Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 28, 2012

The Kootenai, Idaho County Commission is promoting a ballot measure that would supposedly ?streamline? the county government by making it bigger, more expensive, and less accountable.

If approved, the measure would put the county government under the administrative control of an unelected County Manager. The official, along with two or three other appointed officials, would make all of the critical budget and personnel decisions.

The campaign to change the county government comes amid growing grass-roots opposition to the County Commission?s Unified Land Use Code and Comprehensive Plan, which was drafted by an out-of-state consulting group. That plan is correctly perceived by many local land owners as an assault on property rights.  Rather than changing the plan, the county commission is seeking to change the structure of the county government to insulate administrators from public accountability.

The ?Streamline Kootenai County? campaign has hired a high-octane PR firm called ?Strategery.? The architect of that group?s campaign, Jeffrey Ward, is a veteran of the National Endowment for Democracy, a government-funded group that promotes political change abroad by manipulating elections. He makes a good fit for a ruling clique that seeks more power, more money, and no accountability.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 27, 2012

As is often the case with large-scale public problems, the ever-increasing rate of childhood obesity is a joint product of individual weakness and misguided government intervention.

For decades, the federal government has promoted a ?food pyramid? that encourages heavy carbohydrate consumption. It has also subsidized the production of the toxic ? and ubiquitous ? sweetener called high fructose corn syrup.

Government-inflicted distortions in the agricultural economy have resulted in an abundance of relatively cheap and thoroughly unhealthy consumer foods. The ever-increasing cost of living ? which results from the depreciation of the dollar ? has made most households dependent on such unhealthy fare.

The military is now treating childhood obesity as a ?national security? issue. The Pentagon?s concern with cultivating a new crop of trigger-pullers overlaps Michelle Obama?s Nanny State obsession with micro-managing the diets of other people?s children. As a result, school lunch menus are filled with low-calorie foods kids aren?t willing to eat ? which is creating a black market in junk food.

As is the case with every other public problem, the first step to curbing the obesity epidemic is ignoring everything government says, and ? to the greatest possible extent ? getting it out of our lives.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 26, 2012

When a police officer conducts a traffic stop, the laws and the Constitution are instantly rendered irrelevant; all that matters is ?officer safety.? This admission was provided by Corry Bassett, a deputy sheriff in Wyoming?s Lincoln County, in a sworn statement arising from a lawsuit filed by Robert Pierson of Pensacola, Florida.

In August 2011, Pierson was stopped by Bassett while riding a motorcycle near Alpine, Wyoming. After noticing that Pierson was openly carrying a handgun ? which is entirely legal ? Bassett handcuffed him and detained him for forty-five minutes until Deputy Rob Andazola arrived to provide backup.

Pierson was told that he would be freed from the handcuffs only if he allowed Andazola to draw his sidearm and provide ?cover? for Bassett, which would mean shooting Pierson if he had any ?sudden? moves.

In a sworn deposition, Bassett confirmed Pierson?s account, acknowledging that he had been ?trained to put his personal safety above the rights of a citizen openly carrying a handgun.?

?We?re told every day, our safety is first,? Bassett pointed out. ?We?re here to come home every night.?

Remember that admission next time you?re told that the police are here to protect and serve the public.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 25, 2012

In the study of logic, philosophy students are taught to avoid a fallacy called the category error, in which things of one kind are presented as if they belong in another. A recent critique of libertarianism by a self-described Christian conservative is built around this fallacy.

Commenting on Ludwig von Mises?s book Human Action, the essayist insists that libertarianism reduces ?man to a rational, pleasure-seeking animal? characterized by ?spiritual emptiness.? Tellingly, the writer says that libertarianism offers ?a poor banner under which to die,? and provides little reason for ?soldiers to fight valiantly.?

In other words, libertarianism -- from that writer?s perspective -- is unsuitable because it wouldn?t inspire individuals to kill and die on behalf of the State. This underscores the fact that the writer is committing a category error by treating libertarianism as political ideology, rather than a moral philosophy that rejects the use of aggressive violence and fraud.

The author complains that libertarianism undermines society?s ?moral boundaries.? In fact, it is unconditionally committed to the most important moral boundary ? the non-aggression principle. Rather than devising elaborate rationales for officially sanctioned violence, libertarians insist on the universal practice of the Golden Rule ? something Christian conservatives should celebrate.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 24, 2012

On Independence Day 1994, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh traveled to Moscow to visit the Lubyanka Square headquarters of the Russian secret police ? which is now known as the FSB. During the Stalin-era purges, Lubyanka?s basement prison cells were used to carry out thousands of executions.

After touring Lubyanka, FBI Director Freeh signed a cooperation accord with Sergei Stepashin, who acted on behalf of the FSB.  Under that agreement, the FBI and FSB would cooperate on counter-terrorism measures. Russian secret police would also receive training at the FBI?s academy in Quantico, Virginia.

The Russians were eager to return the favor. In 1993, a year before the cooperation accord, the Russians lent the FBI an expert in psychological warfare named Igor Smirnov to advise the Bureau in its assault on Waco?s Branch Davidian sect. Now Russia?s Speech Technology Center has provided the Department of Homeland Security with a surveillance system called ?Voice Grid Nation? that will allow law enforcement agencies to compile a huge, searchable database of the voices intercepted through electronic surveillance.

The system will be installed at all 911 call centers, which means that anytime you call the police for help, they?ll add your voice to the Russian-designed database.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 21, 2012

Kimberly Rivera, the mother of four small children, was arrested at the Canadian border while returning to theUnited States. She faces a term of two to five years in prison for deserting the U.S. Army.

In 2006, Rivera ? who at the time had two small children ? served a tour of duty inIraq. Thoroughly disgusted and disillusioned by that stupid, useless, and immoral war, she fled toCanadain February 2007 while on leave. For the past five years she and her husband and their four children have sought refugee status. Under pressure fromWashington, the Canadian government ? which once offered sanctuary for draft resisters ? has refused to grant refugee status to American soldiers who refuse to participate in undeclared wars.

As if in counterpoint to Rivera?s case, the Pentagon has announced the introduction of combat body armor tailored to the physique of female soldiers.

One of the most compelling arguments against the so-called Equal Rights Amendment was the possibility that it would result in women ? including mothers ? being sent into combat. The ERA was defeated, but we?ve wound up with the same result, thanks toWashington?s irrepressible militarism.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 20, 2012

Shortly after Ruben Delgadillo graduated from the Idaho Police Academy, the Governor?s Task Force on Children at Risk held a conference to examine how to deal with child predators. That event included specialized training for school resource officers. Delgadillo, who was assigned to be a school resource officer in the Caldwell School District, probably attended some of those sessions and took detailed notes.

In 2008, Delgadillo was employed as a school resource officer at Vallivue High School. As a member of the school suspension board, he encountered a troubled freshman named Brennan Nicholson. After a suspension hearing, Delagadillo met with Nicholson and his mother and suggested that he could mentor the young man.

The officer lavished attention on the boy. Eventually the officer persuaded the youngster to spend the night at a house he shared with his supervisor, Sergeant Mike Larimer. During those sleep-overs Delgadillo repeatedly molested the teenager. Larimer was aware of the crimes and did nothing to protect the victim. The molester made it clear to the victim that he could expect no help from the police. Delgadillo was eventually prosecuted and served a year in prison.

Nicholson?s mother had taught her son to trust the police. No conscientious parent can afford to make that mistake.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 19, 2012

In secretly recorded remarks to campaign donors that were leaked to the media, Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney observed that roughly 47 percent of the electorate is dependent on government and will thus support the incumbent, Barack Obama, ?no matter what.?

Ironically, in a closed-door fundraiser held during the 2002Massachusettsgovernor?s race, Romney boasted of the way he used political connections to wrangle millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal government to subsidize the Winter Olympics.  ?I am big believer in getting money where the money is,? Romney explained. ?The money is inWashington.?

The Obama administration cultivated outrage over Romney?s recent remarks about government dependency. The media showed little interest in a recently unearthed recording of a 1998 lecture in which Mr. Obama, at the time a college instructor, spoke candidly about his enthusiasm for redistribution of wealth.

The public is being fed a narrative in which Romney is a plutocratic capitalist, and Obama is his ideological opposite. In fact, both of those candidates support corporatism ? the conjoining of interventionist government with politically favored corporate interests. In substantive terms, there simply isn?t that much separating those two candidates. But then, this is nothing new in presidential politics.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 18, 2012

When he affixed his signature to the National Defense Authorization Act last December, Barack Obama issued a signing statement declaring that he would not make use of a provision permitting the indefinite detention ofU.S.citizens in military custody.

In response to a lawsuit filed by a group of American journalists and political activists, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest issued a permanent injunction against the measure. As enacted, it would allow the president to consign an American citizen to open-ended military detention for providing undefined ?support? for terrorist groups. This provision could apply not only to those who offer material aid to identified terrorists, but also to those who sympathize with the stated grievances that motivate such groups.

This would permit the government to lock people away indefinitely for expressing objectionable political views. As Judge Forrest wrote, there is no legal or constitutional basis ?to justify the concept of ?support? as a valid ground for detention.?

The Obama administration immediately filed an appeal, insisting that restricting the president?s arbitrary powers would subject him to ?irreparable harm.? A federal appeals judge ruled in favor of the administration. Thus the president retains the power to imprison, torture, or murder people at whim.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 17, 2012

The document that was completed inPhiladelphiaon this day in 1787 was a written Constitution intended to limit the powers of the central government by specifically defining its functions. Anything the federal government was not explicitly permitted to do, it was forbidden to do.

Today, the word ?Constitution? has been divested of any substantial meaning. It is a term invoked to justify practically any program or initiative approved by Congress or undertaken by the executive branch. Professor Jack M. Balkin of Yale Law School describes this process as ?state-building? by making "significant revisions to the American social contract."

"Whenever the federal government expands its capabilities, it changes the nature of the social compact," writes Balkin in The Atlantic. "Sometimes the changes are small, but sometimes, as in the New Deal or the civil rights era, the changes are big. And when the changes are big, courts are called on to legitimamize the changes and ensure that they are consistent with our ancient Constitution.?

The entire purpose of having a written constitution was to prevent the government from re-defining the ?social compact? to suit its whims. As things stand, the U.S. Constitution is no obstacle to the corrupt ambitions of the people who rule us.

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