Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 24, 2009

In August of last year, Milwaukee resident Brad Krause was charged with disorderly conduct for openly carrying a sidearm on his own property. This followed a complaint from Krause?s neighbor. Krause was acquitted of the charge, but his gun was never returned.

A recent memo from the state?s attorney general grudgingly admits that although Wisconsin law forbids citizens to exercise their right to carry concealed weapons, there is no statute banning them from carrying them openly.

Reacting to that ruling Milwaukee police Chief Edward Flynn declared: ?My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun ? we?ll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it.?

Flynn thus demonstrates that in Milwaukee, as elsewhere, the most significant threat of armed violence comes from lawless government, not from individuals seeking to protect themselves.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 23, 2009

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security distributed a nine-page security assessment of ?right-wing extremism? to law enforcement bodies nation-wide. The document was prepared by the department?s Extremism and Radicalization Branch, which monitors the political affiliations and opinions of US citizens.

Most people assume that the term ?right-wing extremist? applies to such people as neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan.

As described in the Department of Homeland Security advisory, however, the term applies to law-abiding people who support the right to life for the unborn, the right to keep and bear arms, radical reduction in the size of the federal government, and other causes not popular to the tax-devouring class. Another department-approved definition includes those ?suspicious of ? federal authority? and who display ?reverence for individual liberties?!

The times are ominous indeed when conventional patriotic attitudes are seen as symptoms of terrorist inclinations.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 22, 2009

In December 2005, John Yoo, the Bush administration Justice Department official who wrote several key memos defending the legality of torture, was asked in a debate if the president could legally order the torture of children. Yoo replied that this would depend on the reasons why such torture would be considered necessary by the president.

Newly released documents provide compelling evidence that the Bush administration did indeed torture children ? in this case, the children of alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who were seized in Pakistan in 2002 and held for several months in U.S. custody. Specifically, the children were assaulted with ants and other insects for the supposed purpose of compelling them to reveal their father?s whereabouts.

Earlier disclosures indicate that after Mohammed was apprehended, interrogators threatened to harm or kill his children if he didn?t cooperate.

If we?ve become the kind of people who torture children, how are we morally superior to the terrorists?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 21, 2009

Whenever the media reports an incident of unnecessary and illegal police violence against an innocent citizen, the word ?assault? is never used to describe it. Instead, it's always described as a ?struggle.?

One example is offered by a recently publicized incident that happened a year ago in Ft. Worth, Texas. After being stopped for speeding, Christopher Ferrell, a 43-year-old deaf man, reached for his identification to inform the officer of his disability. The policeman reacted by drawing his gun, grabbing Ferrell, and slamming his head into the rear windshield.

This was done to Ferrell as he was trying to cooperate with the officer.

Ft. Worth eventually paid Ferrell a $50,000 legal settlement. The officer was suspended for two days without pay. He should have been prosecuted for felonious assault. But why should we expect this, when the media won?t even use the word to describe such incidents?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 20, 2009

Steven Anderson, a Baptist pastor from Phoenix , was headed home from San Diego on April 14 when he ran into a Border Patrol checkpoint 100 miles north of the Mexican border.

Despite the fact that he never committed a crime of any kind, he ended up being tasered numerous times, beaten, and having his face ground into the shattered remains of his car windows.

Anderson, a frequent traveler, once endured suspicion-less checkpoints with stoic frustration.

But he?s grown weary of being subjected to invasive searches conducted without warrants or probable cause. So he refused to permit a search of his car or to answer questions. He was detained for an hour before being assaulted by Border Patrol agents and state police.

Anderson has been charged with failure to obey an order from a police officer. His actual supposed crime was to insist that police respect his constitutional rights.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 17, 2009

Is it a form of illegal ?harassment? to criticize your local law enforcement agency? According to the Phoenix Police Department, Jeff Pataky allegedly committed that offense by maintaining a website ? BadPhoenixCops.com ? and a blog intended to document what he believes to be official abuses and general corruption on the part of local police.

The information on Pataky?s website deals with alleged crimes and official misconduct by officers and administrators ? including mismanagement of evidence in important cases.

Much of Pataky?s material originates with sources on the department. In mid-March, officers from the Phoenix Police Department raided Pataky?s home, confiscating his computer and other equipment as part of what they insisted was an investigation into the ?harassment? charge.

The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association is siding with Pataky in this case, which will help determine if police will be permitted to indulge in Soviet-style persecution of their critics.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 16, 2009

Sir Thomas More observed that "Men desire authority for its own sake that they may ? command and control other men, and live un-commanded and uncontrolled themselves."

Although some people genuinely desire to serve others, corrupt self-interest and outright criminal ambition are far more common motivations for seeking public positions.

The administration of the so-called Wall Street bailout abounds with such thinly disguised corruption. Take, for example, the official heading the Troubled Assets Relief Program, Neel Kashkari.

Like the man who appointed him, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Kashkari is a former employee of Goldman Sachs, which was deeply involved in the securitization of toxic loans. The resulting bonds were so bad that one department at Goldman Sachs was shorting them even as another was selling them.

Not surprisingly, Goldman Sachs has profited handsomely from the taxpayer subsidies directed its way by its former employees in public office.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 15, 2009

This year, as occasionally happens, Resurrection Sunday and Tax Day fell just a few days apart. Easter celebrates the triumph of the ultimate life-giver ? our Lord and Savior. Tax Day, by way of contrast, is dominated by the ultimate life-stealer - - the state.

Each of us invests a portion of our most perishable possession ? time ? to earn money. Thus every forcible imposition on our earnings ? through direct taxation, or its more subtle surrogate, inflation -- represents an increment of life stolen by the state.

This isn?t true of free transactions, or the voluntary donation of wealth through charity. What the state takes it steals at gunpoint.

And what it steals from us it uses to blight the lives of others ? either through domestic tyranny or military aggression abroad.

The message of Easter is that death is reversible. With death being conquered, why are taxes considered inevitable?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 14, 2009

Although Mark Twain famously described Congress as America?s only ?native criminal class,? even he might have been amazed by the lawlessness recently displayed by Maryland?s state legislature.

On March 24, that body enacted, by a vote of 135-3, a measure exempting its members from all civil and criminal judicial proceedings during the 105 days each year that the legislature is in session.

Baltimore political commentator Al Ritter points out that ?77 members of the state legislature are involved in some sort of legal actions, including DUI?s, possession of child pornography, [or] failure to submit campaign finance reports on time?; the co-sponsor of the bill reportedly faces a civil action for alleged participation in an illegal foreclosure scheme.

Members of the political class constantly devise ways to exempt themselves from laws and regulations they impose on the rest of us. But rarely is their contempt for the law displayed so brazenly.

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

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQBWGo7pef8

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 13, 2009

Following the dramatic rescue of American cargo ship captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates, American military advisors may soon be dispatched to help Somalia?s government develop its own coast guard.

Before we become involved in another military venture in Somalia, we should understand the origins of recent piracy in the region.

Jonathan Hari of the London Independent points out that some of those identified as pirates are a volunteer coast guard organized to prevent illegal fishing in Somalia?s territorial waters. Others seek to chase away vessels operated by criminal syndicates that are illegally dumping European nuclear and medical waste on Somali coasts.

The so-called Somali transitional federal government is little more than a pirate regime. It was installed by an occupation force from neighboring Ethiopia, which invaded with the active support of the CIA.

Washington should focus on protecting US commercial shipping and otherwise stay out of Somalia.

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