Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 21, 2009

In the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that black people were not ?persons? and thus not entitled to the protections of the Constitution.

That assumption has been embedded in official practice by totalitarian regimes such as National Socialist Germany, which declared that Jews and other non-Aryan people were untermenschen, or sub-humans.

The government ruling us has now officially embraced this evil doctrine in the name of fighting terrorism.

On December 14, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court?s ruling that suspected terrorists classified as ?unlawful enemy combatants? enjoy no legal protection against torture or other mistreatment because they are not considered ?persons? under the law.e

Attorneys representing terrorist suspects had invoked the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (or RFRA), which explicitly applies to all ?persons.? A federal appeals court rejected that argument, thereby effectively categorizing such detainees as ?non-persons.?

A government claiming such power is deadlier than any foreign terrorist threat.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 18, 2009

Buckeye, Arizona is a town of 35,000 with a severely depressed economy. In 2007, the last year for which statistics were available, there were 51 violent crimes committed in Buckeye, with aggravated assault the most common offense.

Buckeye isn?t under siege by criminals. So why did the Department of Homeland Security give the city a $250,000 grant to purchase an armored vehicle?

The vehicle in question is an 8 ½-ton BearCat, or ballistic-engineered armored-response vehicle. The BearCat, comments the West Valley View, ?would look quite at home on the streets of Baghdad.? It will be difficult to find an appropriate mission for the BearCat in Buckeye, but some excuse will eventually present itself.

This case is typical of the priorities we see being followed nation-wide. As the economy collapses, the Regime is spending huge sums to beef up and militarize law enforcement -- not to deal with rising crime, but ? perhaps -- to prepare to deal forcefully with escalating public outrage.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 17, 2009

For decades, Former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore has been in the vanguard of the international left. He is the former vice-president of the International Union of Socialist Youth and served as the director-general of the World Trade Organization.

Moore?s ?progressive? credentials are impressive, if only because they make his candor about the radical environmental movement so much more striking.

In a recent column for the New Zealand Herald, Moore observed that ?Green politics is officially a religion,? and a singularly fanatical one at that.

?I heard a member of the UN Panel on Climate Change say of the findings: `There can no longer be dissent,?? recalls Moore, who predicts that governments will soon enact legislation designating so-called ?climate denial? a species of hate crime.

The new eco-religion, Moore says, is akin to fanatical cults whose adherents ?end up burning books ? and building furnaces.? Sobering words from someone who knows whereof he speaks.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 16, 2009

During an economic downturn, private businesses cut costs through layoffs, pay freezes, and even pay cuts where necessary.
Government, which unlike private business produces nothing and engages in pure consumption, behaves in exactly the opposite fashion.

USA Today recently reported that ?Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession?s first 18 months ? and that?s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.?

While productive people face job losses and prolonged economic misery, for federal employees the deepening depression is ?an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring?.?

The average federal employee ? the word ?worker? is inappropriate ? is paid $71,206, as compared to the $40,331 earned by the average private worker.

The government is a parasite that is killing its long-suffering host.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 15, 2009

The RAND Corporation has released a study entitled A Stability Police Force for the United States: Justification and Creating U.S. Capabilities.

The RAND study, which was conducted for the U.S. Army?s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute calls for the creation of a ?hybrid? military/law enforcement unit within the U.S. Marshals Service for use ?in a range of tasks such as crowd and riot control, special weapons and tactics ? and investigations of organized criminal groups.?

Building the SPF within the Marshals Service ?would place it where its members can develop the needed skills under the hybrid staffing option,? summarizes the document. ?Furthermore, the USMS has the broadest law enforcement mandate of any U.S. law enforcement agency?. [This model] provides significant domestic policing and homeland security benefits by providing thousands of additional police officers across the United States.?

The SPF would be a centralized, militarized police unit of the kind suitable to the needs of a dictatorship, not a constitutional republic.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 14, 2009

On December 8, Dr. Peter Watts, a Hugo-nominated science fiction author, was headed home to Toronto when the car he was driving was randomly selected for a search at the Canadian border.

After he emerged from his car to ask why he was being detained, Dr. Watts was severely beaten, pepper-sprayed, arrested, and otherwise abused by Border Patrol agents. His computer and flash drive were confiscated; he was interrogated without the benefit of legal counsel, and twice subjected to demands that he waive his Miranda rights. His traveling companion, who did nothing to provoke the interest of the Border Patrol, was likewise handcuffed and arrested.

After being held overnight in a frigid cell, Dr. Watts was charged with ?assaulting a federal officer,? then unceremoniously deposited, in his shirtsleeves, on the Canadian side of the border.

Crossing the border of a totalitarian state is an experience fraught with danger. As Dr. Watts and many others can testify, the government ruling us is quickly ripening into full-fledged totalitarianism.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 11, 2009

Eco-socialists have devised a system called ?cap-and-trade,? in which businesses are required to buy permits to cover so-called greenhouse emissions, with the option of selling permits they don?t use.

Human population growth may eventually be regulated in much the same way.

In a December 8 editorial prompted by the UN global warming summit in Copenhagen, Canada?s National Post insisted that ?A planetary law, such as China?s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate.? The Chinese government used the Copenhagen conference to extol the supposed virtues of their totalitarian program.

UN adviser Dr. Norman Myers has suggested that someday ?people might be issued with a warrant entitling them to have a single child?. This warrant might even carry commercial value, allowing individuals to decide not to have children at all and to sell their entitlement to others wanting larger families?.?

The Bible describes children as a divine blessing. Eco-socialists regard children as a commodity to be rationed by a global state.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 10, 2009

Iris Cooper of Patagonia, Arizona was driving to school at the Pima Medical Institute in Tucson when she realized that she had forgotten her books.

About two miles away from a Border Patrol checkpoint, Cooper turned her car around to head home, only to be stopped and detained by Border Patrol agents. She was pulled from her car, handcuffed, and detained for a half an hour while a K-9 unit conducted a warrantless search of her vehicle.

Despite being handcuffed and forbidden to leave, Cooper was told that she wasn?t under arrest. The handcuffs, she was told, were ?part of the procedure.? This was a lie, of course: An arrest occurs any time a citizen is detained by any law enforcement officer. This includes traffic stops.

Over the past several years, the Border Patrol has erected checkpoints well inside our national borders and subjected U.S. citizens to this kind of treatment with increasing frequency. Thanks to such policies America is increasingly looking less like a republic and more like a Reich.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 9, 2009

It?s been difficult for Seattle resident Rachel Porcaro, a single mother who makes about $18,000 a year cutting hair, to provide for herself and her two sons. Things did not improve when the domestic terrorist organization called the Internal Revenue Service singled her out for persecution.

Convinced that Rachel was hiding unreported income, the IRS demanded $16,000. A certified tax specialist documented that the IRS was misapplying tax laws, and that Rachel and her sons economized by living at her parents? home as renters. Rather than backing off, the IRS escalated its assault by auditing Rachel?s father.

Rachel was eventually forced to pay a thousand dollars in additional taxes, plus penalties and interest. She is also forbidden to claim her children as dependents. As Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat points out, the agency spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars ?to squeeze a grand out of a single mom who did nothing wrong.?

Let us work and pray for the abolition of the pestilential IRS,
and take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 8, 2009

Oregon?s official unemployment rate is over eleven percent, and the state ranks sixth in the nation for bankruptcies. Thanks to Oregon Attorney General John Kroger, things will soon get much worse for that state?s small business sector.

Kroger is putting the finishing touches on an Environmental Crimes Enforcement Unit that will aggressively pursue criminal prosecution of regulatory violations once dealt with as civil and administrative matters. Rather than targeting the large corporate concerns that figure so prominently in the familiar demonology of eco-propaganda, Kroger?s eco-enforcers will focus on small businesses.

Oregon legal analysts Christopher Rycewicz and Britan Sniffen write: ?What does this increased emphasis on criminal enforcement mean for Oregon business owners? It means that we are entering a period of uncertainty, when we will not know the types of violations [the unit] is targeting?.? This means more time and money spent on administrative and legal matters, which in turn will mean more business failures, unemployment, and misery for Oregon residents.

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