Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 8, 2009

"Which is better - to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?" asked Boston clergyman Byles Mather in 1776.

Rev. Mather was wrong about independence, but his question certainly has merit. While we shouldn?t ignore the tyranny emanating from Washington, D.C., it would also be a mistake to ignore the petty tyrants we encounter in our own backyards.

The audience at a meeting of the Duncanville, Texas City Council recently witnessed a suitable example.

When City Councilman Paul Ford rose to speak, he used a few seconds of his time to condemn Mayor David Green?s support for the unconstitutional use of red light cameras. The Mayor replied by gaveling Ford out of order, cutting his mike and the audio recording, and ordering the Police Chief to arrest the Councilman.

Anywhere we find a position of authority, we also find the potential for dictatorial tyranny.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 7, 2009

Political elitists routinely enhance their power through measures supposedly intended to protect the proverbial little guy. Campaign finance reform laws, for instance, were supposed to reduce the influence of big money donors in election campaigns; in practice, however, those laws restrict political speech, thereby protecting incumbents from criticism.

A similar outcome can be expected should Congress enact HR 1966, the so-called Cyberbullying Prevention Act. The bill would criminalize the use of online media to ?harass? people ? including public figures ? through ?severe, repeated, and hostile? criticism that causes ?substantial emotional distress? to those thus targeted.

The bill?s sponsor, Rep. Linda Sanchez of California, and all fourteen of its co-sponsors voted in favor of the recently enacted hate crimes bill, which continues the trend of treating some crime victims as a specially protected class. The transparent intent of this bill is to make politicians a class protected from on-line criticism.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 6, 2009

During the reign of George W. Bush, many crucial constitutional protections and due process guarantees suffered grave injury, or were effectively abolished. The Fourth Amendment ?s protection from warrantless surveillance, the Eighth Amendment?s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, , and the habeas corpus guarantee were routinely violated.

Barack Obama has picked up seamlessly where George W. Bush left off.

The Associated Press reports that Obama is planning a major campaign against tax havens ? that is, the legal use of banks abroad to protect money from the predations of the government. Obama?s plan would require ?a major shift in the way courts view guilt?. Americans would have to prove they were not breaking US tax laws by sending money to banks that don?t cooperate with tax officials. It would essentially reverse the long-held assumption of innocence in US courts.?

Placing the burden of proof on the accused is a time-honored tactic of tyrants.

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

Link: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-ashton-lundeby.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 5, 2009

Since early March, 16-year-old Ashton Lundeby, whose home is in North Carolina, has sat in a juvenile detention center in South Bend, Indiana. The home-school student was seized by FBI agents the night of March 5.

Ashton has had no access to defense counsel, or contact with his mother. He is denied the protection of any of the Constitution?s due process guarantees, and could be imprisoned without trial. He has been accused of making an internet bomb threat, and is considered an ?enemy combatant? under the misnamed Patriot Act.

Ashton?s mother insists that her son is a victim of identity theft. Even if the teenager pulled a very ill-advised prank, investigators have found no material evidence of an actual bomb plot.

Ashton?s mother never imagined she would have to protect her children from her own government. Wisdom dictates that we regard the government ruling us as the most vicious of the predators who menace our children.

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

On May 7, additional details were pried from the US Attorney's office regarding the Ashton Lundeby case. The Feds insist that the 16-year-old has not been charged under the USA PATRIOT act, as his mother initially and repeatedly claimed. Further details on this case will be published at the Pro Libertate blog as they become available.

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-ashton-lundeby.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/026683.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 4, 2009

Ten years ago, a US-led NATO force bombed Serbia for 78 days, supposedly to prevent the genocide of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

The Serbs had been fighting a radical Islamic separatist movement led by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. After Serbia surrendered Kosovo to UN control, forensic investigators found no mass graves or other evidence of the supposed genocide that Bill Clinton and others claimed had taken place.

Once the KLA was given control, however, it drove out both Christian Serbs and moderate Albanian Muslims.

Evidence has emerged that hundreds of Serbs may have been abducted by the KLA and held in secret prison camps. Many of them were apparently murdered, their bodies mutilated, and their organs sold on the black market. Despite knowing about those alleged atrocities, UN officials administering Kosovo permitted the KLA to seize control. And this triumph of terrorism was made possible by Washington?s involvement.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 1, 2009

On April 29, the House of Representatives continued the federal government?s war on the principle of equal protection under law by enacting the Federal Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

The measure would expand the categories of people now given special protected status under hate crimes laws. At present, those categories include victims of crimes supposedly inspired by animus against particular race, color, or national origin; the new bill would include crimes based on the victims?s sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

The constitutional principle of equal protection requires that both criminals and victims are given equal treatment under law. Hate crimes laws violate that principle by treating certain offenders more harshly than others, and some victims as specially protected minorities.

Hate crime enforcement ventures into Orwellian territory by authorizing government to treat personal opinions and attitudes as elements of a crime. This has no proper place in a free society.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 30, 2009

Three years ago, Arizona resident Richard Franco and his wife of thirteen years filed for divorce.

Although Franco is an active Mormon, he agreed that the children ? a son, now 14, and a ten-year-old daughter -- would be raised in the Catholic religion.

Until recently Franco took the children with him to church during the weekends he had custody. However, an Arizona judge, in a decision upheld by the state supreme court, ruled that the children?s ?only religious training shall be in the Catholic faith,? and they are not to attend any other church.

The relative merits of either church aside, by what authority does a judge presume to assign a religion to these children? If this is permissible following a divorce, why couldn?t the same question be adjudicated while the couple is still married?

Even in broken marriages, parents retain both rights and duties courts must not usurp.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 29,2009

Defenders of the CIA?s program of interrogating terrorist suspects through torture insist that it was necessary to protect America from a second wave of attacks.

Interrogators from both the military and the FBI refused to use so-called enhanced interrogation methods ? such as controlled drowning, or various kinds of physical abuse. Several of them have stepped forward now to testify that the purpose of the CIA?s so-called interrogation program was not to develop intelligence about future attacks on America, but rather to validate the idea of a link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. This would help build the Bush administration?s case for war with Iraq.

Major Matthew Alexander who questioned 300 suspected terrorists, believes that the CIA?s torture program actually resulted in mass recruitment of Jihadists to fight in Iraq. By Major Alexander?s account, more Americans died in Iraq because of that program than died in New York City on 9/11.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 28, 2009

Thirty-three years ago, the federal government predicted that an outbreak of swine flu would kill as many as a million Americans. The administration of President Gerald Ford decided to carry out a crash program to inoculate the public.

Huge sums were appropriated to create and distribute a vaccine.
Panic-laden public service announcements were produced demanding that Americans line up for vaccinations.

The epidemic never materialized. Although drug companies eagerly took subsidies to produce the vaccine, the public refused to cooperate with the program. This made little difference, since the 1976 flu season was the mildest on record. Nearly all of the flu-related deaths that year came from adverse reactions to the government vaccine.

This history should be kept in mind, now that the government has declared a public health emergency to deal with another variant of the swine flu.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 27, 2009

Dr. Gregory Mankiw served as chairman of President George W. Bush?s Council of Economic Advisors. In a recent New York Times column, Mankiw offered the patently insane suggestion that the Federal Reserve offer negative interest rates in order to stimulate economic recovery.

For example: the Fed could choose a random number and announce that within a year ?All currency with a serial number ending in that digit would no longer be legal tender.?

Within a year, ten percent of all currency in circulation would be worthless. This would permit the Fed to set a negative interest rate of, say, minus three percent in order to punish saving and promote borrowing and spending.

The only alternative, Mankiw insists, is for the Fed to continue inflating the currency, which will have the same impact.

This is what passes for wisdom in the upper echelons of our deranged ruling elite.

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