Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 4, 2008

Billy Dan Carroll of Austin, Texas was recently arrested and charged with being a serial child molester. Carroll allegedly videotaped his acts, which involved children as young as two years of age. The videotapes documented acts of assault and molestation that took place over the course of three decades.

Austin police Sgt. Brian Lloyd, a 22-year veteran child abuse investigator, describes this case as ?the worst of the worst?. Several of these children were abused multiple times.? One six-year-old girl was allegedly raped twenty-three times.

Carroll had access to hundreds of children. Since 2004, he was a court-appointed special advocate for abused children. He worked for the same Texas Child Protection System that recently abducted 460 children at gunpoint from their parents, who belong to the FLDS Church.

Of course, child abuse is abhorrent. The peculiar genius of government resides in its ability to make such problems much worse.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 3, 2008

Col. Peter E. Brownback III was chosen to serve as a judge in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Pretrial proceedings in the case of Omar Ahmed Khadr had scarcely begun before Brownback was removed by the chief presiding judge, Col. Ralph Kohlman.

Brownback?s removal came shortly after he compelled the prosecution to provide records of Khadr?s incarceration. The prosecution balked at this order, most likely out of concern that the records would disclose torture and other mistreatment of the defendant.

Months ago, Col. Morris D. Davis, former Chief Prosecutor at Gitmo, resigned to protest what he called a system of rigged political prosecutions. Col. Brownback?s punitive dismissal vindicates Davis?s critique.

Incidentally, Khadr is on trial for the killing of a US soldier on the battlefield. This is a terrible thing, but since when is it a war crime or terrorist act worthy of a special tribunal to kill an enemy soldier in combat?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 2, 2008

Which is more outrageous: Barack Obama?s former pastor saying the 9-11 attacks were in some sense a reaction to the policies of the government ruling us, or the former Speaker of the House suggesting that the Bush administration should allow some terrorist attacks against Americans to succeed ?

Sean Hannity and other Republican mouthpieces eagerly publicized the statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright regarding 9-11. However, relatively few know of a statement made by Hannity?s buddy, Newt Gingrich, during a recent appearance at a Long Island bookstore.

One of the ?great tragedies? of the Bush administration, Gingrich claimed, is its supposed success at stopping attacks. This means ?there?s less proof ? that we?re in danger?. And it?s almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us.?

Whatever one thinks of Rev. Wright, he didn?t cheerfully envision the death of innocent Americans for political gain. Gingrich did.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 30, 2008

Those who defend the Bush administration?s use of torture insist ? incorrectly -- that it is a necessary measure in the interest of our national security. Can they also countenance torture carried out by U.S. personnel in the interests of the Communist Chinese government?

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has documented that in early 2002, U.S. military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay used various forms of abuse ? such as sleep and food deprivation, as well as confinement in extreme heat or cold ? to ?soften up? detainees for interrogation by Chinese officials. Those who didn?t cooperate were sent to solitary confinement as punishment.

The subjects were Uighurs, part of a severely persecuted Muslim population in northern China . Some Uighurs have resorted to terrorism, but the tactics used by Beijing against the separatists have been terroristic as well.

Not only has our government institutionalized torture, it?s been happy to work as a torture subcontractor for the world?s largest Communist regime.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 29, 2008

Roughly one year ago, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Bush administration?s decision to seize Ali Saleh Mohammed al-Marri and hold him indefinitely in military custody. The administration appealed, claiming the president has the innate authority to confine any resident or citizen of this country as he sees fit.

In 2002, al-Marri ? who arrived in the US with his wife and five children on September 10, 2001 -- was arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist sleeper agent. He was designated an unlawful enemy combatant by presidential decree in June 2003.

In its ruling, the appeals court pointed out that the president cannot exercise military authority over civilians in the United States ?absent the suspension of ? habeas corpus or [a] declaration of martial law?.?

Significantly, the Bush administration doesn?t challenge that assessment. This means that the administration believes we are presently under a form of limited martial law.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

As the old expression goes, just because someone?s paranoid doesn?t mean that nobody is out to get him. For years, many have suspected that the federal government has compiled various lists of people who would be subject to detention ? or worse ? in the event of a national emergency.

This has understandably been dismissed as a mixture of self-dramatization and alarmism. However, we now have reason to believe that there is some truth to this suspicion.

Radar magazine, drawing on extensive research and interviews with highly placed officials, has confirmed the existence of a list called the ?Main Core.? Compiled from information collected through public and private databases, as well as police records, surveillance, and other sources, Main Core, explains one policy maker, is a list of Americans who ?are considered unfriendly and ? in a time of panic, might be incarcerated.? Through the database those people can be located ?almost instantaneously.?

As I said: Even paranoids sometimes have real enemies.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

Texas?s Third District Court of Appeals has ruled that the State Child Protective Services ?abused its discretion? by seizing more than 460 youngsters from the FLDS sanctuary in El Dorado.

The appeals court repeatedly pointed out that the CPS had provided no evidence that the children had been abused in any way, or that they confronted the prospect of immediate abuse. Texas law does provide for CPS intervention in exigent circumstances, but none existed at the ranch community where the children were living.

In trying to justify its actions, the CPS claimed that the religious teachings of the FLDS Church, which practice polygamy, created a potential for boys to grow up to be abusers, and girls to grow up to be abuse victims. The CPS also insisted that the entire community be treated as a single household in order to facilitate the seizure of all children residing there. The court properly dismissed this novel argument for collective punishment.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

What will it take for prosecutors and police to understand that the Bill of Rights is not optional?
In anticipation of Memorial Day Weekend, San Antonio District Attorney Susan Reed announced the imposition of a policy called ?No Refusal Accepted.?

The San Antonio Express-News explains: ?Any [motorist] who refuses to submit to a blood alcohol breath test this weekend will be required to have his or her blood drawn?. A registered nurse will be on duty both at the San Antonio Magistrate?s office and the detention center to draw blood from anyone arrested on suspicion of drunken driving who refused at the scene to take a breath test.?

Compelling a motorist to submit to a test is an obvious violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments. Forcing a driver who refuses that indignity to supply a blood sample is a policy worthy of Communist East Germany. The same can be said, apparently, of many of our police and prosecutors.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 23, 2008

Very little study of the Muslim religion is required to understand that it is a doctrine that enslaves innocent millions and denies them the saving knowledge of God?s grace as made tangible in Jesus Christ. Islam is a creed born in combat and deception, whose adherents propagated the faith by the sword.

But the same is true of the modern political religion of Democracy , which, like Islam, is a faith spread through aggressive warfare. Our Founding Fathers, who created a constitutional republic, reviled Democracy.

Yet it was in the name of Democracy that Washington annihilated Indian communities, made aggressive war on Mexico and Spain, sacrificed tens of thousands of lives in World War 1, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, used the atomic bomb despite Japan?s desperate efforts to surrender, Institutionalized Torture and continues the illegal occupation of Iraq.

Knowing the precise size and composition of the beam in the Muslim?s eye does nothing to protect us against our most powerful enemy ? the government that rules us.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 22, 2008

Last April, 74-year-old Florida resident Elena Reichman tried to fly to New York to commemorate Passover with her adult children. A security screening at the Palm Beach International Airport triggered unwelcome memories of the Romanian immigrant?s childhood experiences in a Nazi concentration camp.

Subjected to a hands-on search and the use of an electronic ?wand? by TSA personnel, Elena was forced to admit that she had concealed some cash by safety-pinning it to the inside of her waistband. Ordered to retrieve the money, Elena complained that doing so would require her to disrobe. Finally driven beyond composure, Elena reportedly shoved a deputy Sheriff who was continuing the invasive search. The elderly woman ? who suffers from heart disease and diabetes ? was arrested, handcuffed, and charged with felony assault.

Mrs. Reichman later complained that our airport security and law enforcement system remind her of the Nazis. In making that assessment, she speaks with the authority of one who survived the Holocaust.

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