a recent press conference, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, straining to create a moment of pseudo-Reaganesque folksiness, told a story about his pet pig and pony working together to steal food from his dog.

That story, according to the Gubernator, was akin to the efforts he and legislators had made to craft a state budget.

Appropriately, Schwarzenegger analogy describes an act of collaborative theft, which is what democratic politics invariably becomes.

California is afflicted with a population of nearly 250,000 government employees, and keeping the unionized tax-feeders happy ? whether they?re active or retired -- is bankrupting the Golden State. During the past decade, while revenues increased 24%, pension costs for public employees ? many of whom retired at age 50 with annual pensions of over $100,000 -- increased 2000%.

California seeks federal subsidies to close its budget gap, thereby preserving those government pensions by stealing money earned by private citizens from across the country who may never be able to retire.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 10, 2010

In the mid-1960s, the government ruling us declared war on poverty. Today, after a trillion dollars has been spent, we have a self-replicating welfare underclass.

In the early 1970s, that same government declared a war on drugs that has devoured another trillion dollars. The result was the militarization of law enforcement, immense damage to the Bill of Rights, and no discernible improvement in rate of drug addiction.

Less than a decade ago, that same government declared war on terrorism ?a campaign that includes the military occupation of two countries and military action in several others. Yet another trillion dollars has been consumed, unaccountable power has been claimed by the executive branch, and the Bill of Rights is, for all intents, a dead letter ? yet we?re constantly told that the peril has not abated.

The same government that presided over those failures has now declared war on childhood obesity. Given that government?s track record we should expect that a decade hence, all Americans will be bankrupt, totally enslaved, and morbidly obese.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 9, 2010

For as long as governments have issued currency, rulers have debased it.

One common method was coin-clipping ? that is, snipping of pieces from coins that pass through a ruler?s hands, thereby accumulating precious metal that could be minted into more coins, thus inflating the money supply at the expense of the public and to be benefit of the ruler and his cronies.

Another method of debasement is to reduce the precious metal content of coins. Since 1970, U.S. coins have been devoid of precious metal.

As the inflated dollar continues to lose its purchasing power, minting coins from copper and nickel has become cost-ineffective: It costs 1.62 cents to mint a penny, and roughly six cents to mint a nickel.

Accordingly, Congress is preparing to surrender its constitutional authority to coin money to the Treasury Department, which will probably be driven to manufacture coins out of entirely worthless junk metal. Of course, this would be the perfect complement to the government?s intrinsically worthless Federal Reserve Notes.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 8, 2010

Joshua Tabor, a 27-year-old soldier stationed in Tacoma, Washington, was seen wandering through a neighborhood on January 31 wearing a Kevlar helmet and threatening to break windows.

After police took the intoxicated soldier into custody they went to his home and found his four-year-old daughter cowering in a closet. The child?s body was covered with bruises and abrasions. The little girl and her mother described how Tabor had punished the child for failing to recite the alphabet by subjecting her to the water torture method commonly called ?waterboarding.?

Knowing that the girl was afraid of water, Tabor allegedly held her face-up in a sink until the water covered her forehead and came up to her jawline. According to the police report, Tabor ?did not act as though he felt there was anything wrong with this form of punishment.?

Since the government that employs him considers torture ? including child torture ? a valid tactic, Tabor?s behavior is appalling but not entirely surprising.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

February 24, 2010

Toronto resident Joe Fiorito was startled to find two police officers on his doorstep. They weren?t there to investigate a crime; they had come to confiscate his .20 gauge shotgun.

Last March, Toronto police began a campaign called ?Project Safe City? to confiscate unlicensed firearms from civilian gun owners.

The police who confronted Fiorito informed him that he had two options: The gun could be turned over to the police for ?storage,? or taken away and destroyed. Fiorito eventually relented after being threatened with more aggressive enforcement action.

If he hadn?t compiled, Fiorito would have been threatened with up to ten years in prison for violating the Canadian Firearms Act by possessing a duck gun without government permission.

?I guess when the Feds began the long-gun registry, I should have lied and not bothered to register [mine],? laments Fiorito, a self-described social democrat and columnist for the Toronto Star. His words are worth pondering by anyone who cherishes the right to armed self-defense.

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