Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 2, 2008

Imagine for just a second that you?re caught with more than $100 worth of groceries for which you?ve neglected to pay. It?s almost certain you would be arrested and prosecuted for shoplifting. But do you think you would enjoy the following treatment:

*The prosecutors decline to show surveillance tape of the incident, and don?t bother to offer opening or closing statements.

*The Judge says that he?s convinced with ?almost every fiber of my being? that you?re guilty ? but acquits you anyway.

That was the treatment Chicago resident Tracy Buckley received during her recent trial ? if that term applies.

Oh, did I mention that until recently, Miss Buckley worked as a high-ranking investigator for Mayor Daley?s inspector general, a job she lost and will most likely get back?

Buckley may have been completely innocent. But does anyone think that a common citizen would receive such indulgent treatment in this supposed nation of laws, rather than men?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 1, 2008

For nearly a decade, gun dealer Ryan Horsley of Twin Falls, Idaho has been harassed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, an incurably corrupt agency that has no constitutional excuse to exist.

Horsley filed a federal suit against the ATF. After the trial, he was taken aside for a conference by Federal Marshal David Meyer. The Marshal pulled out a huge dossier on Horsley, including numerous items downloaded from his personal blog.

Meyer informed Horsley that under a new law, the so-called Court Security Improvement Act, it was a federal offense to ?intimidate? certain federal officials, including ATF employees. Meyer then told Horsley: "Under this law you can be arrested, and I have no problem coming down to Twin Falls and arresting you."

Horsley?s only supposed offense was to criticize a federal agency that threatened his livelihood. Apparently, to the Homeland Security State?s enforcers, that?s tantamount to terrorism.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 31, 2008

The Federal Reserve has laid the foundation for a revolution in economic affairs.

?[S]omething big just happened,? wrote Wall Street Journal columnist David Kessel on March 27. ?It happened without an explicit vote by Congress. And, though the Treasury hasn?t cut any checks for housing or Wall Street rescues, billions of dollars of taxpayer money were put at risk.? As investment analyst Ed Yardeni put it, ?The Government of Last Resort is working with the Lender of Last Resort to shore up the housing and credit markets to avoid Great Depression II.?

Today, March 31, Treasury Secretary Paulson is scheduled to announce a dramatic expansion of the Fed?s role. The Washington Post describes this new role as the Fed ?crossing the Rubicon? by becoming the ?protector and overseer of Wall Street.?

In practice this means the nationalization of the investment industry. Were he not where he is today, Karl Marx would look on this development with pride.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 26, 2008

Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Arizona?s Maricopa County, styles himself the ?World?s Toughest Sheriff.? Yet he fell apart when a journalist published his home address on the internet.
Arpaio launched a legal jihad that eventually led to the arrest of the editor and publisher of the magazine that carried the story, the Phoenix New Times.
Last year, Police Chief James Coan of Whitewater, Wisconsin assigned detectives to try to unmask an anonymous author who had criticized him on-line. Coan insists that his critic represents a ?potential threat.?
These aren?t isolated examples. The ?Court Security Improvement Act of 2007? would impose fines and federal prison sentences on those convicted of publishing personal information about federal law enforcement personnel -- if those personnel feel threatened or intimidated as a result.
Corrupt officials are always intimidated by the threat of exposure. That?s called ?accountability.? It is indispensable in a republic, and impermissible under a dictatorship. Which of those labels best fits our current system?
Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 25, 2008

In addition to being a moral obscenity, the war in Iraq is a prolonged act of economic insanity.
In 2003, we were told the Iraq war would essentially pay for itself through oil revenues. However, as energy analyst Robert Bryce observes, ?nearly every drop? of the fuel consumed by the US occupation force is imported into Iraq.
Every day, the average American GI in Iraq uses about 20 gallons of fuel ? an exotic blend called JP-8, which is hauled into the country by a fleet of gas-devouring tanker trucks. Delivering fuel to Iraq costs the taxpayers $42 a gallon, not including the price of the fuel itself. The US military burned more than 1.1 billion gallons of fuel in Iraq in 2007.
Oil, which cost 25 dollars a barrel when the war began, now costs over 101 dollars a barrel. Rather than paying for itself, the war threatens to drive our nation into a depression.
Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute
March 24, 2008
During a television interview conducted in Oman on March 19, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked about growing public opposition to the occupation of Iraq. When the reporter noted that two-thirds of the public, according to surveys, now oppose the war, Cheney replied with one word: ?So??
The surprised reporter persisted: ?So? You don?t care what the American people think??
?No," Cheney responded. "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.?
Public policy should not be driven by opinion polls, but when two-thirds of the public oppose a policy, we?re not seeing a mere fluctuation.
The administration convincingly demonstrated its contempt for the Constitution by manipulating our nation into an undeclared and unnecessary war. Now that we?ve permitted the war to continue for five bloody and expensive years, it?s not surprising to see that they no longer bother to disguise their contempt for our opinions.
Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

March 21, 2008

Disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer built a political career atop the rubble of the Bill of Rights.

As state Attorney General, Spitzer specialized in the creative use of the law to criminalize innocuous business activities.

Spitzer?s habitual use of prostitutes cost him more than $80,000 and his political future. Unlike the wife and daughters he betrayed, Spitzer deserves none of our sympathy. But his case illustrates the ominous federal powers granted under the so-called Patriot Act. That law requires banks to file suspicious activity reports (or SARs) on unusual transactions, like the cash withdrawals Spitzer used to pay for his assignations with prostitutes.

Banks filed more than one million SARs last year, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with suspected terrorism or other serious crimes. The data thus collected can be used against practically anybody. And as Spitzer demonstrated before his political demise, prosecutors can find some way to put practically anybody behind bars.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

March 20, 2008

The bureaucratic mind may be mankind?s single greatest impediment to justice and genuine progress. The government school system provides the bureaucratic mind with unique opportunities to maximize human misery.

Take the case of Amanda Rouse, a 15-year-old high school student from Seaside, California. When she took ill on the way to school one recent morning, Amanda didn?t get off the bus as she normally did. Instead, she stayed on the bus, with the driver promise to take her home following the morning run.

Near a grade school, the driver was suddenly thrown from her chair and knocked unconscious. Amada quickly took control of the bus, bringing it to a stop before anyone was hurt.

How was Amada rewarded for her quick thinking and heroism? School bureaucrats hit her with a weekend in detention for supposedly cutting class.

This is a perfect specimen of what passes for logic in the mind of a government bureaucrat.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

March 19, 2008

Five years ago today, without the constitutionally required declaration of war, propelled by malign ambition and acting behind a barricade of conscious lies, George W. Bush committed our nation to a useless, illegal, and immoral war in Iraq.

Nearly 4,000 American families have been deprived of a loved one because of Mr. Bush?s war, which has also claimed the lives of an estimated 1.3 million Iraqis. Our economy has been shattered by the expense of the conflict, which may reach three trillion dollars. Similar damage has been done to our nation?s prestige worldwide.

Last week, the Pentagon completed a definitive report concluding that there was no evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein?s regime and the al-Qaeda terrorist network accused of committing the September 11 attack. That non-existent connection, along with Saddam?s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, was the supposed rationale for a war we should never have started.

Let us repent of the grave sin of that unnecessary war, and take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

March 18, 2008

A nation-wide narcotics crack-down entitled ?Operation Byrne Blitz? took place on March 8. Police across the country seized millions of dollars, thousands of pounds of contraband, and hundreds of suspects.

This wasn?t so much a law enforcement operation as a lobbying campaign conducted at gunpoint. Police agencies carried out the drug busts in the hope that Congress would restore funding cut from the federal Bryne Grant program, which subsidizes counter-narcotics task forces.

In the original constitutional design, law enforcement was to be almost entirely a state concern. Federal law enforcement subsidies are a crime against our Constitution. They usurp local control over police and pervert the priorities of law enforcement bodies.

In addition to providing a splendid example of those perverse priorities, ?Operation Byrne Blitz? offered yet another illustration of the patent phoniness of the war on drugs. After all, if periodic high-profile arrests are indispensable to continued funding, why would police want to put drug peddlers out of business permanently?

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