Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

August 7, 2007

Merle Haggard's song ?America First,? which was released over a year ago, contains some nearly prophetic lines:

?Our highways and bridges are falling apart ? who's blessed, and who has been cursed? There's things to be done all over the world, but let's rebuild America first.?

Those lines came readily to mind last week following the lethal collapse of the I-35 bridge spanning the Mississippi River.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the cost of repairing our nation's rotting infrastructure ? such as roads and bridges -- to be at least $1.6 trillion. That's not all that much more than recent authoritative estimates regarding the final cost of the needless war in Iraq.

Political liberals would say Washington should spend more on bridges and less on bombs. In fact, Washington should spend dramatically less on everything, and let states and local communities keep resources where they can be used to repair the damage done to our country through decades of centralized statism.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

August 6, 2007

When Stephen Kelsey, a high school student from Atlanta, returned to the US following several weeks playing soccer in Europe, he was arrested at the airport and taken away in handcuffs in front of his family and friends.

Homeland Security officials who ran Kelsey's passport information through a database found an arrest warrant for failure to appear in traffic court. The young man protested that he had already paid the $175 fine, but to no avail: Kelsey spent eight hours in a holding cell with drug addicts before his mother was able to document that the fine had been paid.

This is not just the story of an infuriating clerical error. It also illustrates the seamless web of surveillance being constructed in the name of Homeland Security ? a human inventory control system in which there will literally be nowhere to hide. This incident also demonstrates that what were once local and independent police agencies have been integrated into the Homeland Security monolith.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

August 3, 2007

Mark and Deborah Kuhn of Asheville, North Carolina meant no insult to the US Flag when they displayed one upside down outside their home. Rather, the couple was protesting the corruption and violence that increasingly characterize our government.

Responding to a complaint from a friend in the National Guard, a local Deputy Sheriff visited the Kuhns and ordered them to take down the flag, insisting that the display violated a rarely used statute banning flag desecration.

The Kuhns cooperated by taking down the flag, but when the Deputy started to write a citation the situation degenerated. Eventually five squad cars were called to aid in the arrest of Mark Kuhns, who had not put up any violent resistance whatsoever.

As the local paper editorialized, this incident was completely avoidable. The Deputy went out of his way to provoke a confrontation, using a statute that has been deemed unconstitutional.

The worst form of flag desecration is to commit abuses of government power in its name.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

August 2, 2007

The Bush administration has announced a $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. A Sunni Muslim country, Saudi Arabia wants to contain Shi'ite Iran.

Saudi Arabia provides most of the support, both arms and men, to the Sunni Muslim insurgency fighting the US-backed Iraqi government. Because that government is led by Shi'ite Muslims, it is also supported by Iran. The new arms deal with Saudi Arabia most likely means some of the weapons bought from the US will eventually be found in the hands of insurgents fighting in Iraq.

Imagine the predicament of America troops deployed to Iraq.

?Success? would mean the triumph of a radical Muslim government that is closely aligned with Iran. The chief impediment to that success is an equally radical insurgency that will soon be armed with American-made weapons.

As Country Music Legend Merle Haggard puts it: ?Politicians do all the talkin'; soliders pay the dues? -- the price in blood for an utterly insane foreign policy.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

August 1, 2007

Christy Freeman, a 37-year-old taxi driver from Ocean City Maryland, attracted the attention of police when she was treated at a local hospital for pregnancy-related symptoms ? but was not carrying a child.

Police obtained a warrant and searched the home Freeman shares with a live-in boyfriend. They quickly found the remains of four children who had been murdered in the fetal stage before coming to term. While police and FBI specialists search for the remains of other victims, Freeman has been charged with fetal murder under a state law passed in 2005.

This grisly and horrible crime could best be described as practicing abortion without a license. Because she allegedly killed her own children, Freeman will be prosecuted for murder. Had she obtained the services of a state-licensed child killer, however, the police ? and federal marshals, if necessary -- would have been prepared to arrest anybody who sought to save the children.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

July 31, 2007

Being sent to prison on the word of a paid perjurer is a nightmare no American should face. Dozens of people have been imprisoned on the testimony of drug informant Jerrell Bray.

Like most people in that line of work, Bray had dealt drugs before being recruited by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Bray also has a manslaughter conviction on his record. His eyewitness accounts have often been disputed by other witnesses, and contradicted by video evidence.

On July 24, a US Attorney agreed to release a woman from prison who had been convicted as a result of Bray's testimony, and to drop charges against two others. The woman, Geneva France, was serving a 10-year sentence on drug charges. She had three young daughters, no prior criminal record, and an alibi. Yet she was sent to prison on the word of a career criminal and killer, simply because that thug was a cooperating witness with the DEA.

While narcotics are evil and destructive, the war on drugs is even worse.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

July 30, 2007

The right to petition elected leaders for redress of grievances is central to our Anglo-Saxon heritage of liberty under law. Under the Bush-Cheney regime, however, exercising that right is considered assault.

Steve Howards had a chance encounter with Dick Cheney outside a mall in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Howards approached the Vice President and in a voice of polite disapproval said: ?Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible.? He then walked away.

A few minutes later, Howards was tracked down by a Secret Service agent, handcuffed in front of his 8-year-old son, and accused of ?assaulting the Vice President.? Jailed for three hours and released on a $500 bond, Howards was charged with the lesser offense of harassment. That charge was eventually dropped, but the point was made: Criticizing our rulers to their faces will be treated as a criminal offense.

?I was incredulous this could be happening in the United States of America,? recalls Howard. ?This is what I read about happening in Tiananmen Square.?

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

July 27, 2007

In May 1918, while Americans were dying in the battlefields of a European war that was none of our nation's business, Congress passed the Sedition Act, which imposed fines of up to $10,000 and prison terms of up to 20 years for those convicted of saying or publishing ?any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.? Although still on the books, that law is rarely enforced. This might soon change.

On July 17, George W. Bush issued an executive order permitting the expropriation of people deemed to ?threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq.?

Under that order, property and financial assets can be seized from anyone determined by the Secretaries of Treasury, State, and Defense to have any role in undermining the war effort. While obviously directed at those who provide material aid to guerrillas fighting against US occupation forces, the order could also apply to those who seek to bring an end to the war through peaceful and legal means.

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

Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

July 26, 2007

Young boys dealing with the hormonal turbulence of early adolescence often misbehave. Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, 13-year-olds from McMinnville, Oregon, certainly did last Spring when they ran through the halls of their middle school swatting girl classmates on the rear end.

Granted, this kind of misbehavior should be punished. But Cory and Ryan were interrogated by a police officer, hauled away in handcuffs, held in jail for five days, arraigned before a judge in prison clothes, and now confront ten years in jail and lifetime designation as sex offenders.

The DA prosecuting the case, Bradley Berry, insists that ?These cases are devastating to children. They are life-altering cases.? The demented prosecutor is doing his best to ensure that such is the case: This is at least the second time he has threatened young boys with felony charges for unruly but trivial behavior in order to extort a guilty plea on lesser charges.

Mr. Berry is a child predator of the most loathsome kind.

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

Article

Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution authorizes the federal government to conduct an ?enumeration? of the US population every decade in order to allocate congressional seats and electoral votes. This is the only legitimate and authorized function of the United States Census.
In recent decades, however, the Census Bureau has conducted invasive and detailed surveys of American households, wringing from them all kinds of information to which the federal government is not entitled. Under the Constitution, the government may count us, but it has no right to categorize us by ethnic groups, or to learn the intimate details of our household circumstances.
The Census Bureau's prying can be much more than a mere annoyance. Two historians employed in the Commerce Department's archives have confirmed that the Bureau helped identify the 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry who were confined in internment camps during World War II. In 2004, the Bureau turned over information about Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security.
Census-takers are permitted to count us ? nothing more.
Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.