Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 14 2012

About a year ago, two Boise residents told City Council President Maryanne Jordan that they were assaulted because they were gay. According to Jordan, this incident prompted her to devise a proposed city ordinance banning discrimination based on ?sexual orientation [,] gender identity [or] expression.?

The ordinance would apply to housing, employment, and public accommodations ? with the exception of religious and educational corporations and state and federal agencies. Those convicted of discrimination would face up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000 ? unless they agreed to government-imposed ?mediation,? in which case they would be subject to a $100 penalty.

Significantly, under Boise?s municipal code, so-called sexual orientation discrimination would be punished as severely as an actual act of physical assault. What this means is that a landlord who refuses to rent to a same-sex couple out of religious convictions could spend as much time behind bars as an assailant who actually committed an act of physical violence against them.

The purpose of this measure is not to protect persons or property, but rather to use the threat of state-sanctioned aggression to re-educate people ? specifically, those who subscribe to conventional Christian morality.

Discrimination isn?t a crime. However, seeking to punish it is.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 13, 2012

In every police state, nobody is immune to surveillance. As former CIA Director David Petraeus has learned, this principle even applies to those who preside over the secret police. 

In order to have access to the CIA director?s private e-mails, the FBI would have had to obtain a federal court order or issue a national security letter ? a constitutionally bogus search warrant written by an FBI Agent on his own supposed authority.

In this case, the inquiry that eventually brought down the CIA Director was driven by a rogue agent with a political agenda who took an inappropriate interest in Jill Kelly, the woman who filed a complaint after receiving harassing e-mails from Petraeus?s mistress. That agent kept the inquiry going even after his superiors told him to back off. Eventually it was discovered that Kelly, a married mother of three, had exchanged tens of thousands of reportedly inappropriate e-mails with General John Allen, who had replaced Petraeus as head of the U.S. military command in Afghanistan.

Civil liberties commentator Glenn Greenwald observes that there is an ironic element of justice at work here as the elites who preside over the national security state fall into the pit they?ve dug for the rest of us.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 12, 2012

According to MSNBC commentator Chis Matthews, the devastating superstorm that pummeled New York and New Jersey shortly before the election was a God-send because it ?brought in possibilities for good politics.? The New York Times insisted that the disaster illustrated the supposedly vital role played by federal agencies such as FEMA.

People on the receiving end of federal benevolence have a very different view of the matter.

Residents of a FEMA refugee center in Oceanport, New Jerseycalled ?CampFreedom? complain that their living conditions resemble those of a prison camp. Not only are they been left exposed to the cold and deprived of promised amenities such as washing machines and hot showers, they have also been cut off from nearly all contact with the outside world. They are denied WiFi access, not allowed to use smart phones, and have been forbidden to take pictures of their surroundings.

Many residents of Staten Islandleft homeless in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy might find themselves literally living in prison. Up to 900 of the 5,200 borough residents who applied for FEMA housing could be warehoused in the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, a shuttered medium-security prison.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 9, 2012

In 2004, a U.S. Navy veteran named Donald Vance went to Iraq to work as a security contractor. When he discovered that the company employing him was deeply corrupt and selling weapons to radical Islamist militias, Vance contacted the FBI and began feeding it information about what he found. Rather than acting on Vance?s disclosures, the military seized him.

For several weeks  Vance was imprisoned in an Iraqi dungeon,   where he was subjected to relentless and abusive interrogation that legally qualified as torture. Before Vance was released, his captors warned him not to disclose what had been done to him. To his credit, once he was home Vance immediately contacted an attorney and filed a lawsuit against then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed Vance?s lawsuit, arguing that Rumsfeld and every other official in the military chain of command enjoys blanket immunity because abuse and corruption are common within the military bureaucracy.

?People able to exert domination over others often abuse that power,? wrote the court. ?[I]t is part of human nature that is very difficult to control.?

Abuses are impossible to prevent if those who commit them are granted immunity for their crimes.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 8, 2012

Just hours after his re-election, President Obama indicated his support for a UN treaty to regulate the international trade in small arms ? that is, civilian-owned guns. Treaty talks were suspended last July because Obama was understandably concerned about the pre-election political impact of supporting a treaty that amounts to a backdoor gun grab.

In a related move, California Senator Diane Feinstein, author of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, is reportedly drafting a new measure that would be even more restrictive than the earlier ban.

Last September, in an address toCalifornia delegates to the Democratic National Convention, she promised to pursue an ?updated assault weapons bill,? insisting that ?Weapons of war do not belong on our streets.?

Of course, Feinstein?s legislation would not remove military-grade weapons from the arsenals of government enforcement agencies. Over the past year, the federal government has dramatically accelerated its acquisition of high-caliber weaponry and ammunition in a crash program to militarize practically every executive branch agency ?from the Department of Homeland Security to the Social Security Administration.

Our rulers are arming themselves even as they prepare to disarm the rest of us. If you want to know how this story is likely to end, ask an Indian.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 6, 2012

For weeks, a police officer had been lurking down the street from Ashley Ward?s rural home outsidePiedmont,Oklahoma. The streets are cracked and usually vacant. With little traffic to supervise and no property crime to investigate, the officer simply idled in his car, at taxpayer expense, waiting for an opportunity to collect revenue.

That occasion arose when Ward?s three-year-old son, Dillan, decided to relieve himself outdoors in the family?s front yard. Seconds after the toddler pulled down his pants, the officer pulled up in the front yard and demanded that Ward hand over her driver?s license. When Dillan?s grandmother objected that the incident took place on the family?s private property, the officer snottily replied that it didn?t matter, because it occurred in public view.

The ticket, assuming it is upheld in court, would cost the family $2,500 ? an amount more than the monthly average income for the community.

Piedmontis a town of about 3600 people. Its crime rate is immeasurably small, which explains why the police department can spare one-tenth of its ten-officer force to loiter in the Ward family?s neighborhood in search of revenue. If only such behavior were atypical of law enforcement officers.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 4, 2012

As an anti-war activist in the late 1960s, Michael Lerner had his wedding ring made out of steel taken from the fuselage of a U.S. fighter jet that had been shot down over Vietnam. Lerner, who became a Rabbi of sorts, founded a publication called Tikkun, which promotes a fusion of New Age mysticism and hard-left politics.

In a November 3^rd essay, Tikkun magazine called for Barack Obama to deploy the military nation-wide in order to prevent voter suppression. According to the publication, ?The presence of armed forces would underscore the serious nature of the threats to democracy posed by the tactics of disenfranchisement being deployed by those determined to wrest the presidency from Barack Obama by any means necessary. ?

If a conservative publication had urged a Republican incumbent to militarize the election, Lerner would rend the air with warnings of an incipient fascist putsch ? and he would be justified in doing so. Like collectivists of every variety, Lerner subscribes to Lenin?s axiom that the central question in politics is who does what to whom ? and the most important thing is to be the ?who? rather than the ?whom? in that equation.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 2, 2012

Michael Kelly of Clayton, Georgia did what he believed to be his duty as a law-abiding citizen. As a result, he and his wife were arrested and spent two days in jail, and nearly lost custody of their 9-year-old son to the department of child services.

Kelly owns some rental properties. On October 28, he and his family went to inspect and clean a rental home that had been abandoned. After finding several bags of methamphetamine hidden in a wall, Kelly called the police. A few weeks earlier, the tenants had been arrested by federal officials on immigration violations, and Kelly had cooperated when asked to provide information about them.

When the police arrived on October 28, they subjected Kelly and his wife to a lengthy interrogation. One of them threatened to have child protective services abduct their son. The couple was then arrested on charges of tampering with narcotics evidence, and imprisoned for two days until they were able to post $10,000 bail.

Michael Kelly?s family has joined the ever-growing roster of innocent victims who can testify that it is NEVER a good idea to call the police for ANY reason.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 31, 2012

During a grade school ?career day? last May, New Mexico state trooper Chris Webb invited several youngsters to clean his patrol car. When one of them, a student identified in court papers as ?R.D.,? refused to participate, Webb drew his taser and said, ?Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.? He then shot the 10-year-old child in the chest. The youngster blacked out as a result of the 50,000-volt assault, and was left with large scars resembling cigarette burns.

Rather than calling paramedics, Webb pulled the barbs from the victim?s chest and took the traumatized student to the principal?s office.

Rachel Higgins, the victim?s guardian ad litem, reports that since the incident the child will often wake up in the middle of the night clutching his chest, ?afraid that he is never going to wake up again.?

Higgins is suing the department on behalf of the victim. Webb, who should be prosecuted for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, remains on the police force. The one ambivalent benefit to this episode is that it should disabuse the victim and his friends of the notion that policemen should be seen as friendly guardians of their rights.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 1, 2012

Former Idaho State Senator John McGee served 39 days in jail after pleading guilty to a single charge of disturbing the peace. McGee had been accused of repeatedly making obscene propositions to a female employee in his office at the state Capitol.

Several months earlier, McGee had been arrested after he commandeered ? and wrecked ? an SUV that didn?t belong to him during a drunken rampage. In that incident, the felony theft charge was dropped and McGee pleaded guilty to a single DUI count. McGee?s predatory conduct toward the staffer occurred while he was on probation.

Ada County Prosecutor Jean Fisher, who earned a reputation for pursuing sex offenders, displayed unusual moderation in dealing with McGee. In several encounters McGee had unwanted physical contact with the victim; on at least one occasion he exposed himself to her. Under Idaho law those acts constitute, at a minimum, felonious indecent exposure; at worst they qualify as aggravated assault with intent to commit a serious felony, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Idahoprisons are filled with common citizens who committed non-violent offenses that injured nobody but themselves. As a member of the political class, McGee committed serious offenses against persons and property and suffered the mildest possible consequences.

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