Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 30, 2008

Earlier this year, Joseph Prudente of Bayonet Point, Florida opened his doors to his daughter and grandchildren when they lost their home. Then his mortgage reset, leaving Joseph with an additional monthly expense of $800 to pay.

As if this weren?t enough, Joseph was besieged by the local Homeowners? Association, which demanded that he spend thousands of dollars to re-sod his lawn. Faced with a budget that could accommodate one expense but not both, Joseph decided that it was more important to keep his house than to appease the Homeowners? Association.

The Association was able to obtain a court order that resulted in Joseph being sent to jail, without bail ? for the supposed crime of having a brown lawn.

Outraged by this abuse, Joseph?s neighbors donated their own time and money to repair his lawn. This spontaneous act of charity exemplifies the kind of action through which we can take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 29, 2008

In 1967, a notorious anti-government radical published an essay defending the gold standard and assailing central banking.

?In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation?. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists? antagonism toward the gold standard.?

Twenty years after that essay was published, its author, Alan Greenspan, became Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The one-time champion of the free market eagerly embraced the central planning role he once despised, inflating a huge monetary bubble that has now collapsed, taking trillions of dollars in wealth with it.

Last week Greenspan blamed this disaster on the failure of the free market. His words, written 41 years ago, prove incontestably that he knows this to be a self-serving lie.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 28, 2008

A few years ago, Iceland was ranked fifth among the world?s nations in per capita income, and was rated the second most ?livable? country by the United Nations.

In just one month, however, that Nordic economic titan has been reduced to the status of international mendicant. Following the collapse of its banking system, Iceland became the first western nation in more than a generation to request a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

Until about a decade ago, Iceland?s chief industry was fishing. However, thanks to the global investment bubble, it became deeply involved in speculative finance. The collapse of that bubble flattened Iceland?s financial system, leaving it with a non-convertible currency and retail stores being emptied by a wave of panic buying. This is a formula for disaster, since Iceland imports nearly everything.

The USA isn?t Iceland. But we?ve made many of the same mistakes, and may suffer very similar consequences.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 27, 2008

Those who have survived a tsunami recall that the cataclysm was preceded by a loud sucking noise as the sea suddenly recedes from the shoreline. When this occurs, the only hope for survival is to find the highest available ground before the much stronger reciprocal wave arrives, destroying everything in its path.

In economics there are also warning signs that can be recognized and acted upon. One important warning sign is the volume of fiat money created by the Federal Reserve.

Since mid-September, the Fed has pumped out trillions of dollars in inflated currency. Dr. Gary North, an economist and investment analyst, points out that the Fed?s money creation during the past eight weeks would translate into an annual inflation rate of 341 percent.

That?s the size of the monetary inflation wave that?s going out. The reciprocal wave of price inflation will be many times greater. And time is running out for American households to find the economic high ground.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 24, 2008

Over the past several years, Pythias Brown of Maplewood, New Jersey built a thriving business selling digital cameras, laptop computers, mp3 players, and other expensive consumer electronics on eBay.

Recently he put up for sale a sophisticated camera worth nearly $50,000. A CNN employee recognized the camera, and called the police. Investigators placed the winning bid and traced the camera back to Brown, an employee of the Transportation Safety Administration who worked as a baggage screener at the Newark Airport.

For more than a year, Brown had preyed on travelers who are required to submit their baggage for inspection. Brown?s behavior is quite common. In the first year of its operation, the TSA was hit with thousands of theft complaints involving everything from jewelry to prescription medications.

The TSA instructs fliers to leave their baggage unlocked ?for security reasons.?e This does little to enhance air safety, but much to provide a profitable sideline for thieves on the federal payroll.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 23, 2008

Pensacola, Florida resident Karen Kilpatrick remembers the slaughter of 86 innocent people by the Federal Government near Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993. Three years ago Karen staged a quiet but effective protest by decorating her minivan with several protest slogans, including ?Remember the Children of Waco.?

After learning about the protest, ATF agent Craig Roegner contacted the local police. Describing the matter as an ?officer safety issue,? Agent Roegner requested that the driver be detained for questioning. Shortly thereafter, Karen was stopped and forced out of her vehicle, which was searched without her consent.

When Roegner arrived, he berated Karen for an hour, saying her protest offended ATF agents who had friends who died while carrying out the unprovoked attack on Waco?s Branch Davidian community.

A federal judge has ruled that Karen?s detention was illegal, and cleared the way for her to sue the ATF. A better solution would be to abolish that unconstitutional agency altogether.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 22, 2008

Those with school-age children who may be assigned to write Halloween-themed short stories should be warned that displaying exceptional creativity could result in criminal charges under school ?Zero-Tolerance? policies.

William Poole, a teenager from Lexington, Kentucky, was arrested after his grandparents discovered what they thought was a plan for a killing spree. Poole explained that what had been discovered was a fictional story that he had reviewed with an English teacher.

However, Poole was charged with second-degree terroristic threatening. Released on bail, Poole was later arrested and jailed for contempt of court when he visited a grade school to bring his sister home. As investigators failed to turn up proof of a plot, the prosecution refined the charge to ?attempted terroristic threatening,? which is not an actual crime. Nevertheless, Poole was given two weeks of restrictive probation ? for doing nothing.

The government ruling us is more terrifying than any Halloween story a child could conceive.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 21, 2008

Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chavez is an unabashed proponent of Marxism. Like his mentor and role model, the aging Cuban despot Fidel Castro, Chavez has worked to centralize control over his oil-rich nation?s economy.

This despicable record gives Chavez a certain ironic credibility when he describes the Bush administration?s response to the banking crisis as socialist in nature.

The Bush administration?s reaction to the credit freeze was to confiscate hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth from the general public for redistribution to wealthy investment firms on Wall Street. Just last week, Henry Paulson, whose title is Secretary of the Treasury but whose powers are those of a dictator, effectively nationalized nine of the country?s largest banks.

Speaking shortly after these developments, Chavez gloatingly observed that ?Comrade Bush is to the left of me now.?
Whatever one thinks of the source, that assessment is tragically correct.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 20, 2008

Lester and Mary Smith of Philo, California, suffer from heart disease, emphysema, and other afflictions. Under state and county law the elderly couple is entitled to grow and use marijuana to relieve their chronic pain.

Nevertheless, on September 24 a belligerent party of Mendocino County Sheriff?s Deputies raided the Smith home. They seized seventeen plants and the couple?s combined life savings of roughly $81,000, which they kept in a vault in their house.

The couple was left with their Social Security checks and $600 they receive in rent each month from their children.

Neither Lester nor Mary has been formally charged with a crime. They won?t be able to challenge the seizure of their money in court until next March.

Thanks to the so-called war on drugs, it?s perfectly legal for a local Sheriff to rob an innocent, sick, elderly couple of everything they?ve saved.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 17, 2008

Hidden in the relentlessly bad news about the economy we can find an ambivalent bit of good news: America?s economic downturn has apparently led to a radical decline in the rate of illegal immigration.

A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center reported that the size of the illegal immigrant population "appears to have declined since 2007"; further, between 2005 and 2008 "the inflow of [illegal] immigrants ? fell below that of immigrants who are legal permanent residents. That reverses a trend that began a decade ago. The turnaround appears to have occurred in 2007."

The report concludes that the primary cause of this reduction is not ramped-up enforcement of immigration laws, but the sharp economic downturn that has taken place over the past two years.

The ebb and flow of immigration, both legal and illegal, reflects larger economic trends. Restoring a sound money economy and abolishing the welfare state would solve our immigration problems permanently.

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