Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 15, 2009

If you?re a resident of Nampa, Idaho, and you suspect that the ?friendly? police officer who pulls up next to you is sizing you up as a revenue-producing snack, you?re probably right.

Nampa is one of several cities involved in a federally subsidized pilot program involving forced blood tests for people accused of DUI. That?s why Officer Darryll Dowell, who is part of a ?select cadre? of local police assigned to act as ?officer phlebotomists,? will find himself ?looking at people?s arms and hands, thinking, `I could draw from that?.??

The specter of being pinned down and jabbed with a syringe by a policeman is intended to extort cooperation with breath tests, a less invasive (and less infection-prone) method of forcing a citizen to submit to a warrantless search of his person and provide potentially self-incriminating evidence. This kind of thing is explicitly forbidden by the Constitution ? as if that fact made any difference anymore.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 14, 2009

The murder of pro-life witness James Pouillon in Owosso, Michigan on September 11 received no significant national media attention. It certainly didn?t dominate the day?s news cycle, as did the recent murder of abortionist George Tiller.

Harlan Drake, the man who admitted to shooting of Pouillon and a second innocent victim, said that he was offended by Poullion?s high-profile pro-life activism. At the time of the murder Pouillon was holding a sign depicting a smiling, healthy newborn child.

Pouillon was a peaceful 63-year-old man who was confined to a wheelchair and tethered to an oxygen bottle. Yet the local press tried to depict him as a career criminal: One local newspaper published his entire court record, which was replete with trivial violations, such as traffic tickets and jaywalking citations.

We learn everything we need to know about our public culture from the fact that child-killers like Tiller are lionized, and murdered pro-lifers like Pouillon are treated like criminals.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 11, 2009

Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife Linda, a nurse, have been accused of violating federal drug laws by allegedly prescribing painkillers to patients suffering from chronic pain.

Dozens of Dr. Schneider?s patients have rallied to his defense. The Pain Relief Network (or PRN) has also lent support to Dr. Schneider, filing a lawsuit and inaugurating a publicity campaign on his behalf.

Although most media coverage of high-profile criminal cases is little more than stenography on behalf of the prosecution, the press has actually gone beyond sound bites in the Schneider case, interviewing patients he has helped and examining the federal case with a critical eye.

Accordingly, federal prosecutor Tanya Treadway has sought to criminalize public expressions of support for Schneider, backed by a court order imposing fines of $200 a day against the PRN.

There are few better illustrations of the fact that the so-called War on Drugs is a jihad against the Constitution.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 10, 2009

Virginia?s Ft. Lee was the site of a recent three-day counter-terrorism training exercise for soldiers and police. The training scenario didn?t involve an attack on civilians, but rather an anti-war protest that supposedly threatened military personnel and their families.

Freedom of assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances are among the core liberties protected by the First Amendment. This applies to peaceful protests ? including those that involve incendiary rhetoric critical of government policy. However, the government ruling us considers peaceful dissent to be a form of low-level terrorism.

An Antiterrorism Awareness Training document issued by the Department of Defense labels ?protests? as ?an example of low-level terrorism activity.? The military has monitored at least 186 anti-war protests, and has collaborated with the FBI and local law enforcement to infiltrate law-abiding protest groups.

Constitutional republics protect the right to dissent. Dictatorships indoctrinate police and soldiers to view it as a crime.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 9, 2009

One illustration of the bizarre role-reversal in the world economy is found in a warning recently issued by Cheng Siwei, a high-ranking official in the government of Communist China.

Referring to the ongoing flood of currency inflation undertaken by the Federal Reserve, Cheng warned that the dollar ?will fall hard.?

?The U.S. spends tomorrow?s money today,? commented Cheng. ?We Chinese spend today?s money tomorrow. That?s why we have this financial crisis.?

The Chinese produce, save and lend rather than spend; Washington borrows and inflates rather than encouraging Americans to produce and save. Accordingly, the wealthiest nation in the world ? in nominal terms ? borrows heavily from China in order to buy what they produce, and pays the Chinese back in rapidly depreciating dollars. This cannot continue.

Cheng concluded his warning by quoting the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: ?He who goes borrowing, goes sorrowing.? It?s good to know our Founding Fathers are still respected in Beijing, if not in Washington.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 7, 2009

Until about 1990, the flyspeck town of Jerichothe flyspeck town of Jericho, Arkansas was devoid of a police force, with the county sheriff?s office providing appropriate services as needed. This changed when the town received a grant to create its own police force ? and the community has been suffering ever since.

Jericho has a well-earned reputation as one of the most notorious speed traps in the South. But its police department doesn?t just prey on unsuspecting visitors with out-of-state license plates: Persistent harassment and corruption by the police have literally driven many locals to leave the town.

Recently, Fire Chief Don Payne challenged a dubious speeding ticket in court. Later that day, he was hit with a second spurious citation as a transparent act of retaliation for challenging the first one. When he challenged the second citation, Payne was mobbed in court by seven officers and then shot.

?Support your local police?? Not in Jericho, Arkansas.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 3, 2009

The wave of casual Taser abuse by police may have crested at Glenrock, Wyoming, the site of an August 1 Taser attack on a 76-year-old man that nearly precipitated a riot.

Bud Grose was riding a tractor in a parade celebrating Deer Creek Days. Grose had been told to follow the same route used in previous parades; a police officer directing traffic tried to divert Grose in another direction. When Grose drove around the officer the policeman banged his hand and wrist against the tractor. Grose was eventually pinned in by a police SUV and shocked five times with a Taser.

The crowd that witnessed this unjustified assault with a lethal weapon surrounded the police and refused to permit further abuse of the innocent senior citizen. And public sentiment in the town of 2,400 has made it impossible for officials to file charges against Grose. Call it a victory for ?People Power.?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 2, 2009

The Endangered Species Act, the source of tremendous economic devastation in rural America, is rooted in a view in which humanity is merely one species among many.

Foundation-funded radical environmental groups work in collaboration with the federal government to restrict or banish human recreational and economic activity within huge swathes of land designated protected species habitat.

Such habitat is generally defined through unscientific or even fraudulent means. A decade ago several Forest Service field biologists were caught falsifying tests used to define the habitat of a protected species of lynx.

One preferred environmental tactic is to re-introduce predators, such as wolves and mountain lions, near rural population centers. As one radical environmentalist candidly admitted, one purpose of re-colonizing such areas with large, feral predators is to use fear as a goad to drive people off the land. That was why wolves were reintroduced to Idaho several years ago, and why environmental groups oppose culling the wolf population now.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 21, 2009

In his new memoir ?The Test of Our Times,? Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge confirms something many had suspected, and many others had considered obvious: The Bush administration sought to manipulate the so-called ?terror alert level? in order to influence domestic politics.

According to Ridge, shortly before the 2004 presidential election he was approached by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, who asked him to raise the terrorism alert level.

?After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector,? writes Ridge.

Ridge doesn?t explain why he didn?t reveal the truth while he was still on the public payroll. Nor does he explain why he raised the terror alert in the summer of 2004, just prior to the Republican National Convention, or consented to several other curiously timed terror alerts. Though his admissions are valuable, Ridge isn?t exactly a paragon of principle.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 18, 2009

Washington Post commentator Ezra Klein cannot understand why so many people are deeply mistrustful of government power, and so insistent on limiting the ambitions of the well-intentioned and infinitely competent people who are trying to fix our health-care system.

?What we're seeing here is not merely distrust in the House health-care reform bill,? Klein complains. ?It's distrust in the political system. A healthy relationship does not require an explicit detailing of the `institutional checks? that will prevent one partner from beating or killing the other. In a healthy relationship, such madness is simply unthinkable. ?

The fundamental wisdom of America?s founders is precisely that government?s relationship to the governed is intrinsically unhealthy, and will turn murderous if government power is not restrained by institutional checks.

Klein is free to indulge his delusions about the benevolence of government power. He really shouldn?t upbraid those of us ? beginning with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison ? who know better.

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