Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 30, 2011

Political government ? to the extent it has any legitimacy at all -- must be limited to protecting life and property from aggression and deliberate fraud. Tutoring people in moral behavior, and imposing sanctions for immoral acts, are roles properly carried out by other institutions, the family being the most important.

As the British philosopher of liberty John Locke observed, parental authority is ordained by the Creator, not the State, and cannot be properly alienated to the government. The opposite view, known by the legal expression ?Parens Patriae? ? roughly translated as the fatherhood of the State ? undermines parental authority and leads eventually to totalitarianism.

Focus on the Family described a recent Supreme Court decision striking down a California ordinance restricting sale or rental of violent video games to children as a ?disappointment for parents.? The group expressed the hope that state governments will continue to carry out what it described as their responsibility ?to protect children from violent material.? But that approach expands the pernicious doctrine of parens patriae, rather than enhancing the legitimate authority of parents to protect their children.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 29, 2011

Tax victims in Illinois have the option of directing a portion of the funds extorted from them toward private charities. Unfortunately, this tax return check-off program entrusts those funds to the criminal enterprise called the Illinois state government.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the state government ?has borrowed about $1.17 million this fiscal year from money that taxpayers designate on their tax returns for charitable use. ? This isn?t ?borrowing?; it?s simple embezzlement at worst, and criminal fraud at best. In addition to the supposedly ?borrowed? funds, the Illinois government has ?swept? ? that is, stolen outright ? at least another $434,000.

Given the profligacy of the Illinois state government, these amounts are comparatively minuscule. But even small amounts of money can make a dramatic difference for groups engaged in actual charity, rather than coercive wealth redistribution. Food banks, emergency nurseries and shelters, and community-based health care organizations have been denied promised funds while the state government scrambles to protect its unionized tax-feeder constituencies.

It?s quite likely that similar official embezzlement is happening elsewhere.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 28, 2011

Every day ? most likely, many times each day ? Americans find their lives torn apart because police and other enforcement agencies treat a single accusation, often made anonymously, as if it were legitimate evidence.

Since the mid-1970s, the federal government has subsidized child abuse ?hotlines? and protected the anonymity of accusers ? despite the fact that the Bill of Rights supposedly protects the right of the accused to confront his accuser. Countless thousands of families have been destroyed as a result of a furtive, unsubstantiated allegation made in a call to a so-called child ?protective? agency.

The same practice is increasingly common in narcotics investigations: The word of a confidential informant ? often a petty criminal seeking leniency ? is enough to send a fully armed SWAT team to any address in this supposedly free country. The same principle operates in foreign policy: CIA-conducted drone strikes against purported terrorists are frequently launched in response to claims made by a single paid informant. Thousands of entirely innocent people have been killed as a result.

There?s a reason why the Devil is called the ?accuser? ? and why the Bible demands that the truth be established by two or more witnesses.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 27, 2011

A crew from a local moving company was helping Ross Taylor settle into his new home in Gilbert, Arizona when at least a dozen masked and heavily armed SWAT operators materialized on the doorstep and demanded entry.

The three employees from the moving company were handcuffed and detained for an hour while the police searched the home and interrogated Taylor.

There was marijuana in Taylor's home, but it wasn't contraband. Taylor is a card-carrying medical marijuana patient who is permitted to own up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana. The police raid followed a tip from the individual who had just installed Taylor?s satellite dish: Spying a small amount of pot in the home, the dutiful collectivist drone called the police.

Even if we embrace the wrong-headed assumption that drug prohibition is a defensible policy, Taylor did nothing illegal. Yet his home was besieged by a dozen heavily armed commandos in ski masks because he was in possession of a single ounce of legally obtained marijuana.

Many terms are suitable to describe a society in which this can happen. The word ?free? is not on that list.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 24, 2011

Earlier this year, the Georgia state legislature enacted House Bill 87, a measure intended to crack down on illegal immigrant labor. As one commentator chortled, the bill sent illegal immigrants ?scampering? from the state. Now the same people who enacted that measure are scampering to repair the damage done to the largest sector of Georgia?s economy.

Observes Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
?Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars? worth of blueberries, onions, melons, and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they?ve done to Georgia?s largest industry.?

As a result, Bookman continues, ?People are going to lose their crops, and in some cases their farms. The small-town businesses that supply those farms with goods and services are going to suffer as well.?

To compensate for the labor shortage, Governor Nathan Deal has proposed using prisoners as farm workers ? an approach that somewhat resembles Communist China?s prison labor system.

While there are costs associated with illegal immigration, it?s difficult to see how Georgia?s current situation is an improvement over the previous status quo.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 23, 2011

A few weeks ago, Washington announced the death of one-time CIA subcontractor Osama bin Laden. On June 22, the FBI crossed the second name off its Most Wanted list by arresting fugitive mob boss James ?Whitey? Bulger, who ? like bin Laden ? had once been one of the federal government?s prized assets.

In 1996, Bulger took flight after learning from FBI Special Agent John Connolly that the Feds were prepared to arrest him and charge him with scores of murders. Connolly and John Bulger had a productive partnership: The FBI agent made the mobster a ?top-echelon informant,? using him to roll up the Boston branch of La Cosa Nostra, better known as the Mafia. This permitted Bulger?s Winter Hill Gang to seize control of Boston?s organized crime scene, while Connolly rose meteorically through the FBI?s ranks.

Connolly took a hands-on role in protecting his prize informant, on one occasion actually taking part in a mob hit. He and John Bulger also enjoyed a corrupt partnership with John?s brother William, who was president of the Massachusetts Senate.

The case of Whitey Bulger illustrates how seamlessly the criminal underworld blends with the unfathomably corrupt political ?overworld.?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 22, 2011

Sometimes an acronym says it all. This is certainly true of the Transportation Security Authority?s so-called VIPER teams, which are deployed with increasing frequency everywhere Americans seek to exercise our innate freedom of travel.

VIPER stands for Visible Intermodal Protection and Response ? sure, it?s a sloppy fit, but it makes a snappy logo ? and the term refers to multi-agency gangs of armed functionaries under the supervision of the TSA.

The TSA started out by groping and irradiating airline passengers and stealing their property without improving the security of air travel in any measurable way. The VIPER teams initially focused their unwanted and counterproductive attention on Amtrak and Metro stations. More recently, however, the VIPER teams have given themselves the assignment of pestering their betters at practically every significant node of commerce and travel. They have even started to conduct warrantless searches of private automobiles.

The program?s original purpose, explains the Washington Post, was to ?provide a beefed-up law enforcement presence at ? public transit stations over the busy holiday period. ? Now it is simply another way the Regime can harass people in search of prosecutable activity ? or for property that can be confiscated in the name of asset forfeiture.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 21, 2011

Hampton, Virginia resident William Cooper, a 69-year-old NASA retiree afflicted with cataracts, had slept late on June 18, as he did most Saturday mornings. Startled awake by two armed intruders, Cooper grabbed a gun on his nightstand and reportedly opened fire.

The invaders returned fire, killing him. Their ringleader insists that this was an act of ?justified self-defense? even though they had forced their way into the home.

The assailants, of course, were police officers. They were carrying out a search warrant based on an unsupported allegation from an anonymous informant that Cooper was illegally selling painkillers from his home. Police refused to say whether illicit drugs were found in the home, which almost always means that no evidence of a crime was found.

Were we living in a constitutional republic, rather than a degenerate garrison state, potentially lethal police raids would not be launched on the word of a single accuser. They wouldn?t be permitted to force open doors, with guns drawn, to carry out search warrants. They wouldn?t provoke gunplay that endangers entire neighborhoods. And they wouldn?t be enforcing illegitimate drug laws in the first place.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 20, 2011

In his recent letter to Congress defending the patently illegal and unconstitutional war in Libya, Barack Obama insisted that the War Powers Act of 1973 doesn?t apply because the U.S. is not engaged in ?hostilities? against Libya.

What this presumably means is that attacking a country with missiles and bombs, and providing air support to an insurgent army that was organized and equipped with Washington?s assistance, amounts to ?congenialities,? rather than hostilities. But such tortured semantic engineering can be expected from an administration that insists that it isn?t waging war, but rather engaging in ?kinetic military action? in Libya.

In that connection it?s useful to note that nine civilians ? including two small children ? were the most recent beneficiaries of the Obama Regime?s kinetic military congenialities.

Karl W. Eikenberry, the departing U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, used a public address to rebuke Afghan President Hamid Karzai for describing U.S. military forces as ?occupiers? of that country.

Through eyes heavy with unshed tears, Eikenberry described such talk as unbearably offensive. Soviet occupation officials doubtless made similar protests during their ten-year humanitarian errand in Afghanistan.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 17, 2011

In a society ruled by law, the purpose of peace officers is to help defend individuals threatened by force and fraud. In a policed society such as ours, law enforcement agents exist to exercise force on behalf of the state and to aid its efforts to profit through fraud.

Maryland?s Anne Arundel County Police Department offers a perfect example of how police agencies actually operate.

In 2009, that police department set up a fraudulent account for ?Linwood Payment Solutions? to process payments for online gambling. The funds were deposited directly into the federal government?s asset forfeiture fund. Earlier this year, the Feds seized the online domains and other assets of online gambling sites ? and smugly instructed Americans who had participated in online gambling, none of whom committed a prosecutable offense, to contact the websites if they wanted to get their funds back.

Those funds, of course, had already been stolen by the Feds. For its role in the heist, the Anne Arundel County Police Department netted a cut of nearly a half-million dollars, which will be used to fund the SWAT teams employed to carry out smash-and-grab invasions under the rubric of the ?War on Drugs.?

No other criminal racket can compete with the one called ?government.?

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