Liberty Minute December 27 2013

Countless varieties of idolatry and religious delusion exist, and among them easily the deadliest is the peculiar cult called statism. It is the irrational belief in an invisible, intangible abstraction called the State, in whose name an elite priesthood transubstantiates violence and coercion into justice.

Absent the benign intervention of the State?s priesthood, society would collapse, crops would wither, and the sun would withhold its face from humanity. Any social action undertaken without the direct involvement, or at least the blessing, of that anointed elite is at best an act of blasphemy.  Statists pretend that critics of government plunder seek nothing less than the abolition of compassion.

It was in the service of that vision that a collectivist commentator recently accused libertarians of seeking to "Close down the homeless shelters? Shut down the Salvation Army?  Make it illegal to throw a starving person a coin or toss a blanket over them as they lay on the sidewalk.?

No libertarian objects to private acts of organized compassion, or seeks to use the state to criminalize such generosity. In fact, this is precisely what state and local governments are doing across the country on the assumption that unless compassionate action is licensed by the state, it is a sacrilege.

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

Liberty Minute December 26 2013

The intruders came before dawn, hurling grenades and beating down the door of the home 28-year-old Henry Magee shared with his pregnant girlfriend. Disoriented and terrified, Magee grabbed a gun and fired at the first stranger he saw.

Magee believed that the invaders were robbers; after all, who else would be breaking into a home before six in the morning? He acted in fear for his life, and that of his girlfriend and unborn child. He was in his own home. The shooting was clearly an act of self-defense. Yet Magee is now in jail facing a charge of capital murder because the uninvited armed stranger he fatally shot in his own home was Burleson County Sheriff?s Deputy Adam Sowders.

Sowders and seven other officers were carrying out a no-knock warrant looking for narcotics. That warrant was the product of an anonymous tip. The search of the Houston-area home turned up a trivial amount of marijuana that would barely be enough to sustain a misdemeanor charge. Magee had prior drug convictions on his record; Sowders had recently been promoted to investigator, and was probably eager to make a quick arrest.

Sowders should not have died. Magee should not be executed for defending his home.

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

Liberty Minute December 25 2013

It is of perennial significance that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to satisfy a taxation demand made by a politician who presumed to rule the world. Caesar Augustus believed that everybody residing within his claimed domain owed him tribute for the privilege of living. He saw nothing improper about conducting  a human inventory in search of revenue to fund his imperial ambitions, because he considered them to be ? at least to some extent ? his property.

Decades later, while Jesus was involved in His ministry, He was confronted by a group of critics who posed what they thought was a devastatingly clever trick question regarding the lawfulness of paying taxes to Caesar. His reply answered the question the Pharisees should have asked, which is: Who actually owns us? Each of us is made in God?s image, not Caesar?s, and we should render to God that which is properly His ? our hearts, our lives, our worship and gratitude. In exchange he gives us freedom from the consequences of our sin and the grace to live the second great commandment ? to love our neighbor as we would be loved.

God is entitled to everything ? so what is left for Caesar to claim?

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

Liberty Minute December 24 2013

Three Philadelphia cab drivers were among those lured to the office of that city?s Parking Authority by officials of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with the false promise of a refund. When the drivers arrived, each of them was assaulted and handcuffed by agents and interrogated for an hour regarding alleged immigration violations.

Each was able to prove he is a U.S. citizen ? but they were held at gunpoint for several hours and forbidden to stand, speak, or use the bathroom. They were told that although they were entirely innocent they would be held until the investigation was over so that they couldn?t alert other cab drivers about the sting operation.

When the cab drivers filed a civil complaint, the agents responsible for this crime filed a motion to dismiss the suit, claiming ? among other things ? that all federal officials have the right to detain and interrogate, without a warrant, ?any alien or person believed to be an alien?.?

Last year a federal judge dismissed the case, invoking the spurious doctrine of qualified immunity. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the victims another chance to pursue their claim.

In post-Constitutional America, all of us are treated as aliens by those who presume to rule us.

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

LibertyMinute December 23 2013

One hundred years ago today, a self-perpetuating elite embedded in international finance and the highest reaches of the US political system created the Federal Reserve ? an officially sanctioned counterfeiting operation.

The advertised purpose of the Fed was to stabilize the economy and preserve the integrity of the U.S. Dollar. However, since December 23, 1913 ? the day Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act ? the dollar has lost more than 97 percent of its purchasing power.

Since August 1971, the dollar has been a pure fiat currency, which means that it cannot be redeemed in actual money, such as silver or gold. As economist Paul Krugman observes, people accept the dollar as legal tender because it is backed by men with guns. Because it has been the world?s reserve currency, the true effects of the Fed?s inflationary policies have yet to be felt in this country.

The cumulative inflation rate since 1913 has been 2254.2 percent -- a figure that places the Federal Reserve in the same hyperinflationary category as the central banks responsible for destroying the currencies ofWeimar-eraGermany and contemporaryZimbabwe.  This gives us some understanding of what will happen to this country when the rest of the world abandons the Fed?s debased dollar, as it eventually will.

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

Liberty Minute December 20 2013

Uruguay?s national legislature has enacted a measure legalizing marijuana. Citizens of that country will be able to cultivate a half-dozen plants for personal use, or buy marijuana for either medicinal or recreational use from a government-licensed producer through a pharmacy, and will be limited to forty grams a month. It remains illegal to re-sell marijuana to tourists or other non-citizens.

Rather than decriminalizing marijuana and treating it like any other consumable good, the leftist government of Uruguay has created an official cartel that will regulate the market and generate a huge windfall in tax revenue.

Despite the fact that marijuana use will remain a state-regimented activity in Uruguay, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has condemned the new system as a violation of that country?s purported international obligations under the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The UN has issued similar condemnations of ballot measures in Colorado and Washington state that nullified federal anti-marijuana laws.

All drug use is unwise, but not everything that is unwise is a crime. There is reason to believe that drug prohibition may soon join alcohol prohibition in well-deserved oblivion ? but the prohibition regime should not be replaced by a Uruguay-style government cartel. Decriminalization, not ?legalization,? is the correct approach.

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

Liberty Minute December 19 2013

Krystal Barrows, a 35-year-old mother of three, was resting on the couch in her living room in Chillicothe, Ohio when her life was needlessly brought to a violent end by a police officer during a narcotics raid. Barrows was not a suspect.

Ross County Prosecutor Matt Schmidt insists that none of the police deliberately fired his gun into the home. While not ruling out what he called ?user error,? Schmidt suggested that a ?malfunction? might have been responsible for the errant gunshot.

The Chillicothe Gazette said that the round was fired ?from the weapon of a law enforcement officer,? a conveniently ambiguous preposition intended to disguise or diminish the fact that the gun was fired by a police officer.

It is commonplace for government-aligned news outlets to engage in euphemism and circumlocution when police kill innocent people. It is also the well-established custom to describe incidents in which a lone, unarmed citizen is beaten by several officers as a ?fight,? a ?struggle,? a ?scuffle,? or in similar terms.

Media reports about such incidents begin with the premise that police are entitled to commit aggressive violence ? an assumption with deadly consequences for both innocent victims and the rule of law itself.

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

Liberty Minute December 18 2013

In 2002, Utah resident Weldon Angelos was approached by a childhood friend named Ronnie Lazalde, who was involved in a local gang. Facing serious narcotics and firearms charges, Lazalde had become a police informant. Lazalde lured Angelos into selling him about 24 ounces of marijuana.

After Angelos was arrested, a prosecutor offered him a deal: He could plead guilty to a single count of carrying a firearm while selling narcotics, and face a mandatory 15 year prison term, or face additional charges and a prison term of more than 100 years.

No gun was reported by Lazalde, and none was mentioned in the police reports. However, by the time Angelos went to trial, Lazalde?s testimony had been updated to include mention of a gun. Angelos is now serving a 55-year prison sentence.

When I contacted Lazalde to ask him about the case, the informant ? who was spared significant prison time ? replied:  "I was able to turn my life around and that's all I can tell you about my past life that is over.? Of the friend he had entrapped, Lazalde said: ?Weldon was given the chance to help himself and he chose not to."

Cynical betrayals of this kind are ubiquitous in our so-called justice system.

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

Liberty Minute December 17 2013

Somewhere, there is probably a ?Wounded Heroes in Blue? roster that pays tribute to former New Jersey police officer Christopher Onesti, who retired on disability in 2006 following an on-duty incident in which he injured the ring finger of his left hand on a target range.

That injury was gun-inflicted, in a sense: Onesti perforated the finger while using a staple gun to secure a paper target. Undaunted, the valiant officer applied a band-aid and continued shooting without noticeable difficulty. Yet he was designated ?totally and completely disabled? and retired at age 29.

Despite that supposed handicap, the plucky hero continues to pursue his shooting hobby . He is collecting a tax-free disability pension of $46,000 a year ? an amount nearly equivalent to his salary. His lifetime pension will cost tax victims in New Jersey at least $2.3 million.

Asked about this absurdly lucrative pension by reporters from a New Jersey TV station, Onesti shrugged and replied, ?My lawyer said I was entitled to it?. It?s not a question of [whether] I deserve [it], it?s a question of what the law says.?

Perhaps not surprisingly, Onesti has moved to Pennsylvania, most likely to put some distance between himself and the public he supposedly served as a police officer.

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

Liberty Minute December 16 2013

The 18-year-old student who allegedly committed the recent shooting at Colorado?s Arapahoe High School was described by friends as a bright, articulate, and highly opinionated young man. Politically active and deeply involved in the speech and debate team, Karl Pierson was an outspoken critic of political conservatives, proponents of free market economics, and gun rights activists.

Pierson, who described himself as a ?very opinionated socialist,? was a passionate supporter of Barack Obama. He also believed that the government should impose restrictions on private gun ownership in order to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people ? a proposition he seemed perversely determined to support with his own criminal behavior.

Despite all of this, a few collectivist commentators wielding ideological shoehorns did their best to cram this episode into an indictment of the so-called Radical Right. The online journal Salon, for example, cited this rampage as an example of the deadly consequences of what it called ?Tea Party fantasies? about gun rights. However, most of the media outlets that covered this incident refrained from discussing the ideology of the alleged perpetrator, displaying the kind of restraint that would have eluded them if he had been a conservative or a libertarian, rather than a self-described socialist.

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