Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 27, 2008

Until recently, Katie Lewis, an 11-year-old from Clayton, California, and her 3-year-old sister Sabrina had maintained a street-corner stand to sell fruits, vegetables, and flowers grown on their family farm.

This little business, which operated for four hours each Saturday morning, attracted the attention of the local police, who told the girls they were operating an illegal commercial enterprise.

Clayton Mayor Gregg Manning insists that the Lewis family?s roadside vegetable stand is a threat that must be nipped in the bud:

?[W]ho is to say what else they have[?] Are they going to have eggs and chickens for sale next?? exclaimed the Mayor in a television interview. He went on to accuse the young entrepreneurs of being ?self-centered.? Of course, a business can?t succeed unless it provides something of value to others ? a fact not appreciated by petty bureaucrats of Manning?s ilk.

Manning?s contempt for honest commerce is typical of the tax-fattened parasites who call themselves public servants.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 26, 2008

On June 5, 2007, Eddie Mies, a Shingle Springs, California man who displayed signs of mental illness, shot and killed his father, Arthur Mies. Eddie was then killed after a brief but ferocious firefight with the police.

Three deputies were wounded in the shootout. After losing her husband and son, Karen Mies told a friend she was relieved that the deputies had survived. Two of those deputies celebrated their survival by filing a $34 million lawsuit against Karen and her late husband?s estate.

The deputies claim that Karen, and her late husband, could and should have prevented the assault that resulted in their wounds. Their lawsuit is not supported by the local Sheriff, who worries that it will discourage people from asking for help from the police.

Significantly, police face no liability when they fail to protect any individual citizen. If this lawsuit succeeds, we would be justified in asking why we bother to have police at all.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 25, 2008

Our government?s involvement in the conflict in Georgia offers ironic confirmation of the wisdom of our founding fathers, who urged that we avoid distant foreign quarrels.

Russia?s invasion of Georgia has been widely denounced as aggression. But it was a response to aggression carried out by Georgia against Russian citizens in the tiny province of South Ossetia by a military armed and trained by the U.S. and Israel. Georgia itself had been invited to join NATO, a 26-nation alliance that encircles Russia.

Imagine how the U.S. would react if Russia had built a 26-nation armed alliance in the Western Hemisphere, and then trained a Mexican military that staged an attack on our southwest. In such circumstances, US intervention to protect American citizens would be justified.

Moscow is governed by a nasty regime. But today it its Washington, not Moscow, that engages in global imperial meddling of the sort that could escalate into a world war.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 22, 2008

According to Leon Aron of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute, the conflict between Russia and Georgia illustrates that Moscow is in the grip of a dangerous militaristic ideology he calls ?Putinism.?

Named after Russia?s former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, that ideology, as Aron defines it, displays five chief characteristics:

*A ?personal system of power in which the `national leader? rather than democratic institutions rule;

*relentless state propaganda focusing on traumatic national loss;

*the idea of Russia as a besieged fortress surrounded by ruthless and tireless enemies;

*a mania for espionage and surveillance;

*denigration of the political opposition as ?fifth column? traitors.

There is a great deal of evidence to support Aron?s argument that Russia is in the grip of that ideology. But it is likewise true that post-9/11 America has been in the grip of an ideology we might call ?Bushism,? which displays exactly the same characteristics and is just as inimical to freedom.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 21, 2008

In his Farewell Address, George Washington urged Americans to avoid both distant foreign entanglements and the ?overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.?

Such overgrown military establishments also destroy prosperity, since all government spending is pure consumption without productive economic benefit. Obviously, genuine defense is a legitimate undertaking. But the Pentagon, which now consumes 54% of all tax revenue, accounts for nearly half of the world?s cumulative military spending and dwarfs the expenditures of the next ten military powers combined.

MarketWatch commentator Paul Farrell points out that ?America?s economy is a war economy. Not a `manufacturing? ? `agricultural? ? [or] `service? economy.? Literally trillions of dollars have been spent on needless wars and to maintain an an overseas empire.

Repudiating that empire, and reducing military spending to genuinely republican dimensions, would have immediate benefits in terms of both liberty and prosperity.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 20, 2008

An ancient Greek legend recounts the tale of Milo, an immensely strong Olympic athlete who dominated the sport of wrestling for several decades.

As an older man, Milo came upon a farmer who was trying to split a stubborn tree stump with a wedge and hammer. Milo offered to split the stump bare-handed. Delighted by the attention of a celebrity, the farmer left Milo to the task and went to get some food.

Unfortunately, the instant Milo put his fingers in the stump, the wedge fell out, leaving his hands trapped inside. So he was helpless when a pack of wolves descended on him.

In international affairs, America?s strength has been comparable to Milo?s. But we?re now trapped in Iraq and Afghanistan, and face the prospect of conflicts with Iran and even with Russia. We desperately need to disentangle ourselves from those unnecessary conflicts before we are torn apart by wolves.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 19, 2008

In preparation for the Beijing Olympics, the ruling Communist Party arranged for three designated protest areas. Those wishing to demonstrate were required to apply for a permit at least five days in advance for the privilege of using the so-called ?protest pens.?

Midway through the games, the Chinese government announced that it had received 77 applications from would-be protesters, and had denied all but three. This is why the so-called ?protest pens? remained empty.

China?s practice of protest management is severe, but not fundamentally different from that of our own government.

Witness the now-common practice of designating so-called ?free speech zones? for political protesters during presidential visits and political conventions. These American protest pens are always located well away from the action, and those who insist on exercising their protest rights elsewhere end up behind bars.

Our Constitution makes the entire country a free-speech zone. The government ruling us, like the one in Beijing, prefers to ration speech.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 15, 2008

An immigration control measure working its way through Congress would create a ?no-work list? that would be economically ruinous for millions of workers and business owners.

It would require all employers to screen their employees through the federal government?s ?e-Verify? system to detect fraudulent Social Security numbers. That system would most likely be as accurate as the federal ?no-fly list,? which contains the names of one million people, nearly all of them innocent.

A version of this measure was enacted last year in Arizona. Its impact on illegal immigration was negligible, but its impact on the economy was dramatic. Many businesses have been driven to neighboring states. A few relocated to Mexico.

The respected business publication Barron?s described the measure as designed to ?curb illegal workers by strangling [the state] economy.?
Killing the economy is one way to deter illegal immigration, if we?re willing to pay that price.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 14, 2008

Charles Lynch, who operated a medical dispensary in Morro Bay, California, was recently found guilty on five counts of distributing medical marijuana.

This was perfectly legal under California law. However, Lynch?s dispensary was raided by the scandal- plagued and abusive local Sheriff and the Drug Enforcement Agency, and he was tried in federal court.

State and local criminal statutes supersede federal laws; this was explained by James Madison in Federalist Paper number 45. But the Feds have bigger guns and a bottomless checkbook. So what can be done?

Most Americans are unaware that juries have plenary authority to rule on both the facts of a case and the justice of the law being applied. Where a manifest injustice would be done by enforcing a supposed law, juries have the right, the authority, and the moral duty, to nullify its application by acquitting the defendant.

The power of jury nullification is one of the most potent weapons we can deploy to take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 13, 2008

Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden?s former chauffeur, is the first to be convicted by the special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Significantly, he wasn?t convicted of material involvement in terrorism, only of supporting al-Qaeda by being bin Laden?s driver.

He was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, and would be free in five months. However, the Pentagon has already made it known that it will continue to hold Hamdan indefinitely as an ?unlawful enemy combatant.?

The tribunal that convicted Hamdan permitted the use of hearsay testimony and evidence acquired through torture. That tribunal will continue its operations, perhaps in a different location.

Gitmo may soon be shut down, but its inmates, including Hamdan, won?t go free. It?s likely that they will be transferred to one of the five replacement camps being built in Saudi Arabia. Those camps, significantly, are being built by the Bin Laden family?s construction firm under CIA supervision.

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