Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 6, 2009

When Tucumcari, New Mexico resident Stacy Atkin sought help from the police to deal with her 14-year-old daughter, she expected receiving some useful advice. She certainly didn?t anticipate that her daughter would be left hospitalized with a life-threatening brain injury.

After arriving at the police station, the teenager fled. This action, while perhaps unwise, was not unlawful. A call was put out and Police Chief Roger Hatcher tracked the girl down at a local park. When the girl ran from him, Hatcher drew his Taser and shot her in the head. One of the darts penetrated the girl?s skull, wounding her brain.

Hatcher insisted that the girl had committed a ?delinquent act,? and that he had ?no choice? other than using his Taser. He plans to seek criminal charges against his victim.

How did we get to a point where the use of lethal force against an innocent teenage girl is considered ?help??

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 3, 2009

During the American Revolution, British statesman Edmund Burke raised his voice in defense of the rights of the American colonists. Burke warned that the corruption and power-lust of the imperial British government were a threat to the rights not only of the colonists, but of British people everywhere.

Burke returned to that theme in a 1793 address:

Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take one against our own. I must fairly say I dread our own power and our own ambition. I dread our being too much dreaded.... Sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.

Burke, like Chesterton more than a century later, was a patriot who loved England not because it was the dominant global power, but because it was his home.

On this Independence Day, it?s worth asking ourselves if we love our country enough to protect it from the power of the government ruling it.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 2, 2009

When Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, his regime made war against the so-called Kulaks, or Ukrainian peasant farmers. They were targeted for extinction in an engineered famine during the 1930s that killed up to three times as many people as perished in the WWII-era Nazi Holocaust.

During that time, a Ukrainian youngster named Pavlik Morozov was designated a hero and role model to Soviet youth because he informed on his father, who was sent to the gulag and killed.

A strong odor of Morozov-style collectivist fanaticism permeated a June 13 New York Times op-ed column by Charles M. Blow. Referring to family members of people accused of so-called hate crimes, Blow writes: ?[W]e, as a society, can do a much better job of creating an environment where hateful beliefs are never ignored, and suspicious behavior never goes unreported.?

Apparently, for tolerance to prevail we must become a nation of Pavlik Morozov-style informants.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 1, 2009

Cedric Glover is Mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, a city afflicted ? as are so many these days ? with a hideously corrupt municipal police force.

Mr. Glover also belongs to a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Glover and his comrades believe that in an ideal society, only police and military personnel would have firearms.

A Shreveport resident named Robert Baillio was stopped by a police officer. No traffic citation was issued, but the officer did temporary confiscate Baillio?s firearm.

WhenBaillio called Glover to ask about this incident Baillio called Glover to ask about this incident, the Mayor unbosomed himself of a remarkable perspective on police powers: An individual police officer, according to Glover, is invested with "a power that the President of the United States does not have ... and that is the ability to be able to suspend your rights? ? at any time, for any reason.

Under Glover?s reign, Shreveport may have to change its name to ?Cuba of the North.?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 30, 2009

Will Foster suffers from degenerative arthritis, a highly painful condition he treats through the medical use of marijuana. He was arrested in Oklahoma in 1993 on drug charges, then eventually paroled to California, a state with more lenient laws governing medical marijuana.

Despite obeying all laws and complying with the terms of his parole, Foster was threatened with arrest and extradition to Oklahoma, because of a disagreement between that state?s parole system and California?s. Foster was able to beat back that effort.

A false report to the police against Foster resulted in a drug raid on his California home, where he legally cultivated marijuana. Jailed once again, Foster once again faces the prospect of going back to prison in Oklahoma ? even though he has done nothing wrong.

Foster?s case is quite typical of the American system of prison and parole, which incarcerates more people than any other penal system in the world.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 29, 2009

What is the purpose of having a Congress if that body insists on passing huge, imponderably complicated pieces of legislation that congressmen haven?t even had a chance to read?

Last week?s so-called climate change legislation is the most recent example. Like the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act, and last?s years bank bailout, the climate change bill was passed amid theatrical warnings of impending doom if Congress failed to act.

And like those previous measures, nobody in Congress ? including the bill?s most impassioned supporters ? has read the entire measure. Hundreds of pages were added to it literally at the last minute. Enough is known about the so-called ?cap and trade? restrictions on purported greenhouse emissions to predict that the most recent bill will cause energy prices to skyrocket and unemployment to soar.

If Congress can?t be bothered to read the laws it passes, we really shouldn?t be required to obey them.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 26, 2009

Off-duty Pittsburgh police officer Paul Abel was headed home from a bar last June 28 when someone reached through his car window and slugged him. Abel, who was drunk at the time, drove off in pursuit of his attacker.

Spotting 21-year-old Kaleb Miller, Abel leaped from his car, pulled his gun, and ordered him to the ground. As Abel severely pistol-whipped the young man, the handgun discharged, wounding one of Miller?s hands.

According to eyewitnesses, Miller didn?t even resemble Abels?s assailant. Abel was put on suspension and charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and Driving under the influence.

Judge Jeffrey Manning , who presided over Abel?s bench trial, acquitted him of all charges. ?It is not the obligation of this court to police the police department,? Manning insisted, adding that Abel?s drunken rampage, while ?ill-advised,? was within his discretionary power as a police officer.

Again we confront the question: Who watches our supposed protectors?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 25, 2009

As James Madison explained in Federalist Paper number 10, the federated design of our republic encourages economic competition. Each state government can either prosper or suffer depending on the wisdom of its policies regarding taxation and regulation.

State governments do try to deflect those costs on the public, of course. One good example is offered in a recent Washington Times story describing how ?Several states and the District of Columbia are tracking down smokers who buy cheaper cigarettes out of their jurisdictions and have even begun tax-collection procedures that can end in liens put against the offender?s property.?

In similar fashion, after the State of Tennessee tripled cigarette taxes two years ago, it threatened felony prosecution of those who purchased so-called contraband cigarettes in neighboring states. The state mounted a major surveillance and interdiction program to enforce that policy.

Behavior like this by the British Crown triggered the first war for American Independence.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 24, 2009

Even though the release of imprisoned American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier has long been a leftist cause célèbre, it?s an idea worthy of support from all concerned about due process.

Peltier was wrongfully convicted 33 years ago of murdering two FBI agents on South Dakota?s Pine Ridge ReservationSouth Dakota?s Pine Ridge Reservation.

Four AIM-connected individuals were indicted for the June 1975 killings. Charges were dropped against one, Jimmy Eagle. The others, Darrelle Butler and Bob Robideau, were acquitted of all charges based on the same evidence later used to convict Peltier.

Peltier was extradited from Canada on the basis of eyewitness testimony from a woman who later recanted her story. When she offered to testify in Peltier?s defense, the trial judge ruled that she was mentally incompetent.

Peltier recently suffered a heart attack. His next parole hearing is on July 28*. He should be freed, and those responsible for his malicious prosecution should be prosecuted themselves.

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

* There are conflicting reports as to whether the parole hearing is July 27 or July 28.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 23, 2009

Twenty years after the dramatic and heart-rending events in China?s Tiananmen Square, a similar drama is playing out in the streets of Tehran as hundreds of thousands protest what they are convinced was a rigged and stolen election. Scores of demonstrators have been assaulted, and more than a dozen killed.

While we should applaud and encourage those in Iran seeking freedom, the U.S. government must abstain from direct involvement. Twice in the past six decades ? in 1953 and again in 1978 ? Washington intervened in Iranian political affairs. This is in violation of our Constitution and the highest principles of our Founders.

There is evidence as well that the CIA and National Endowment for Democracy have already been active promoting demonstrations in Iran. If this is the case this involvement must end immediately.

It would be wonderful to see Iran take a turn for freedom ? but that nation?s future is its own to define.

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