Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 1,2008

Every summer, political activists in New York stage a mass bicycle ride called Critical Mass. During last Friday?s Critical Mass event, a rider named Christopher Long was arrested by Police Officer Patrick Pogan and charged with assault.

Officer Pogan?s official report depicts the Officer as the innocent victim of a gratuitous attack by Long, who supposedly impeded traffic before using his bike to run down the officer.

A video of the incident recorded by a tourist and then broadcast to the world on the internet demonstrated that Officer Pogan had lied about every element of that incident.

Long did everything he could to avoid Officer Pogan, who shoved him from his bike and sent him flying head over heels in a completely unprovoked assault.

The charges against Long were dropped, Pogan has been reassigned, and the rest of us have another object lesson about the critical need to record every encounter with the police.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 25, 2008

The Iraq invasion introduced the practice of pre-emptive war. Public comments by Vice President Cheney and others have promoted the concept of pre-emptive nuclear war as a means of aborting Iran?s nuclear program.

Now Israeli historian Benny Morris, writing in the July 18 New York Times, has introduced a bizarre hybrid of those ideas. He contends that Iranians should welcome an Israeli pre-emptive military strike, and hope it succeeds ? because the only alternative would be complete annihilation by an Israeli nuclear strike.

Unless Iran?s rulers dismantle their nuclear program, writes Morris, ?the best they can hope for is that Israel?s conventional air assault will destroy their nuclear facilities?. [T]he alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland.?

There are other alternatives, of course ? such as good-faith diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions that could lead to a war that would leave millions dead and the world economy in ruins.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 24, 2008

During Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke?s most recent congressional testimony, Texas Congressman Ron Paul pointed out that since inflation is a tax, Bernanke is the ?biggest taxer in the country.?

Bernanke replied that ?I couldn?t agree with you more that inflation is a tax.?

Mr. Bernanke is a political appointee. He is not an elected official and is accountable to nobody. And through his control of the money supply, Bernanke has literally limitless power to tax not only Americans, but everyone anywhere who conducts business in dollars.

Since World War II, Americans have endured the pre-emptive plundering of our paychecks in the form of the withholding tax. But the Federal Reserve practices an even more insidious form of withholding through inflation, which steals the value of the money we earn before we get it, and pilfers the value of everything we save.

We will never be free as long as the Federal Reserve exists.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 23, 2008

Law enforcement authorities in Dallas recently arrested four career criminals who formed the nucleus of an armed gang that had terrorized seven counties for more than three years. The gang stole more than $1 million in cash, most of it through home invasions.

Dressed in SWAT attire, armed with high-performance weaponry, and carrying zip cuffs, the robbers would burst into homes claiming to enforce search warrants. After beating and cuffing occupants, the invaders helped themselves to anything of value.

On some occasions, when victims wouldn?t disclose the location of large sums of money, the robbers would use ?enhanced interrogation techniques? ? attacking vulnerable anatomy with pliers, or applying the form of controlled drowning called ?waterboarding? to break down resistance.

Those tactics were copied from law enforcement and intelligence agencies. That Gang may be gone, but our supposed protectors remain free to use the same criminal tactics at whim.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 22, 2008

It didn?t take long for the Bush administration?s authoritarian assumptions to trickle down to local police agencies.

For seven years, the Bush administration has treated the Fourth Amendment as optional by conducting wholesale surveillance of electronic communications without a warrant. Bush should have been impeached and then criminally prosecuted for felonious misconduct. Instead, Congress ratified his actions after the fact by passing a measure gutting the Fourth Amendment.

So it shouldn?t surprise us to learn that local police increasingly treat the Fourth Amendment with open contempt. San Bernadino?s Police Department, for instance, has developed a tactic in which people are seized on the streets and detained without being formally arrested, charged, or booked. They?re simply held without recourse while police seek evidence to justify the detention.

Tactics of this sort are common in the administration?s ?war on terror,? and they?re becoming standard operating procedure for many police departments.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 21, 2008

The phrase ?moral hazard? refers to incentives that abet immoral or irresponsible behavior. Asset forfeiture laws permitting police to seize property and cash without charging the owners with a crime create a uniquely destructive form of moral hazard.

In St. Louis, for instance, police can seize cars belonging to people suspected of certain crimes. Cars not claimed in thirty days become the property of the towing company that works with the department.

This program is immensely profitable, generating millions of dollars for the city. Police and their relatives have enjoyed access to the cars, ?borrowing? them for their personal use, or purchasing them for as much as 75 percent below market value. Aimie Mokiwa, the police chief?s daughter, bought four confiscated vehicles for less than half their market price, and wrecked two of them.

Civil asset forfeiture encourages police corruption and nullifies due process of law. It must be abolished.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 18, 2008

According to media-anointed terrorism expert Neil Livingstone, ? flying isn?t a right, it?s a privilege.?

Livingstone?s description of the freedom to travel as a privilege came during a television interview examining the possibility that air travelers will soon be required to wear so-called safety bracelets.

In addition to tracking each individual traveler from check-in to baggage retrieval, each safety bracelet would be equipped to issue an incapacitating, Taser-like electric shock in the event the flight crew wishes to subdue the passenger.

A decade ago, it was all but unheard of for passengers to be assaulted by security personnel at airports. Now, one need do little more than cast a hostile glance at TSA screeners in order to be swarmed by police, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. Ten years hence, it may be just as common for fliers to be tagged like cattle and shocked like lab rats.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 17, 2008

In this year?s presidential campaign, one candidate may be disqualified because of the circumstances of his birth. One might expect that candidate to be Barack Obama, given his exotic background. In fact, it is Senator John McCain who may not qualify for the presidency.

McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was occupied by U.S. naval forces. He was thus thus not a ?natural-born citizen? of the United States, a presidential requirement specified by the Constitution.

Last April, the Senate approved a nonbinding resolution asserting Mr. McCain?s eligibility and claiming that the Founding Fathers didn?t intend to deny the presidency to the children of military personnel stationed abroad.

Of course, the Founders ? who opposed a standing army and foreign entanglements -- didn?t authorize the creation of an imperial military that would endlessly occupy foreign lands. The principles of our Founders are utterly foreign to our contemporary political class.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 16, 2008

In what sense is this a republic when the people who write and enforce the law can modify it at whim to make their crimes legal?

For several years, the Bush administration conducted a program of warrantless surveillance of American telephone conversations. By a clear reading of the law, Bush committed a felony by authorizing the illegal wiretaps. Several large telecom companies, including Verizon and AT&T, cooperated in the scheme, and were hit with lawsuits as a result.

Last week, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a measure legalizing the Bush administration?s actions and giving the president power to pardon himself for his crimes, and to extend the same clemency to the corporate officials who collaborated in the assault on the Fourth Amendment.

In fact, Congress effectively vitiated the Fourth Amendment in its eagerness to foreclose prosecution of Bush and his cronies for their crimes against the Constitution.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 15, 2008

Last November, federal agents seized roughly $3 million in coins produced by the Indiana-based Liberty Dollar movement.
During the past decade, a small but growing number of fully informed buyers and sellers began to use Liberty Dollar gold and silver coins in mutually beneficial barter.
The Constitution specifies that only gold and silver can be used as legal tender. Nevertheless, the Federal Government insists that the private use of real money is a species of forgery. On that basis it seized the Liberty Dollars.
The Feds have now issued official notice of their intent to ?forfeit? the stolen coins ? that is, to make its act of theft permanent.
As Shakespeare wrote, ?Thieves for their robbery have authority when judges steal themselves.? In our system, the biggest thieves control both the police and the courts ? and all of them serve the world?s biggest counterfeiter, the Federal Reserve.
Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.