Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

January 17, 2008

If the United States of America is a republic, rather than an empire, why does the president travel in a fashion suitable to an Oriental potentate?

For his recent trip to Israel, President Bush brought the usual entourage. This includes 250 Secret Service agents, 50 White House aides, 150 military personnel, and at least 400 other federal officials.

An entire fleet of aircraft and automobiles is required to carry the president and his companions. The president's ground transportation requires to use of two identical motorcades containing 20 armored vehicles. In Tel Aviv, the presidential entourage and Israeli security personnel literally booked every available hotel room. The visit cost the Israeli government $25,000 an hour, with the expenses passed along to US taxpayers through foreign aid.

If a republic is ruled by law rather than men, what can we infer from the royal splendor in which the president travels?

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

January 16, 2008

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds warns that the threat of nuclear terrorism against a US city is genuine ? and if it happens, our own government will be largely to blame.

Edmonds was recruited by the FBI after 9/11 to translate sensitive intercepted conversations at the Bureau's Washington field office. Edmonds became aware of a smuggling ring in which highly placed US officials were selling nuclear secrets to Turkey. Those secrets were passed along to Pakistan, whose intelligence chief, Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, was in close contact with al-Qaeda.

According to Edmonds, the smuggling ring ?appeared to be obtaining information from every agency in the United States.? She points out that ?several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.? Her account has been corroborated by former CIA and FBI investigators. Yet no official action has been taken to address the potentially lethal treason Edmonds describes.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

January 15, 2008

The relentless decline in the dollar's value is dragging down the American standard of living.

According to a study by the Oxford Economics group, Great Britain has caught and surpassed the United States in economic terms for the first time in roughly a century. Britain's per capita gross domestic product this year will be roughly $47,000, several hundred dollars more than the corresponding American figure.

American consumers do benefit from lower prices and lower taxes than the British. But American wages, when adjusted for inflation, have been stagnant since the mid-1970s.

The value of the dollar will soon take another hit. The Bush administration has convened the Wall Street ?Plunge Protection Team,? an elite government unit that works to prop up the markets. Of course, this requires that more money be created by the Federal Reserve, a process that literally steals the value of what we earn.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

December 14, 2007

Ten-year-old John Shiflett of New Castle, Colorado, fell and hit his head while trying to grab the door of a moving car. His father Tom Shiflett, a former Army medic, knew how to care for his son's painful but trivial injury.

Local paramedics, who arrived at the Shiflett home uninvited, weren't satisfied; neither were the social workers who also paid an unwelcome visit. So those officials obtained a court order to seize the ten-year-old for treatment at a hospital. That order was enforced on January 4 by the county All-Hazards Response Team, a paramilitary unit funded by the Department of Homeland Security.

After being seized at gunpoint by armed, masked intruders, Jon was returned to his home. The doctors certified that he was getting adequate care from his father.

That raid ? in which the father was handcuffed and held at gunpoint along with several children ? was entirely unnecessary. But it did demonstrate how quickly the Nanny State can resort to Nazi tactics.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

January 4, 2008

While our government has been busy promoting democracy abroad, it has created a framework for an all-encompassing surveillance society at home. That is the key finding in a recent study produced by Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

According to the study, 2007 marked the year the United States became an ?Endemic Surveillance Society,? the worst of seven possible rankings. Other countries listed in that category include Russia, China, Singapore and Malaysia. Incredible as it may seem, the US fares worse in the survey than some formerly communist-ruled nations, such as Romania.

The study's authors conclude that their findings ?show an increasing trend among governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion.?

And leading that movement away from individual liberty is none other than government of the United States of America.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

January 3, 2008

When his home was invaded two armed robbers last June, Ohio resident Luther Ricks was able to retrieve his gun and kill one of the assailants before they could make off with his family's life savings.

However, the police succeeded where the street thugs failed, seizing $400,000 from the retired steelworker.

The pretext for this theft was the discovery of a small amount of marijuana in the home. Luther, who has shingles, severe arthritis and joint problems, admits that he uses marijuana for pain management.

He wasn't charged with a crime. Yet the police invoked the principle of asset forfeiture and stole from him every penny he had managed to save. It is now in the hands of the FBI, which insists that the ailing, penniless 63-year-old man has to prove that the money was legally earned.

Violent crime of any kind is a menace, but the most dangerous thieves among us are the ones who wear badges.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

January 2, 2008

When the most recent class of the Idaho Police Officer Standards and Training Academy graduated last December 14, the official program contained the class's self-selected slogan: ?Don't suffer from PTSD ? go out and cause it.?

?PTSD? refers to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a crippling psychological condition often found in combat veterans and victims of violent crime. Some of those whose lives have been disrupted by unjustified paramilitary no-knock police raids now suffer from PTSD.

Academy director Jeff Black explains that the president of the 43-member class, with whom the slogan apparently originated, is ex-military. He also insisted that the attitude it embodies is ?not something we encourage or condone.?

The mindset behind that slogan is appropriate to an army of occupation, not a civilian police force. At the very least, this entire class should have been required to repeat the 10-week program before being unleashed on the public.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

December 21, 2007

Joe Vento is owner of Geno's Steaks, a Philadelphia restaurant famed for its Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches. In October 2005 he posted a small sign at his establishment reading: ?This is America. When ordering please speak English.?

This commonsense business gesture was widely applauded by advocates of immigration reform, and passionately assailed by the self-appointed custodians of official tolerance. Vento himself has been summoned by the local sensitivity Soviet ? the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations ? to answer charges of discrimination against, and ?intimidation? of, non-English-speaking people.

A business owner should be perfectly free to discriminate among potential customers; if his policies alienate some portion of them, he forfeits their business and the potential profits therefrom.

Vento started with $6 in his pocket four decades ago and built a multi-million-dollar business. Unlike his official persecutors, he is a productive individual who knows how to please a customer base.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

December 20, 2007

Taser International's C2 stun gun is a civilian weapon that delivers the same incapacitating 50,000-volt charge emitted by the police model.

Police reaction to this new civilian self-defense weapon has been uniformly negative.

Watsonville, California Police Chief Manny Solano warns: ?If used improperly, it could constitute a crime.? Wendy Balazik of the International Association of Chiefs of Police frets that Tasers in civilian hands will make ?an already dangerous job [even] worse....?

But Tasers are already widely misused -- by police. They are used as instruments of pain compliance, rather than non-lethal means of dealing with violent criminals. They have been used on the elderly, on flustered, unarmed women, on mentally handicapped people, and on individuals in the throes of medical emergencies.

No matter how egregious the abuse, police are almost never punished for misuse of a Taser, which we are assured is a harmless weapon when used by police. How does it suddenly become dangerous when in civilian hands?

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

December 19, 2007

The New York Police Department is in an enviable position: They have so thoroughly banished crime from that city that they have free time to manufacture incidents of petty theft.

The NYPD ? which, incidentally, does have more important things to do ? has left wallets and purses in various locations, such as sidewalks and department stores.

Anybody who happens to pick one up is immediately arrested for theft and faces prison time ? whether or not his intention was to learn how to return the item to its owner. The law, however, grants ten days to return found property.

Incidentally, during the last year the City Transit Authority conducted a test in which only three of twenty-six valuable items were turned in to the lost property department by subway and bus workers. Among the valuables that didn't arrive were a wallet containing $735 in cash and a diamond earring.

Would-be Good Samaritans face prison time, while government-employed thieves remain on the payroll. How typical.

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