Liberty Minute October 3 2013

A US citizen who jokes about assassinating the president or any other prominent official can expect to receive a visit from the Secret Service or the FBI. Even if the statement was an ill-advised act of whimsy, rather than a credible threat, the citizen who makes it will most likely be prosecuted and face fines and a prison sentence.

Things are rather different when public officials speak irresponsibly about killing citizens. This is true even ? or perhaps especially ? for officials who have the means to carry out such designs.

During the 2013 Cybersecurity Summit in Washington, Gen. Michael Hayden, the former chief of the CIA and the National Security Agency, joked about putting NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on a ?kill list.? Republican Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, replied: ?I can help you with that.?

The ?kill list,? of course, refers to people who are subject to summary execution on presidential orders. No fewer than three US citizens on that list have been killed through drone strikes, and both Hayden and Rogers have been implicated in those extra-judicial killings.

This isn?t merely a bad joke. It?s a public admission of conspiracy to commit murder.

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

LibertyMinute October 2 2013

The ongoing federal shutdown is neither catastrophic nor unprecedented. Similar budget impasses have occurred on more than a dozen occasions in relatively recent history, and they didn?t precipitate widespread hardship or lead to a breakdown of civic order.

There is no significant ideological dispute driving the budget stand-off. The leaders of both parties agree not only in principle, but for the most part in detail, about what they consider the proper role and size of government. Yet we are being invited to believe that the shutdown is an augury of a civil war ? or perhaps even a coup.

The NewRepublicmagazine, which is allied with the Democratic Party, published an essay recalling how Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the parliament and then ordered a military assault on its headquarters when its leaders refused to leave. 

On the other side of the partisan divide, Republican-allied Christian TV host Rick Joyner has called for a military coup followed by martial law, which he says is the only way to save theUnited States from ?a terrible tyranny.?

This neatly summarizes our present political predicament. One side wants Obama to embrace open Stalinism; the other pines for a Pinochet-style military takeover. Both are fixated on obtaining and exercising power, rather than restoring liberty under law.

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

LibertyMinute October 1 2013

Two men claiming to be police officers broke into the home of a Houston police officer. The resident opened fire on the invaders, driving them away but suffering a minor gunshot wound in the process.

On average, more than one hundred no-knock SWAT raids take place in this country every day. This has inspired a growing number of private criminals to impersonate SWAT teams when they carry out home invasion robberies ? or employ other aggressive tactics.

Last year, a Houston area man named David Brian Webb was arrested for impersonating a DEA agent. He had previously been charged with impersonating a SWAT operator.

In April 2010 two Houston women  encountered a roadblock modeled after police checkpoints that have become quite commonplace. As they pulled to a stop, the women were surrounded by armed men who ordered them from the car. The driver had the good sense to hit the gas and pull away. It was their immense good fortune that they were dealing with private criminals. If they had fled a police checkpoint, the most likely would have been killed.

We're defined by what we do, rather than who we claim to be. People who commit aggression against the innocent are criminals, whatever title they may claim.

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

Liberty Minute September 30 2013

Princeton historian Gary J. Bass points out that the Supreme Court of Bangladesh recently sentenced a former politician named Abdul Quader Mollah to death for war crimes committed during that country?s 1971 war for independence.

The Bengalis ? who were secretly aided by India-- declared independence from Pakistan, triggering a bloody crackdown that was covertly supported by the Nixon administration. The bloodshed in Bangladesh ended only when India and Pakistan went to war.

Recently released White House audiotapes document that Kissinger and Nixon ? who had abetted the carnage ? expressed hateful contempt for the victims. At one point Nixon said that the solution would be for inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent to die in a mass famine.

Such bigoted and eugenicist sentiments came easily to Nixon and people of his ilk. While discussing abortion in 1972, Nixon repeatedly said that most people would support it as long as it destroyed children to whom he referred as ?the little black bastards.?  He also said that the ?People who don?t control their families are ? the people that shouldn?t have kids. ? It shouldn?t surprise us that in 1974, the year following Roe v. Wade, the Nixon administration made global population control an official tenet of Washington?s foreign policy, as it remains to this day.

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

Liberty Minute September 27 2013

Columbia University professor Prahhjot Singh was beaten by a mob in New York City on September 21^st. Like other Sikh men, Professor Singh ? who was born and raised in the United States and offers medical services in Harlem ? wears a turban and a long beard.

The mob that beat Professor Singh called him ?Osama? and accused him of being a terrorist. This kind of thing is hardly uncommon: Since 9/11, scores of Sikhs have been beaten or abused ? or murdered -- by people mistakenly believing them to be Arab terrorists.

Commercial trucker Jageet Singh was the victim of an even worse variety of mob violence in Mississippi. When he suffered a flat tire last January, police officers who arrived on the scene accused him of being a terrorist, made derogatory remarks about his religion, forced him to circle his truck with his hands on his head while the vehicle was searched, and then arrested him for supposedly refusing to obey an officer.

When Singh appeared in court, the judge ordered him to remove his headdress ? which he called ?that rag? ? or be forced to wait until the end of the day to have his case heard. Singh eventually prevailed in court?after enduring a lengthy, expensive, and unnecessary ordeal.

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

Liberty Minute September 26 2013

One year has elapsed since Iranian-born U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini was arrested while visiting his native country on a mission trip. Last January, Pastor Saeed was sentenced to eight years in prison for undermining state security by preaching the Christian gospel.

His wife, Nagmeh, traveled to New York to deliver letters to the Iranian president?s delegation during the opening of the UN General Assembly. Throughout the United States, prayer vigils have been organized today on behalf of Pastor Saeed. His unjust imprisonment is a sobering reminder of the fact that Christian believers still confront persecution for peacefully sharing the gospel.

As American believers seek Pastor Saeed?s freedom, we should exercise our responsibilities as citizens by demanding freedom for those unjustly imprisoned by the US government as well. This includes the innocent men still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay who, like Pastor Saeed, were arrested without cause, convicted without due process, and subjected to torture and abuse.

What if the US government announced that it would free the Gitmo detainees who have been cleared for release ? and then challenged Iran to set Pastor Saeed free, as well? American Christians should pressure Washington to make that proposal ? both as a matter of practical politics, and in fulfillment of our moral responsibilities to victims of unjust imprisonment.

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

Liberty Minute September 25 2013

In June 2010, as an official in the Justice Department?s Office of Legal Counsel, David Barron signed a secret memorandum justifying the summary execution of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki through a drone strike in Yemen. A few days ago, Barack Obama nominated Barron to serve on the US First Circuit Court.

The advertised purpose of the Office of Legal Counsel, or OLC, is to explain to the president what the law requires him to do. Since the administration of George W. Bush, however, the mission of that office has been to devise official justifications for presidential lawlessness: Rather than explaining the law to the president, the OLC?s task is to explain why the president?s will is to be considered the law.

Barron and an associate named Martin Lederman were instructed to compose a brief validating the pre-determined decision to execute al-Awlaki ? without conviction, trial, or even formal criminal charges. This meant reviewing a carefully selected collection of intelligence reports depicting the cleric as an operational leader of al-Qaeda, and searching diligently for exceptions to statutes forbidding the murder of US citizens overseas.

Barron?s assignment was to exalt presidential power by nullifying judicial oversight. Now he will continue that work as a federal judge.

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

Liberty Minute September 24 2013

To be a Progressive is to believe that officially sanctioned coercion is the magic ingredient that makes government policies and institutions morally superior to private, voluntary association. Progressives treat the State as a divine entity, and generally ignore the corruption and violence that are inescapable elements of all State action.

Few, if any, Progressive writers have exhibited this tendency more prominently than Daily Beast columnist Michelle Goldberg. In a recent essay entitled ?The Sinister Side of Home Schooling,? Goldberg used a single horrific case of child abuse involving home-schooling parents as if it were representative of the millions of conscientious parents who love and educate their children. This act of misrepresentation-by-anecdote was intended to demonstrate that homeschooling is supposedly dangerous to children because it is unregulated.

Alittle more than a week earlier, the same Michelle Goldberg published an essay denouncing efforts to impose health and safety regulations on abortion clinics ? facilities that have the sole function of carrying out State-licensed child killing. Such efforts, shrieked Goldberg, are a form of "right-wing terrorism.?

For Progressives of Goldberg?s ilk, killing a child with the State?s blessing is a sacred right, but educating a child without the State?s sanction is a crime.

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

Liberty Minute September 23 2013

In June 2011, police in Laguna Beach, California dispatched a SWAT team to raid the Rowland Heights home of Marilyn Injeyan, a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher. Her son, Vahan, was described as a ?person of interest? in a vandalism attack involving a stink bomb.

Fearing that the 5-foot-3, 125-pound female septuagenarian posed a genuine threat to his safety, SWAT commander Sgt. Robert Rahaeuser ordered that the terrified and compliant woman be seized and handcuffed. The officer who carried out that order yanked Injeyan?s arms behind her back with sufficient force to tear both of her rotator cuffs. The shock and trauma caused the elderly woman to urinate on herself.

Neither Injeyan nor her son was ever charged with a crime. Mrs. Injeyan filed a lawsuit against the city. On September 11 of this year, US District Judge Beverly O?Connell dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the ?cloak of immunity? enjoyed by police remains intact even when they act ?maliciously and without probable cause.? She also ordered the now 73-year old victim pay the city?s legal costs. 

In Communist countries, family members of those executed as state enemies had to pay for the bullets used to kill them. We?re not far from that now.

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

Liberty Minute September 20 2013

A couple in Idaho Falls had a Saturday evening backyard barbecue to celebrate their daughter?s sixth birthday. A woman living more than a block away called police to complain about the noise, despite the fact that none of the next-door neighbors was bothered by it.

Rather than knocking on the front door and asking the family to quiet down, three officers intruded into the back yard to confront the couple. Alissa Madrigal, the mother, politely replied that the family would cut the noise ? but the cops weren?t willing to take ?yes? for an answer.

Alissa?s husband Victor, a naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic, expressed frustration about getting a citation for ?disturbing the peace.? Officer Clark Lund snottily replied: ?If you don?t like it, you know how to leave.? Seconds later, for no identifiable reason, Lund barged into the house, then tasered Victor and his brother, Delosanto after shoving a pregnant woman to the floor and threatening a young mother who was holding a baby. Another officer shoved a 79-year-old grandmother. Two officers responding to Lund?s call for aid invaded a neighbor?s home with guns drawn. At least 11 police cars arrived, closing down the entire block.

What could possibly be more disruptive to the peace of a neighborhood than a police riot at a child?s birthday party?

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