Liberty Minute September 19 2013

Government is the only human enterprise that profits through failure. This would explain why bureaucracies established for the supposed purpose of crisis management routinely impede solutions. Leading the roster of such aggressively useless entities is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

As Boulder, Colorado was devastated by catastrophic floods, a local company called Falcon UAV, which manufactures drones for the federal government, deployed its unmanned aircraft to conduct damage assessments and make maps for rescue operations. Despite the fact that the company had FAA clearance to operate the drones, FEMA ordered the craft to be grounded ? and threatened to arrest company officials if they didn?t comply.

A similarly skewed set of priorities was displayed in the official response to the killing spree at the Washington Navy Yard. A SWAT team from the Capitol Police was dispatched in response to the shooting ? but was reportedly ordered to stand down, rather than intervene in an attempt to save the victims. Twelve people were killed before the shooter was stopped.

There are roughly 200 SWAT deployments each day in this country ? almost none of which involve the protection of innocent people. Apparently, SWAT teams are reserved for low-risk drug raids and killing 107-year-old men armed with pistols, rather than for responding to actual danger.

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

Liberty Minute September 18 2013

A few weeks ago, the US government confessed to something that had long been known, but officially denied: The CIA had organized the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, the elected president of Iran. This led to the installation of Shah Reza Pahlavi, a dictator who ruled through terror for a quarter-century until he was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeni.

Some defenders of the CIA?s Iranian coup claim that it was justified because Mossadegh?s government was nationalizing US and British oil companies in Iran. If that action is defensible, why shouldn?t the Iranian government stage a coup to retaliate for the US government?s seizure of an Iranian-owned office building near Rockefeller Center?

The seizure is being carried out under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which supposedly gives the government authority to confiscate terrorism-related assets. 

While the Manhattan office building is owned by the Iranian government, the US government has not demonstrated that it was involved in terrorist activities of any kind. Furthermore, it was built by the Shah ? a dictator who was installed by the CIA and used as Washington?s proxy for decades.

When foreign governments confiscate assets, Washington calls it terrorism. When Washington does the same, it?s called ?American exceptionalism.?

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

Liberty Minute September 17 2013

When Barack Obama signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (or NDAA), he insisted that he would not enforce a key provision of that measure allowing the indefinite detention of Americans accused of providing material support to al-Qaeda and associated groups.

The NDAA was challenged in court by a coalition of First Amendment activists, who contended that it could be used to imprison journalists who cover terrorist groups without supporting their activities. The administration has admitted in court that those concerns are valid, without specifying what actions would be deemed ?material support? for terrorist groups.

Mr. Obama himself, along with Senator John McCain of Arizona, violated the NDAA by providing financial and material assistance and support to al-Qaeda-connected groups fighting in the Syrian civil war. McCain was actually photographed in their company earlier this year. Obama is prepared to commit the US military to war in support of the al-Qaeda-aligned rebels. Now we learn that he has waived provisions of the Arms Export Control Act in order to provide weapons and support to the Syrian rebels. By doing so, Obama admits that his administration is directly supporting al-Qaeda-allied terrorists in Syria.

If Barack Obama isn?t impeached, we might as well remove that procedure from the Constitution.

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

Liberty Minute September 16 2013

 Among the euphemisms employed to describe the hideous crime of abortion is the expression ?termination of pregnancy.? What abortion advocates defend is the violent and premature termination of a baby?s life, not the natural end of a pregnancy.

Defenders of the abortion industry recently lamented that facilities used to commit that crime have been closing down at an unprecedented rate. One major factor in this development has been a quiet but significant shift in public opinion as a growing portion of the population comes to recognize abortion for what it truly is ? a crime of lethal violence against the most helpless of all human beings. Ultimately, the only way to protect the unborn is for hearts to be changed.

Troubled and unmarried mothers have always faced challenges. Babies were slaughtered on the altar of convenience long before the Supreme Court conferred its approval on child-killing in 1973. As a child conceived out of wedlock to a frightened teenager, I could easily have been among the victims, but my mother, Vonda Bentley, chose to have me ? and then to entrust me to loving adoptive parents when she couldn?t care for me. On September 14 I was blessed to meet my birth mother and thank her for choosing life.

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

Liberty Minute September 12 2013

Don?t go borrowing trouble. If people were to heed that time-honored admonition from a long-forgotten sage, life would be much more pleasant, and much less difficult. Yet for some reason many people are determined to invent problems when their present supply should be more than sufficient.

In the placid southeastern Idaho town of Rexburg, for example, crime is all but nonexistent, but police still deal with dozens of 911 calls every day, nearly all of which involve entirely trivial matters. According to the Idaho Falls Post-Register, police were summoned by a Rexburg resident who had lost the remote control to his television. On another occasion, an officer was sent in response to a call from a person who was offended by the sight of women ? clad in swimsuits ? sunbathing in a local park.

Some 911 calls deal with noise complaints. According to Sgt. Brian Allen, ?residents often will call police ? rather than asking their neighbors to quiet down.?

Rexburg is the most Republican city in the known universe. Its conservative residents pay lip service to the ideal of rugged individualism ? yet in practice many of them have eagerly embraced the worst aspects of the nanny state.

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

LibertyMinute September 11 2013

On the eve of the 12^th anniversary of 9/11, the President of the United States made a televised national address reiterating his willingness to intervene in the Syrian civil war on the side of al-Qaeda. The dominant element within the so-called Syrian resistance is composed of jihadists like those who recently demolished  a Christian village called Maaloula.

The carnage prompted one fleeing resident to ask a reporter: ?Where is President Obama to see what [has] befallen us??

The answer, of course, is that Mr. Obama was desperately trying to build public and international support for a war that would benefit the barbarians who had laid waste to that Christian village.

It was Vladimir Putin ? the ex-KGB officer ruling the Russian Federation? who intervened to prevent a U.S.military strike against Syriaby proposing that the country turn over its chemical weapons to international control. While Obama indicated that he would explore the Russian proposal he continues to claim both the authority and moral mandate to order an attack.

Thomas Paine famously wrote that ?Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.? The same is true of the deranged ambitions of people willing to commit mass murder on humanitarian pretexts.

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

Liberty Minute September 6 2013

Canada is in many ways a very appealing country. Canadians have a well-earned reputation for politeness. Its government, unfortunately, has taken that trait and perverted it into a suffocating form of politically correct paternalism. Canada is a country where someone can face criminal charges for saying something that offends the sensitivities of people who take offense for a living.

The province of Ontario is pioneering new ground in official paternalism by banning the practice of keeping score at youth soccer matches. That initiative, which will begin next year, is part of what has been described as a national program to focus on skill development, rather than competition. Of course, by eliminating score-keeping, the activity ceases to be a sport in any recognizable sense.

The proposal has been parodied ? albeit just barely -- in the CBC satirical program ?This is That,? which suggested that the next step would be to eliminate the use of a ball in youth soccer leagues. This would protect the tender feelings of young participants by eliminating any possible competitive aspect to the experience of playing something called soccer.

Rather than honing skills, this approach will cultivate an aversion to excellence. That?s a prohibitive price to pay for avoiding hurt feelings.

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

Liberty Minute September 4 2013

Police departments  in and around Fresno, California are implementing a program of ?predictive policing? that critics are comparing to the totalitarian ?pre-crime? system depicted in the film ?Minority Report.? Six police departments will participate in the initiative, which will gather surveillance videos and information from huge computer databases for use by a half-dozen ?crime analysts.? Those officials will identify so-called ?hot spots? and try to anticipate criminal activity before it occurs.

This system is an adaptation of the ?pattern-of-life? analysis used by counter-insurgency forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interestingly, Fresno police were used nearly two decades ago to refine urban occupation tactics that were subsequently used by the military overseas.

Beginning in 1994, the Fresno PD?s Violent Crime Suppression Unit, which describes itself as the department?s ?special forces? auxiliary conducted block-by-block house searches and saturation patrols in targeted neighborhoods. Officers in the unit would typically arrive in a fleet of armored vehicles deployed like a ?wolf pack,? and conduct aggressive ?contact patrols.?

This approach was referred to as ?clear-and-hold? ? a tactic that was employed in Iraqi cities during the much-heralded ?troop surge.?

It?s not clear why Fresno was chosen to be a laboratory for martial law, but we would be wise to pay attention to what?s happening there.

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

Liberty Minute August 3 2013

Seeking to clinch the case for war with Syria, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi described to reporters a recent conversation with her five-year-old grandson. The child asked if Pelosi favored war in Syria. Pelosi tried to brush off the question by replying, ?We?re not talking about war; we?re talking about action.? The child persisted: Did she support war with Syria? Pelosi deflected the question once again by turning it back on the child who said: ?I think no war.?

Thinking that she had a trump card, Pelosi claimed that hundreds of children have been killed by the Syrian government. Her grandson, displaying a vastly superior understanding of the constitutional limits on US government action, asked: ?Were these children in the United States?? That left a no-doubt flustered Pelosi to abandon any pretense of rationality. She insisted that it is America?s duty to protect children everywhere.

Pelosi apparently doesn?t think that rule applies when Iraqi or Iranian children are left to starve or die of sickness because of US-imposed trade embargoes, or are born with horrible birth defects in Fallujah because of US use of depleted uranium munitions.

But it?s too much to expect ethical consistency from someone who lost a geopolitical debate to her five-year-old grandson.

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

Liberty Minute August 30, 2013

For the first time since 1792, the British Parliament has refused to authorize the Prime Minister to take the country to war. The House of Commons rejected a resolution authorizing British involvement in a US ?led military campaign against Syria. The majority that voted against war included many members of Prime Minister David Cameron?s Conservative Party.

Both Cameron and British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond have said that they will be bound by the legislative vote. Their deference to the rule of law stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Obama administration.

With opposition coalescing against a proposed attack on Syria, and amid widespread doubts regarding claims that chemical weapons were used by the Assad regime, the Obama administration continues to prepare for what it calls a ?very discrete and limited? bombing campaign ? whether or not Congress approves. White House spokesman John Earnest told reporters that ?When the president reaches a determination about the appropriate response ? and a legal justification is required to substantiate or back up that decision, we?ll produce one on our own.?

Obama?s announced intention to wage an aggressive war in defiance of Congress warrants nothing less than immediate impeachment ? and prosecution.

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