Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 20, 2009

The first manned landing on the Moon forty years ago today was a bold and inspiring accomplishment.

While the benefits of the space program ? however one assesses them ? are seen, what we don?t see are the opportunities for progress that were missed because of the government?s forcible seizure of money and resources for use in the space race with the Soviets ? or what amounted to a grand propaganda campaign.

Washington recently announcedplans to ?de-orbit? ? that is, crash ? the $100 billion International Space Station in 2016 . This makes no sense if NASA is serious about returning to the moon via the proposed $30 billion Ares launch vehicle, which would require the aid of a space station and will not be ready until at least 2015.

Exciting as the space program is, nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to spend money for that purpose. Surely there are better private uses for such astronomical sums.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 17, 2009

Vito Congine of Crivitz, Wisconsin invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy and develop a building for use as an Italian restaurant. In June his application for a business license was turned down by the Village Board, which said that it would ?create too much competition for other existing businesses.?

With his family confronting bankruptcy, Congine protested the Board?s decision by flying an American flag upside-down on his property. On the Fourth of July, a group of angry people complained to the police about Congine?s flag.

Despite the fact that no law or ordinance prohibited the display, and without a warrant or probable cause, the police trespassed on Congine?s property and seized the flag. The Village Board issued a statement commending the lawless actions of the police.

Had the Crivitz police carried out their duty to protect persons and property, they would have protected Congine from potential mob violence, rather than carrying out the mob?s desires.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 16, 2009

Among the myriad legislative horrors pending in Washington, D.C. is a measure mandating ?home interventions? by government workers to ?improve immunization coverage? of youngsters.

The measure, a section of the so-called Affordable Health Choices Act, would provide state subsidies through the Centers for Disease Control ?to implement interventions that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, such as reminders or recalls for patients or providers, or home visits.?

Government ?reminders? and other forms of low-pressure nagging are bad enough. So-called ?interventions? by government workers, however, cross the line into outright aggression against parental rights and the sovereignty of the home.

Many sober and responsible people decline to subject their children to immunization as a result of informed choice regarding the dangers and advertised benefits of vaccinations. The government should respect parents who make such choices and defer to their authority, rather than funding new efforts to harass and coerce them.

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

Don't forget to tune in to Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 15, 2009

For some people of a leftist political persuasion, practically any kind of political speech with which they disagree is to be considered ?hate speech.?

Typical of such people is Bonnie Erbe, a commentator for PBS and US News, who refers to the recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum as ?a clarion call for banning hate speech.?

Grouping that shooting with the murders of abortionist George Tiller and Army Private William Long ? the latter killed by a convert to Islam ? Erbe insists:

?It?s not enough to prosecute these murders as murders. They are hate-motivated crimes and each of these men had been under some sort of police surveillance prior to their actions. Isn?t it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill??

Erbe apparently believes that she, or similarly wise and oracular people, can foretell crimes before they happen. It?s an interesting fantasy. It would be a totalitarian policy.

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

Don't forget to tune in to Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network

Link: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/07/too-many-other-people.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 14, 2009

John Holdren, formerly of Harvard?s Kennedy School of Government, is Barack Obama?s chief science advisor, or so-called ?Science Czar.? His role is to help define federal policy, particularly in environmental matters.

Decades ago, as a young academic, Holdren co-wrote a book entitled Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment. His co-authors were the late Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, who had done a great deal to popularize the notion that earth is badly overpopulated, and that mankind would have to adopt severe, totalitarian restrictions on population growth, or face a future of famines, plagues, and other disasters.

To deal with the purported population crisis, Ecoscience called for, among other things, ?laws requiring compulsory abortion?; the seizure by state authorities of all illegitimately born babies from single mothers; mandatory sterilization of women following the birth of a second or third child; and the infiltration of sterilizing agents into public water supplies.

How many of these views are still held by Obama?s Science Czar?

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

Don't forget to tune in to Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 13, 2009

Toward the end of the recent G-8 summit in Italy, each national leader was given a gold coin specially minted in Belgium for the occasion by a group called United Future World Currency.

The coin, called a ?eurodollar,? was designed by the same man who helped create the European Union?s coinage. The model coin contains the inscription ?Unity in Diversity.? It is meant to foreshadow the emergence of a new global currency, presumably issued by the United Nations or one of its affiliates, to replace the dollar, whose value is evaporating due to inflation.

The meaning of this gift was obvious to the assembled national leaders, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Following the summit Medvedev told reporters that the question of a new global reserve currency ?concerns everyone now, even the mints,? and that the coin given out at the event ?means they?re getting ready.?

Are you ready for the end of the dollar?

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

Don't forget to tune in to Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network

Link: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/07/beware-william-tells-second-arrow.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 10, 2009

A decade ago, Switzerland was beset with spurious claims that its banks were hoarding gold stolen from victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Twice before Switzerland had conducted open and thorough investigations of those claims, which were found utterly meritless.

Nonetheless, a new smear campaign was inaugurated in 1997 that culminated with a huge transfer of wealth from the independent Alpine nation?s gold reserves and the imposition of a new constitution severing the tie between the Swiss franc and gold.

Now Switzerland is confronting an international defamation campaign intended to abolish that nation?s historic commitment to banking secrecy. The U.S. government is trying to force the United Bank of Switzerland to surrender data on 52,000 American clients suspected of avoiding US taxes.

Washington insists that Switzerland enforce US tax laws, even if by doing so that nation violates its own banking secrecy laws. The word that best describes a government that could issue such a demand is ?tyranny.?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 9, 2009

Oscar Wilde once said that building socialism would ?take too many evenings.? The ambitious social engineers in the Obama administration are discovering that centrally planning the U.S. economy can take a toll on a government employee?s private life.

?White House advisers often work 60 to 70 hours a week and bear the scars of missed birthdays and bedtimes, canceled dinners and play dates, strained marriages and disgruntled children, all for prestigious posts that offer a chance to make an impact,? observed a July 4 article in the New York Times.

Most tax-paying Americans can understand such frustrations. It?s common for one parent to work full-time to support the family while the other works full-time to pay the taxes. This is because of the costs entailed in paying for the grand designs of people in Washington.

Obama and his comrades should spend more time with their families, and less time taxing and regimenting ours.

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

Link: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/07/civil-religion-and-seventh-inning.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 8, 2009

Bob Campeau-Laurion was headed for the restroom during the Seventh Inning Stretch at Yankee Stadium when he was grabbed by two police officers and dragged from the game.

Several years ago the Yankees had instituted a custom of performing ?God Bless America? rather than ?Take Me Out to the Ball Game? during the Seventh Inning, and spectators were required to participate. Police and Ushers were instructed not to permit attendees to move from their seats while the music played.

Campeau-Laurion filed a lawsuit contending that his individual rights had been violated. On July 7 the City of New York settled the suit and disavowed the policy of compelled participation in a patriotic observance at Yankee games.

The Yankee organization, like most other major league sports franchises, is not a purely private entity; it profits from huge taxpayer subsidies, making it something of a quasi-governmental entity. So its restrictions on free speech couldn?t be defended as a property rights issue.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 7, 2009

In recent years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has mounted campaigns against so-called ?tax havens? and ?unfair tax competition? in the effort to discourage member states from reducing tax burdens on the productive.

The OECD?s membership includes the self-described socialist nations of Scandinavia, as well as the members of the socialist European Union.

It would be expected that the USA would have the least oppressive national tax policy. But we actually rank 19th out of the 30 OECD member nations, according to French economist Pierre Bessard. The USA is tied with the socialist United Kingdom and finishes well behind such socialist-leaning countries as Canada, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

The framers of our Constitution understood that economic competition among the states would have the effect of reducing government?s share of the economy. Now our increasingly socialist government is leading the charge to punish nations that act on the insights of our own Founding Fathers.

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