Please forgive the delay in posting... I'm in the hospital, and will probably be here until at least tomorrow (Thursday) with a really nasty GI infection. I'm learning it's difficult to type while plugged into an IV stand....

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/08/crime-of-cowardice-unjust-imprisonment.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 17, 2009

Government is the only institution that can modify or ignore laws to suit its whims.

A particularly dangerous example of this criminal tendency is found in the news that the Pentagon seeks to deploy up to 400,000 combat troops throughout the United States in the event of a major disaster or national emergency.

Defining the term ?national emergency? is a presidential prerogative. While most disaster scenarios involve a natural catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina, or a terrorist attack involving the use of a nuclear or other unconventional weapon, there?s nothing that would prevent a president from using the military to deal forcefully with widespread political dissent.

Using active-duty military personnel as domestic police would be in violation of both the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution and black-letter statutory law ? specifically, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. But the law is never an effective obstacle to the ambitions of those who rule us.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 14, 2009

Although humans are fallen, we do not naturally kill each other without provocation. War requires the suppression of an individual?s natural inhibition against killing.

A military occupation, such as those underway in Iraq and Afghanistan, involves a 360-degree battlefield. To a soldier placed in such circumstances, any stranger is a potential enemy, and any situation a potential ambush. Repeatedly placing young men in such an environment will have consequences, as we are just beginning to learn.

According to a study published by the RAND Corporation, ?Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan ? 300,000 in all ? report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression?; many of them are sent back into combat without treatment. Those remaining at home sometimes suffer breakdowns leading to lethal violence.

John Adams warned, ?Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.? To that we may add: Greater still are the lasting social consequences.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 13, 2009

For most of our national existence, the United States of America has attracted people seeking both individual freedom and economic opportunity.

Given this history, it?s clear that something new and troubling has happened with many of America?s brightest college graduates, are beginning to look to China in search of economic opportunity.

According to the New York Times, ?Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.?

China?s political system, its banks, and much of its corporate system are controlled by the Communist Party. But the size and talent of its population has fueled a huge boom in entrepreneurial capitalism, a trend that will eventually lead to the undoing of the Communist Party?s apparatus of state control.

The real tragedy here is that China is headed toward market capitalism at the same time America is plunging head-long into collectivist tyranny.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 12, 2009

Mark Ledford of Austin, Texas was puzzled when he saw a green Honda Accord parked outside his home with its windows were open, and keys still in the ignition.

Broken glass, a pair of men?s boots, a length of rope, and a woman?s bikini top could be seen in the back seat.

Mark called the police. Two officers arrived and shrugged off the matter, saying that the car was parked legally. A few days later, worried that the car might be a crime scene, Mark and Asia decided to poke around to learn the identity of its owner. The instant they did, the police arrived ? and arrested them for burglary. The Accord was a ?bait car? left by police in an attempt to lure people into an act that could be construed as a crime.

This form of entrapment is practiced by police wherever manufacturing crimes is considered more important than protecting and serving the public.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 10, 2009

Twenty-five years ago, NASA researcher John Cover produced the first working model of what he called Tom Swift?s Electric Rifle, or TASER. By the late 1990s, the device was in wide use among law enforcement agencies, who insisted that it provided a safer, non-lethal alternative to deadly force.

But the ubiquity of the TASER has made its use all but irresistible to police officers confronted with non-violent non-compliance. Rather than offering non-lethal defense, the TASER has become a commonly used ? and frequently lethal -- implement of pain compliance.

The military contractor Raytheon has developed a so-called ?Active Denial System? using microwaves to heat a targeted individual?s skin. Its effects, like those of the TASER, are described as ?painful, but generally harmless.?

Weapons system analyst Neil Davidson warns that we can ?expect police forces to become more and more interested? in the use of microwave weaponry. Given the growing problem of TASER abuse, this is not a pleasant prospect.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 7 2009

Jefferson County, Alabama is headed for bankruptcy. The County Sheriff?s budget has been slashed by $4 million. Sheriff Mike Hale, who may have to lay off his deputies, has requested that Gov. Bob Riley dispatch National Guard troops to Jefferson County to provide a ?presence on the street.?

Earlier this year, Mayor Brian Stratton of Schenectady, New York suggested that martial law enforced by National Guard troops might be a ?necessary but temporary interim measure? as that city cleans up a notoriously corrupt local police force.

In Detroit, a dying automobile industry helped bring on the housing collapse early. With local unemployment soaring above 16% and the local economy in ruins, much of the local population faces food shortages. A recent CNN story from Detroit described a spectacle many thought we?d never witness in America: Food deliveries being guarded by men in military fatigues.

These are troubling snapshots of a society careening into undisguised military rule.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 6, 2009

Michael Bullard and Richard Armstrong were recently convicted of beating Raylen Smith outside a Wal-Mart in Nampa, Idaho. A third suspect involved in this atrocity, James Whitewater, pleaded guilty and testified against the other two defendants.

Of course, the Idaho criminal code recognizes aggravated battery as a serious crime, and provides for prison terms of up to 15 years for that offense. This is a suitable punishment. However, the offenders in this case were not tried under Idaho law; instead, because the assailants were white and the victim was black, this crime was prosecuted by a federal court under a federal ?hate crimes? statute.

For those who don?t accept the totalitarian premise that government should regulate private attitudes, hate crimes laws serve no useful purpose. Conventional criminal laws are sufficient to deal with actual offenses against persons and property. Hate crimes statutes reinforce collectivist assumptions about rights, and promote expansion of government power into Orwellian territory.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 5, 2009

The ongoing economic collapse has prompted many unskilled foreign workers to stay home. Now that the problem of illegal immigration is abating, we should focus our efforts on reining in the increasingly feral immigration enforcement bureaucracy.

Capitalizing on public overreaction to the problem of illegal immigration, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, has assembled 100 heavily armed SWAT teams that carry out pre-dawn armed raids in search of illegal immigrants. Those raids are conducted without judicial warrants; the ICE strike teams carry so-called ?administrative warrants? issued by their own commanders.

In addition to their routine violations of the Fourth Amendment, these strike teams are notoriously indiscriminate in their use of force. On more than a few occasions, they have swept up American citizens in their eagerness to fill enforcement quotas.

Immigration is a problem that will largely solve itself. The same isn?t true of the problem posed by the ICE department?s goon squads.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 4, 2009

The Economist magazine recently published the findings of a global survey conducted by World Public Opinion on the subject of torture.

Large population samples from fourteen countries were asked which of the following two propositions they agreed with: Either that ?All state torture should be prohibited,? or that ?Some degree of torture should be allowed.?

Of the national populations surveyed, the population most emphatically opposed to torture was that of Great Britain, with more than 80% rejecting it in all circumstances, and only 15% describing it as tolerable in certain circumstances.

What of the United States of America, a country whose Constitution expressly forbids cruel and unusual punishment? We finished eighth of fourteen nations surveyed, with nearly half supporting torture in some circumstances and just over half rejecting it outright.

Those results placed the USA below the Muslim nations Indonesia and Egypt. And in proportionate terms, more Americans than Chinese support torture. So much for American exceptionalism.

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