Liberty Minute October 16 2013

In Washington, D.C., a city abounding in ominous bureaucratic acronyms, the agency known as the OFAC ? the Office of Foreign Assets Control ? is both largely unknown, and utterly terrifying. Headquartered in a building across from the White House, the OFAC administers the US government?s global system of economic sanctions.

The agency, which is populated largely by former federal prosecutors, actually writes the sanctions legislation that they enforce. More than 5,500 people, organizations, and businesses are listed by the agency as ?Specially Designated Nationals,? or SDNs. This status means being cut off from contact with the US financial system and effective banishment from the global economy.

SDNs include both foreign nationals and US citizens. Merely having a business meeting with a representative of a banned business or organization is enough to earn an individual a spot on the list. This can mean the immediate seizure of bank accounts and other assets, without explanation ? let alone due process.

The OFAC also plays a key role in international sanctions, like those that led to the death of a half-million Iraqi children during the 1990s.

Significantly, the OFAC has not been affected by the so-called government shutdown. The Regime?s punitive politburo, apparently, is an essential institution.

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

Liberty Minute October 15 2013

Last June 27, 80-year-old Eugene Mallory woke up to find armed men in his home in Littlerock, California. The elderly man?s glasses were on the nightstand beside him. His handgun was also within easy reach. After the panicking man reached for his gun, he was shot six times, killing him.

The intruders were LA County Sheriff?s Deputies. They were serving a narcotics warrant issued in response to a claim that an investigator who had visited the property smelled ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamine. No meth or precursors were found on the property, although a small amount of marijuana was located.

The department insists that the discovery of marijuana validated the search. However, the Fourth Amendment requires that in order to a warrant to be valid it must specify the items being sought. Additionally, a report of a suspicious smell doesn?t meet the Fourth Amendment?s standards for probable cause.

Since the warrant was invalid, and the search was illegitimate, Mallory was within his legal rights to use lethal force to defend himself. However, department spokesman Steve Whitmore insists that ?The lesson here is ? don?t pull a gun on a deputy.?

A more suitable lesson is this: We live in a country where criminals in uniform feel entitled to gun down elderly men in their beds.

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

Liberty Minute October 14 2013

Pakistani citizen Rafiq ur Rehman watched as his mother was blown apart by a drone-fired missile. He and his two children were severely wounded. Rehman was invited by Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson to offer testimony. He would have been the first survivor of a US drone attack to do so.

Rep. Grayson?s invitation came to naught, however, when the State Department denied a visa to Rehman?s attorney, Shahzad Akbar. Mr. Akbar, the founder and director of a Pakistani human rights group, is an internationally respected jurist who has visited the US on several previous occasions.

Akbar once held a diplomatic visa while working as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development. He has never been accused of corruption, criminal acts, or affinity for terrorism. Two years ago, when he started speaking out against drone strikes in his country, Akbar began to experience visa difficulties. Now he is effectively banished from the United States.

Similar treatment has been inflicted on other Pakistani officials and activists who have objected to the drone onslaught on their country.

Every imperial elite believes it is entitled to kill. The Regime in Washington may be the first to insist that its victims have no right to complain about their suffering.

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

Liberty Minute October 11 2013

In the totalitarian lexicon invented by George Orwell, there is no more frightening term than ?un-person.? That expression described a living human being of whom the State took no official notice, and who had no rights the government would recognize.

That term has been applied to tens of millions of people ? from inmates of the Soviet gulag, to victims of official ?disappearances? in Third World dictatorships, to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Ohio resident Donald Eugene Miller Jr. recently had a similar experience when a judge informed him that he was legally dead.

In 1994, Miller disappeared from his home. He explains that he didn?t know what to do after losing his job, and succumbed to alcoholism. He worked odd jobs in several places before returning to Ohio in 2005. His parents informed him that a judge had ruled that he was legally deceased.

In early October, the same official, Hancock County Probate Court Judge Allan Davis, ruled that Miller is still dead in the eyes of the government, despite the fact that the healthy 61-year-old man was sitting in his courtroom. That ruling means that Miller will not get back his driver?s license, Social Security Number, or the other government-issued credentials certifying that an individual has the state?s permission to exist.

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

LibertyMinute October 10 2013

Self-appointed leftist ?watchdogs? have condemned what they call ?eliminationist? speech on the part of conservatives. That term supposedly describes the variety of political rhetoric intended not merely to discredit the views of an opponent, but to dehumanize him in a fashion that would incite violence or even official punishment.

Author David Niewert describes eliminationism as the product of ?the hard-wired right wing [which] desires to eliminate, by violent means if necessary, anyone deemed the Other, or the Enemy.?

That tendency is visible on the right ? but it?s hardly exclusive to it. It is a trait shared by all political movements that claim the right to subjugate those who disagree. The government shutdown has brought to the surface a severe strain of eliminationism among Obama?s disciples.

Obama?s allies in the media have execrated Republicans as secessionists and neo-Confederates ? that is, a movement that should be exterminated through military force, if necessary. The leftist Crooks & Liars blog, which publishes Niewert?s writings, has accused congressional Republicans of being the equivalent of al-Qaeda. Democratic leaders have referred to Republicans as ?terrorists,? ?bombers,? and ?hostage-takers.?

Eliminationism isn?t a product of ideology, but an expression of what the Epistle of James calls lust ? in this case, the evil desire to dominate others.

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

Liberty Minute October 10 2013

Self-appointed leftist ?watchdogs? have condemned what they call ?eliminationist? speech on the part of conservatives. That term supposedly describes the variety of political rhetoric intended not merely to discredit the views of an opponent, but to dehumanize him in a fashion that would incite violence or even official punishment.

Author David Niewert describes eliminationism as the product of ?the hard-wired right wing [which] desires to eliminate, by violent means if necessary, anyone deemed the Other, or the Enemy.?

That tendency is visible on the right ? but it?s hardly exclusive to it. It is a trait shared by all political movements that claim the right to subjugate those who disagree. The government shutdown has brought to the surface a severe strain of eliminationism among Obama?s disciples.

Obama?s allies in the media have execrated Republicans as secessionists and neo-Confederates ? that is, a movement that should be exterminated through military force, if necessary. The leftist Crooks & Liars blog, which publishes Niewert?s writings, has accused congressional Republicans of being the equivalent of al-Qaeda. Democratic leaders have referred to Republicans as ?terrorists,? ?bombers,? and ?hostage-takers.?

Eliminationism isn?t a product of ideology, but an expression of what the Epistle of James calls lust ? in this case, the evil desire to dominate others.

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

Liberty Minute for October 9 2013

The so-called shutdown of the federal government is an exercise in political theater, in which staged suffering plays the central role.

One US Park Service Ranger, disgusted by the orders he had been given, told the Washington Times that ?We?ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can.? This explains why World War II vets were banished from the National Mall ? but immigration reform activists allied with the administration were permitted to hold a large demonstration.

Tourists visiting Yellowstone National Park were detained and mistreated by armed Park Rangers after the so-called shutdown began. One of the visitors, Pat Vaillancourt, used the expression ?Gestapo tactics? to describe the incident.

As if determined not to neglect the other half of its totalitarian heritage, the Obama Regime ordered the US Park Service to evict citizens from private homes located on federal lands.  Those homes are private property, and the Americans who lived there were driven out as if they were Ukrainian ?Kulaks? resisting Josef Stalin?s collectivized agriculture.

 The chief benefit of the shutdown is that it reveals the federal government?s essential nature: It is a vicious criminal syndicate run by people who despise the American public.

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

Liberty Minute for October 8 2013

Referring to a recent incident in which an Oregon traffic stop led to a shootout in which the driver died, a police officer opined: ?If sheep continue to disobey orders we will have much more of this.? He also referred wistfully to the days before ?dash cams and YouTube?; the era before police encounters were recorded offered ?easier times when it came to dealing with the sheep.?

The description of common citizens as ?sheep? wasn?t meant to imply that police are benevolent shepherds. Lt. Col. David Grossman, a retired Army Ranger who provides combat instruction for police officers nation-wide describes ?sheep? as people who lack what he calls the ?gift of aggression? that sets police officers apart. Such people sometimes engage in excesses ? such as beating handcuffed suspects, body-slamming tiny women to pavement or sidewalks, or otherwise abusing smaller and defenseless people ? but this isn?t abuse, according to Grossman; instead, it?s an outgrowth of their irrepressible ?yearning for an honest battle.?

Peace officers, by way of contrast, don?t yearn for battle. Instead, they seek to de-escalate confrontations in order to protect life and property.

Genuine peace officers have always been a rarity. Today, such people are practically extinct.

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

LibertyMinute October 7 2013

Immediately after the horrific January 2011 shooting in Tucson that left eleven dead and severely wounded former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik ? a Democrat ? laid part of the blame at the feet of Republican-aligned talk show host Rush Limbaugh, and other coservatives. There was no evidence that those people were connected to that crime in any way, and Dupnik should have been sanctioned for such irresponsible and defamatory public comments.

A few months after that shooting, a SWAT team under Dupnik?s command gunned down a Marine veteran name Jose Guerena in his home. The SWAT team was deployed to serve a faulty search warrant as part of a drug investigation. No evidence connected Guerena to drug trafficking; in fact, he worked graveyard shifts at a local copper mine.

PimaCountytaxpayers have now been forced to pay a huge settlement to the Guerena family. In a spectacularly dishonest and typically self-serving op-ed column, Dupnik  once again engaged in defamation, insinuating that the victim of his death squad was a criminal and praising his hired killers for their ?restraint? and ?judicious ? use of deadly force.?

Since Dupnik doesn?t have the character to resign,PimaCountyvoters should recall him.

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

LibertyMinute October 4 2013

U.S.soldiers manning traffic checkpoints in Baghdadoperated under rules of engagement permitting them to shoot any vehicle whose driver didn?t immediately comply with orders.

The predictable result was that scores or hundreds of innocent people ? including women, children, Iraqi police officers, and at least one intelligence officer from an allied country ? were gunned down by over-anxious soldiers at traffic checkpoints.

Yesterday?s killing of Miriam Carey by Capitol Police in Washington, D.C. illustrates that law enforcement agencies in the nation?s capital operate under rules of engagement very similar to those of the military in occupied Baghdad.

The 34-year-old native of Stamford, Connecticut, who had her 18-month-old daughter in her vehicle, reportedly collided with a barricade outside the White House and then fled when she was surrounded by police and Secret Service operatives. She was pursued downPennsylvania Avenuebefore being shot to death. The incident led to a lockdown on Capitol Hill.

Capitol Police Chief Cathy Lanier insisted that her subordinates acted ?heroically.? Members of Congress gave the police a standing ovation and donned buttons proclaiming ?Thank You Capitol Police.? Rational people may wonder how a confused mother who reportedly suffered from post-partum depression could face summary execution for a traffic error. To those who rule us, we?re all Iraqis now.

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