Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 6, 2010

Although relatively few people are familiar with the phrase ?high time preference,? that concept explains why we are experiencing an economic crisis that literally threatens to demolish our civilization.

Simply put, high time preference is a tendency to demand immediate satisfaction of desire while deferring payment. As economic analyst Doug French points out, our civilization was built by people governed by exactly the opposite priorities: They delayed consumption, saved their earnings, and built capital.

Time preference can be changed by a crisis, such as illness or disaster. Criminals use violence and fraud to impose their skewed time preference on others. But only government is capable of perverting the time preference of an entire society through large-scale force and fraud ? that is, through redistribution of wealth via taxation and inflation.

Civilization can survive disasters, plagues, and the depredations of private criminals. But, as we are learning, it cannot long survive the routine violation of property rights by a government ruled by a high time preference.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 5, 2010

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker is a politician, which means that everything he does is probably tainted with opportunism. Not long ago he promoted a civilian disarmament initiative in which residents would be paid $1000 apiece to snitch out gun owners.

Nevertheless, it?s appropriate to commend Booker for a completely unexpected gesture of genuine civic decency.

The Mayor, who is very active on Twitter, recently received a message from a prominent local constituent, whose elderly father was snowed in.

?Don?t worry about your dad,? the Mayor replied. ?Just talked to him and I?ll get to his driveway by noon. I?ve got salt, shovels, and great volunteers.?

The constituent contacted Booker again after the job was done: ?My daddy is a happy man! He took pictures of his mayor shoveling his driveway!?

In this instance, Mayor Booker actually earned the title ?public servant? by addressing a need without confiscating and redistributing wealth. If only this were the rule rather than the refreshing exception.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 4, 2010

The story plays like something out of the darkest chapters of Dickens. For years, a criminal syndicate entrenched in Pennsylvania?s Luzerne County Court needlessly imprisoned thousands of youth for profit. Judge Mark A. Ciaverella and his cohort, Judge Michael T. Conahan, allegedly received at least $2.8 million in kick-backs for sending youngsters to a privately run detention center.

Young defendants were coerced into signing forms waiving their right to counsel and then brow-beaten into guilty pleas by Judge Ciaverella.

He also established a special court to imprison children until their parents could pay fines. In one instance, an 11-year-old boy who was barely four feet tall and weighed 63 pounds was dragged away in handcuffs and shackles when his parents couldn?t pay a $488 fine.

Although the judges face criminal charges, they are protected from civil lawsuits by the principle of judicial immunity. Institutional privileges of that sort do not protect the public or the rule of law, but rather provide shelter for corruption.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 1, 2010

Although Republican politicians criticize what they call Barack Obama?s weakness in the exercise of presidential counter-terrorism powers, in substantive terms Obama?s conduct has differed little, if any, from that of his predecessor.

While it is true that their shared posture does little to protect us from the threat of foreign terrorism, it constitutes an acute threat to the liberties protected by the Constitution.

Legal analyst John C. Yoo, who wrote several key Justice Department memos during the George W. Bush administration, points out that President Obama has picked up seamlessly where Bush left off.

In his new book Crisis and Command , Yoo ? a proponent of dictatorial wartime presidential powers and defender of torture ? points out that Obama has continued or even escalated such measures as warrantless wiretapping and summary execution of terrorist suspects overseas.

Many of the same Republicans who condemn Obama?s weakness also warn that he is an aspiring dictator. If the latter is true, they have themselves to blame.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 31, 2009

The constitutional republic created by America?s Founding Fathers did not claim a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. This is the core principle embodied in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

As James Madison explained in Federalist Paper 46, the purpose of preserving what he called the people?s ?advantage of being armed? was to deter tyrants and, when necessary, remove them from power.

A glimpse of the radically different views of contemporary leaders was offered Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who recently criticized a state appeals court for overturning a law forbidding felons to own body armor.

According to Chief Beck, ?there is an absolute need [to ban ownership of body armor] by anyone other than law enforcement personnel?.? This would include common civilians.

Body armor, of course, is purely defensive. Beck ? a second-generation, 32-year veteran police officer who must have some acquaintance with the U.S. Constitution ? believes that agents of the state are entitled to deprive the public of any means of self-defense.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 30, 2009

A license is a government-issued permit to do something you have a God-given right to do with your person or property. Business licenses create a cartel and provide revenue for government-employed parasites.

As the economic collapse deepens, an ever-greater number of honest, productive people desperate to make a living are offering unlicensed goods and services. At the same time, the government is arresting and otherwise harassing the productive by expanding enforcement of licensing regulations governing manual labor and local commerce.

Despite large-scale job losses in the productive sector, the State of Oregon has hired additional inspectors to fine unlicensed contractors the State of Oregon has hired additional inspectors to fine unlicensed contractors seeking to find work in the aftermath of the housing market?s collapse. Police in Florida have conducted stings to entrap unlicensed contractors. In Savannah, Georgia, police sprang a trap to arrest a delivery man working for an unlicensed biscuit restaurant.

Ridiculous as such measures appear, in desperate economic times this kind of harassment will eventually lead to bloodshed.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 29, 2009

In the summer of 2005, Carl Bryan of Coronado, California, a 21-year-old man with mental and emotional problems, was pulled over by a police officer for a seat belt violation.

A visibly agitated Bryan exited his car and began what Officer Bryan McPherson described as a ?bizarre tantrum.? According to McPherson?s account, Bryan did not threaten the police officer, who was standing about 20 feet away.

Without warning , McPherson shot Bryan with a Taser, causing him to fall face-first to the pavement, shattering four of his front teeth.

Bryan sued the Coronado Police Department for use of excessive force and violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment. On December 28 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there was no need to use a Taser on a visibly disturbed individual who presented an annoyance, rather than a threat. This is a small but significant victory against the promiscuous use of a consistently lethal weapon.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 28, 2009

Only two things prevented Nigerian terrorist suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from destroying Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day. The first was a failed detonator. The second was quick, resolute action by passengers who subdued the would-be terrorist.

Since 9/11, the government ruling us has spent literally trillions of dollars in the name of fighting terrorism. Hundreds of billions have been spent on security screening procedures, yet Abdulmutallab ? who was known by the CIA and State Department to be a potential terrorist ? was able to board an international flight without luggage ? and without a passport.

Government is the only human enterprise that profits from failure. Accordingly, the government has already exploited its near-catastrophic failure to protect Northwest flight 253 by imposing new restrictions on passengers. It may use the incident as a pretext for expanding the military conflict overseas as well.

For us this means more expense, fewer liberties, and no increase in security.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 23, 2009

The institutionalized larceny called ?civil asset forfeiture? represents a complete repudiation of central constitutional principles. Through forfeiture, police can literally steal money and other property from suspects and keep those assets even if the supposed offender is never convicted or even formally charged with a crime.

This undisguised criminal racket conducted under the color of supposed law is extremely lucrative for police departments and municipal governments. In depression-plagued Detroit, asset forfeiture rates have soared despite the fact that there has been no corresponding increase in the rate of violent crime.

A recent decision by the Minnesota State Supreme Court resulted in an ominous expansion of the forfeiture power. In this case, the court ruled that police could confiscate an SUV that was being driven by a suspected drunk driver who refused a breath test even though its co-owner and primary driver had nothing to do with the incident.

When police have a license to steal, constitutional liberty doesn?t exist.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 22, 2009

If the human race is spared the horrors of a UN-supervised global eco-dictatorship, we may have Communist China to thank.

The agreement created at the recent UN Copenhagen Summit on climate change fell far short of the world body?s ambitions. The chief obstacle was China?s refusal to permit violations of its national sovereignty by the actions of international monitors who would enforce an accord restricting emissions of so-called greenhouse gasses.

Amazingly, while China was defending the principle of national independence, the government in Washington was promoting proposals for invasive international monitoring in the service of an unaccountable global regime.

After China refused to support severe restrictions on carbon emissions, President Obama suggested that Washington would be aiding the UN?s ?eco-spying? efforts to enforce the less ambitious version that was approved in Copenhagen.

The ironies of this situation are practically indigestible: A nominally Communist country is defending national independence and the modern industrial economy against a totalitarian proposal supported by Washington.

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