Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 18, 2007

During the first day of his much-hyped congressional testimony regarding the troop surge in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus made a stunning admission: The Bush administration's strategy in Iraq has nothing to do with the safety and security of the United States.

Republican Senator John Warner, a former Secretary of the Navy, asked Petraeus: "[I]f we continue what you have laid before the Congress here as a strategy, do you feel that that is making America safer?"

The General answered: "Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq."

Senator Warner pressed the issue, asking: "Does that make America safer?"

To which Petraeus replied: "Sir, I, I don't know, actually. I have not sat down and sorted [it] in my own mind."

When even the General in overall command of the Iraq war can't make a clear case that continuing it makes America safer, it is obvious that we should end it immediately.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 17, 2007

Apart from original sin, the single biggest source of human misery ? violent death, destruction, poverty, and oppression ? is government. Because of our fallen human nature, government of some form is inevitable, as is the corruption that turns every government into an engine of plunder and tyranny.

The men who founded our republic were aware of this reality. As James Madison famously observed, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. Because government of some kind is unavoidable, there must be limits on the powers it exercises and a means of revoking delegated authority should that be necessary.

Those insights coalesced into the United States Constitution, which was finished on this date in 1787. The men who drafted that document understood that neither they nor their successors could be trusted with power. Thus it would be necessary, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is to ?bind them down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.?

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 14, 2007

Philosopher Hannah Arendt, one of the most astute analysts of totalitarianism, observed: ?Power is the ability to force compliance with one?s demands; authority is the ability to command voluntary obedience.?

As Mark 1:22 recounts, Jesus taught His disciples ?as one having authority....? As God Incarnate, Jesus certainly had the power to compel compliance, but He chose instead to exercise authority by teaching and exemplifying what the Epistle of James called ?The Perfect Law of Liberty.?

In a free society, power is used only to protect the persons, property, and rights of the innocent, and then only after an appeal to authority fails. In contemporary America, however, practically every social institution has become infected with the plague of power, with the State claiming the role of enforcing ?laws? regulating behavior, speech, and even individual attitudes.

We suffer from a surfeit of power, and a critical lack of legitimate authority ? and a growing inability on the part of Americans to distinguish between the two.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 13, 2007

A few weeks ago we reviewed the July visit of US Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson to Beijing. Jackson tried to persuade the Chinese central bank to buy mortgage-backed investment bonds.

The Chinese balked at this suggestion, and understandably so: Within weeks investment markets began to reel from the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry. The bonds Jackson tried to peddle in Beijing would have been issued through an agency called Ginnie Mae to cover those bad loans.

Market analyst Richard Bove points out that the Bush administration is planning to issue those bonds anyway to help bail out homeowners who face foreclosure. Ginnie Mae, which will underwrite the loans, will lose untold billions of dollars, passing the costs on to the taxpayers.

Apparently, plan ?A? was to pass the costs along to the Chinese, who were smart enough to see through the ruse. Could this be the reason Beijing is now quietly dumping its dollar-denominated Treasury notes, thereby accelerating our descent into economic chaos?

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 12, 2007

If you listen carefully, you might hear the pillars of our debt-based economy collapsing beneath us.

The Sunday Telegraph of London reported on September 9 that Britain's largest banks faced a ?10-day debt timebomb,? with some 70 billion pounds in short-term loans coming due. Because of the impending call on credit lines, the paper noted, ?Banks have been stockpiling cash ... [and] lending between banks has ground to a halt....?

This is the stuff of which bank runs are made. This one could quickly spread across the Atlantic.

Bear in mind that the British banking crisis comes after the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the international banking system. This was done to prevent a credit crunch of the sort we see happening right now.

The coming economic meltdown can be a blessing ? albeit a disguised one -- if it inspires a return to hard money and radically reduced government spending.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 11, 2007

The atrocity committed against our nation six years ago is widely seen as a spontaneous manifestation of unprovoked evil. But the policies of the political elite in Washington sowed the seeds for the harvest of terror that came in on that terrible Tuesday morning.

Washington has been deeply involved in Middle East politics for decades, propping up corrupt ruling elites in the Arab world while supporting some of the region's worst terrorist factions ? from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas. Likewise, Washington has lavishly underwritten both Israel and some of her most embittered foes.

Six years after 9-11, we're mired in a war against Iraq, a nation that never attacked or threatened us, with plans on the boards to expand that war to Iran.

Given the natural antagonisms between the West and the Islamic world, conflict was likely and perhaps inevitable. But our rulers have been busy borrowing trouble, and the bills are starting to come due.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 10, 2007

In January 2004, Jack Goldsmith was head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, where he was responsible to advise the president regarding the constitutional and statutory limits on his power. Although he supported the administration's counter-terrorism policy, Goldsmith became concerned about its open disdain for Congress, which at the time was under Republican control.

Goldsmith was particularly worried about the administration's use of warrantless wiretaps without authorization from a special judicial panel called the FISA Court. That court has rarely turned down requests for surveillance warrants, and can issue them after the fact. Goldsmith discussed his concerns with David Addington, chief counsel to Vice President Cheney. Addington, the most powerful legal adviser in the administration replied: ?We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious court.?

As an attorney, Addington knows how to parse his words carefully. Did he really mean to say, in effect, that the administration was collaborating with terrorists to alter the structure of the federal government?

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 7, 2007

In 1849, Henry David Thoreau wrote: ?How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.?

The siege at Ruby Ridge, which ended fifteen years ago last week, illustrates the timelessness of Thoreau's insights.

An attack by US Marshals on the home of Randy Weaver resulted in the death of Weaver's son, Samuel: The 14-year-old was shot in the back, literally torn apart by automatic weapons fire. A subsequent sniper attack killed Weaver's wife Vicki while she was holding a newborn infant.

The Feds had earlier entrapped Weaver on a bogus weapons charge to blackmail him into becoming an informant. When Weaver refused to play along, the Feds declared war on his family.

A jury acquitted Weaver of a murder charge in the death of one of the Federal agents who attacked his home. No earthly justice has yet been meted out to the murderers of Weaver's son and wife.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 6, 2007

Legal analyst Bruce Fein is a top-rank scholar whose conservative credentials are impeccable. He served in the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan.

It is Fein's opinion that President Bush has committed ?criminal violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? by authorizing widespread warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. Under that statute, it was possible for the president to secure warrants after the fact from a very accommodating panel of judges.

But Bush refused to comply with that requirement, asserting instead that his powers as commander-in-chief transcend both the Constitution and federal statutes. By ordering the wiretaps, Fein notes, Bush committed multiple federal felonies. Thus not only impeachment, but a criminal trial, would be in order.

Fein concludes that if Bush's actions are not worthy of impeachment, ?then impeachment of the president has become a virtual dead letter.? If the president has truly escaped the restraints of the law, then our republic has likewise perished.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

September 5, 2007

When security guard Richard Jewell spotted a suspicious-looking backpack during the July 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he quickly ushered people away from it. Shortly thereafter, a bomb inside the backpack exploded, killing one person and wounding more than one hundred others.

Jewell was briefly hailed as a hero. Then an anonymous leak from law enforcement sources claimed that he was under suspicion for the terrorist bombing. For 88 days Jewell was followed relentlessly by FBI agents, stalked by reporters, and ridiculed by late-night comedians ? all of this without a molecule of evidence that he had done anything but save innocent lives.

After all but convicting Jewell in the press, the FBI quietly resolved the matter and moved on, leaving the hero's life in shambles. On August 29, Jewell died at age 44, a victim of heart disease ? most likely exacerbated by years of stress and frustration inflicted by the Feds and their allies in the prestige press.

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