Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 1, 2011

Detroit District Court Judge Ronald Giles has acknowledged that Maryanne Godboldo was morally and legally entitled to use deadly force in an attempt to prevent the illegal abduction of her mentally handicapped 13-year-old daughter by the child ?protection? mafia last March.Following a vaccination, Goldboldo?s daughter developed severe behavioral problems.

After Godboldo consulted with health and welfare officials, the girl was put on a psychoactive drug called Risperdal, which is notorious for severe and potentially deadly side-effects. When the child?s condition worsened, Godboldo quite sensibly discontinued the ?treatment.?

Accusing Godboldo of ?neglect,? the CPS attempted to seize the child. In defense of her daughter, Godboldo reportedly fired a gunshot at the intruders. A paramilitary SWAT team was dispatched to surround Godboldo?s home. She faced five criminal charges, including three counts of felonious assault.

In testimony before Judge Giles, CPS officials admitted that the removal order was never signed by a judge; instead, it was rubber-stamped with a forged signature by a social worker with no legal training or judicial authority. Judge Giles ruled that the order was ?ridiculous? and dismissed all charges against Godboldo ? a true heroine in the defense of her own daughter and the rights of parents everywhere.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 31, 2011

Until he either confesses to the crimes or is proven guilty to the satisfaction of a jury of his peers, David Anderson of Spring Creek, Nevada is innocent of the charges of lewd conduct with a child. The 61-year-old man was arrested by sheriff?s deputies at the nearby Elko Regional Airport, where he was employed as a screener by the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA.

The acts described in the criminal complaint could be described as a private, personalized, enhanced version of the groping and fondling committed by TSA screeners at practically every airport. Anderson is accused of placing his hands inside the clothing of a young girl, and making her watch pornographic films. What if he had invited the child to sit with him and watch as passengers were subjected to a virtual strip-search as they passed through a backscatter X-Ray machine? Would that likewise have been prosecuted as a sex crime?

This situation is all the more tragic and infuriating in light of the fact that four years ago, Elko made a valiant but unsuccessful effort to rid itself of the TSA?s hired gropers and fondlers.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 30, 2011

Five years ago, while he still afflicted this country as its Vice President, Dick Cheney visited Beaver Creek, Colorado. A local resident named Steven Howards noticed Cheney?s entourage. Howards wandered over and, from a distance of a few feet away, informed Cheney that he considered the administration?s war in Iraq to be ?reprehensible.? He then walked a short distance away, where he was joined by his family.

A few minutes later a Secret Service agent named Virgil Reichle tracked Howards down and asked if he had ?assaulted? Cheney ? who, of course, had neither been threatened nor physically harmed. Despite the fact that Howards had done nothing, he was handcuffed and arrested. After being informed that he would be charged with ?assault,? Howards was eventually charged with ?harassment? ? for politely expressing disapproval of Cheney?s public policies. That charge was dropped a month later.

Howards has filed a lawsuit against the Secret Service agent who abducted him at gunpoint. Reichle and others named in the suit have sought to have it dismissed by invoking a spurious doctrine of ?qualified immunity.?

Dick Cheney, meanwhile, is touring to promote his memoirs, which are replete with admissions of serious crimes ? including the promotion of aggressive war and torture.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 29, 2011

The Fifth Amendment dictates that government may not deprive any individual of his property ?without due process of law?; in other words, one has to be convicted of a crime before the state can impose a punishment. At least that?s how things were intended to operate in the old constitutional republic. The degenerate corporate socialist state ruling us today operates on radically different assumptions.

Like many other officials in the American Soyuz, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn embraces the approach of Vladimir Lenin?s Bolsheviks, rather than following the principles of the Framers of the Constitution. He is driving a customized high-end SUV confiscated from Charles Melvin Fox, who is accused of running a prostitution ring.
Buckhorn selected his pimped-out ride from a ?forfeiture fleet? ? that is, a large collection of autos stolen by police from people either accused of crimes or associated with them ? but not yet convicted in court.

Buckhorn insists that the SUV was seized from ?someone engaged in criminal activity.? That may or may not be true of Charles Fox. It is unambiguously true of Buckhorn, who ? as a politician ? belongs to a class of criminals more loathsome than pimps or prostitutes.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 25, 2011

The so-called ?war on drugs? led to the amalgamation of the military and domestic law enforcement. Nearly every police agency in the country now has a SWAT team ? a specialized paramilitary unit armed and equipped by the federal government, and usually trained with the help of the Pentagon. This effectively destroys the critical constitutional principle forbidding the use of a standing military as a domestic police force.

The so-called ?war on terrorism? resulted in another deadly constitutional breach. Since 2002, the NYPD, working intimately with the CIA, has created its own miniaturized version of the agency.

As reported by the AP, NYPD Civilian Intelligence Chief David Cohen, a retired career CIA officer, has created a multi-layered intelligence and surveillance apparatus. The city is divided into 12 ethnic regions supervised by officers from a ?Demographic Unit.? That unit ?maps? the city for supposed hot spots of radicalism identified by street agents called ?rakers.? Potential informants are identified and pressured into working with the ?Terrorist Interdiction Unit.? The informants and their handlers are called ?mosque-crawlers.? The NYPD also deploys assets in eight foreign countries. In short, it has become a fully functional domestic satellite of the CIA ? no doubt the first of many more to come.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 24, 2011

For the third time in less than a decade, the United States military has been used to inflict a Sharia-compliant constitution on a foreign country. The proposed draft constitution for post-Qadaffi Libya specifies that ?Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence? ? a provision nearly identical to the constitutions imposed on Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S.-created occupation governments under George W. Bush.

The rebels whom the U.S. and NATO would install as Libya?s new government entered Tripoli triumphantly chanting Islamic victory slogans. Many of them had obtained valuable combat experience by fighting American troops stationed in Iraq.

Washington?s involvement in the Libyan war is entirely illegal. Mr. Obama didn?t receive a congressional declaration of war, or even a statement of congressional approval; in fact, he didn?t even consult with Congress before committing the U.S. military to the conflict. The administration went so far as to deny that airstrikes and missile attacks on Libyan targets constituted ?hostilities.?

One ironic benefit of our economic collapse is this: It may finally put an end to demented imperial ventures of this kind.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 23, 2011

Perhaps unwittingly, contemporary songwriter Gino Vannelli offered a valid theological insight when he wrote that there is ?A Little Bit of Judas in Us All.? This trait is relentlessly exploited by the devious, opportunistic people who presume to rule the rest of us.

The Arlington and Mansfield Independent School Districts in North Texas have created an anti-truancy program called ?You Earn, They Learn.? Tiara Ellis Richard of the Arlington Police Department explains that when residents see a school-age child suspected of cutting classes, they can call in an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers. The police will then dispatch a ?school resource officer? to investigate the complaint. The informant will be paid up to $40 for each confirmed tip.

As is always the case, this rat-on-your neighbor initiative is depicted as a form of applied altruism. It will pose obvious and potentially serious problems for local homeschoolers, who can expect a great deal of unwarranted and potentially dangerous attention from the police.

Every police state relies heavily on the cooperation of those who are willing to inform on their friends in exchange for some trivial material reward ? and the intoxicating sense of righteousness that comes from being a tattle-tale.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 19, 2011

Legal activist and radio host Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice is a passionate advocate for the Israeli government, which is his right. Where the foreign policy views of Republican presidential aspirant Ron Paul are concerned, Sekulow is an impenitent liar.

During a recent Fox News Republican presidential debate, Congressman Paul was asked why he opposes economic sanctions and potential military action against Iran, which allegedly seeks to acquire nuclear weapons. Paul, a consistent advocate of free trade and non-aggression, noted that Iran is surrounded by four nuclear-armed neighbors and that it poses no threat to the United States. Threatening Iran with sanctions and war is more likely to instigate problems than solve them, Paul contends. It was possible to deal with nuclear-armed Communist regimes in Russia and China ? governments that killed tens of millions of their own subjects ? without resorting to pre-emptive war.

In a subsequent broadcast, Sekulow deliberately misrepresented Paul?s position, claiming that ?he?d be fine with Iran being the power in the Middle East? and that the congressman displayed ?anti-Semitism and [a]dislike of Jews?.?

This isn?t a mere disagreement over policy. It is a deliberate act of slander, and Sekulow must apologize to Congressman Paul.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 18, 2011

Every government action is accompanied with the tacit ? and often overt ? threat of lethal force. This is why every time someone seeks to involve a government agency in a dispute, he risks becoming an accomplice to homicide. Jan Cline?s neighbor should have considered that principle.

In June, Cline ? a senior citizen and independent businesswoman ? was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, which is among the most painful afflictions one can imagine. ?It?s a bone marrow cancer that eats through the bones and causes holes in the bones so that just by walking I can break a bone,? the resident of Salem, Oregon told a local television station.

To raise money for her treatment, Cline has held several yard sales, being careful to lay out the merchandise in her backyard so as not to create a problem. The sales were bringing in several hundred dollars a week until a neighbor, who somehow managed to take offense, called city officials to file a protest. The city sent a code enforcement official who ordered Cline to desist.

?I?m sorry ? rules are rules,? the municipal jackboot told Cline.

The people responsible for this act of officious cruelty are perfectly capable of herding their neighbors into death camps.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

August 17, 2011

Morgan Reynolds of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis is a prominent advocate of building prisons not where the crime is but where the jobs are.

Decisions regarding prison construction should be based on ?commercial opportunities,? rather than the crime rate, according to Reynolds: "It's pretty clear that's where the future is if we're going to grow our prison population."

The Texas State Legislature ? which seems perversely determined to criminalize every conceivable activity ? certainly did its formidable best to expand the prison population. Many small communities tried to profit from the prison boom. Among them was Littlefield, a town of 6,000 that borrowed $10 million to build a large medium-security prison.

In 2009, following the suicide of an inmate from Idaho who was kept in solitary confinement for a year as a punitive measure, Littlefield?s municipal government was left with a deserted jail ? and local residents were stuck with huge tax increases. Littlefield eventually had to auction off the jail at a loss. Lubbock and several other Texas cities who built their economies on the incarceration bubble are likely to follow.

A growing prison population is a symptom of societal sickness, not a source of economic benefit.

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