Will Grigg's Liberty Minutes
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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 27, 2010

Unlike most members of the House of Representatives, the worthy and reliable exception being, of course, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson has been willing to confront the official counterfeiters of the Federal Reserve and the architects of the warfare state – that is, the people who are bankrupting our country and pauperizing its citizens.

Grayson is to be commended for his proposed “War is Making You Poor” Act, a measure co-sponsored by Rep. Paul that would end the practice of expanding the Pentagon’s expenditures for war and weapons development through “off-budget” emergency appropriations.
It would force the Pentagon to operate within the official budget.

Economist Robert Higgs observes that more than 90 percent of the publicly held national debt in 2006 was a direct outgrowth of wars and other military expenditures. Not to understate the role played by entitlements, the warfare state, , which devours at least $1 trillion annually is literally killing our economy.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 26, 2010

On March 11, Lars Gardner of St. George, Utah plowed his car into a tan Buick carrying 71-year-old Karen Gummow, and 75-year-old Illa Jean Moore. Gardner emerged without a scratch. Neither woman survived.

Despite being entirely at fault in the fatal accident, Gardner, a Utah Highway Patrolman, faces no criminal charges.

At the time of the crash, Gardner was driving 86 miles an hour in a 40 MPH zone, en route to the scene of a separate accident that had taken place a half hour earlier. After the call came Gardner took time to dress and grab a snack. Obviously it wasn’t necessary for him to drive like a maniac and risk the lives of others.

Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL reports that “pressure was placed on investigators to clear Gardner of any wrongdoing and, despite an investigator’s recommendation to charge him, he was cleared.”

A beneficiary of commonplace official corruption often called “professional courtesy,” Gardner is once again behind the wheel of a patrol car.

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

Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 25, 2010

Athletic competition, plus a large gathering of male spectators, multiplied by alcohol, often equals fistfights. This is especially true of events involving boxing or other combat sports.

Thus it’s not all that surprising that a fight broke out among spectators at a recent amateur boxing tournament in Sacramento, California. What is notable is the fact that the scuffle – in which at least one chair was thrown – involved off-duty police officers.
The event in question was a “Badge vs. Badge” boxing event pitting a representative of the Oakland Police Department’s SWAT team against the reigning champion, a prison guard from Vacaville.

According to Steve Fosum, who promoted the officially sanctioned fight, the unsanctioned fight in the audience “was totally instigated by the Oakland PD…. They chose to be jerks instead of law enforcement.”

As a result the Oakland Police Department is now banned from local amateur boxing events. Although they haven’t the self-discipline to be spectators, they’re still authorized to arrest and shoot people.

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

Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 24, 2010

Governments and criminal syndicates do more or less the same kinds of things: They push people around, take their property, and occasionally kill them. It’s difficult to tell which of these two rackets takes its cues from the other.

There is reason to believe that private sector criminals take notes on government methods of harassment and plunder and mimic them when given the opportunity. One terrifying example is provided by the recent experience of two women from Houston, Texas.

Late in the evening on April 22, a woman and her daughter encountered a bogus police roadblock modeled after highway checkpoints that have become quite commonplace. As they pulled to a stop, the women were surrounded by men who – with guns drawn and amid a barrage of profanity – ordered the women from the car. The driver had the good sense to hit the gas and pull away.

Had the women – who had done nothing wrong – attempted to flee overzealous police at a government roadblock they would most likely be dead.

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

Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 21, 2010

Within hours of his resounding victory in Kentucky’s Republican senate primary, Rand Paul – the ophthalmologist son of Rep. Ron Paul – came under concerted attack by the custodians of acceptable opinion regarding his views of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Paul has expressed the view that government shouldn’t punish business and property owners who choose to discriminate. This is regarded as a dire heresy by those who believe that government coercion, rather than mutually beneficial commerce and moral persuasion, is the key to better living.

Paul’s position is that business owners willing to absorb the economic costs of discrimination should be free to do so, on the assumption that the market won’t reward business decisions based on bigotry.

In the face of the media onslaught, Paul has equivocated about his view, which is unfortunate. The public mood is congenial to a debate over the merits of open-ended, totalitarian federal micro-management of private affairs. This is why the sycophantic scribes in the state-centered media focused their wrath on Rand Paul.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 20, 2010

“I figured this is a government worker, [so] I’m safe,” recalled Amy Schmalbach of Pennsauken, New Jersey, explaining why she allowed a man who called himself Jaime Shepard into her home.

The 47-year-old man employed by the Census Bureau is actually named Frank J. Kuni, and he had been convicted of sexually assaulting an underage girl and inappropriate behavior with two other children.

Kuni looked familiar to Mrs. Schmalbach, but any misgivings she felt were neutralized by the government-issued credentials he displayed. That’s why this housewife was willing to provide him with detailed information about her children. It wasn’t until he left that she recalled seeing his photograph in the New Jersey Sex Offender Registry.

Things could have turned out worse for Mrs. Schmalbach. A Census Bureau employee named Daniel Miller is accused of raping a disabled woman in southern Indiana.

When an employee of the Regime materializes on your doorstep, the proper question isn’t “What could go wrong?” but rather “What could possibly go right?”

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 19, 2010

Is a Taser a “deadly” weapon, or a “non-lethal” instrument? As with so many things, the answer to this question depends on the identity of the person wielding the device, rather than its function or the uses to which it is put.

Even in cases involving clear-cut official misconduct, police rarely if ever face felony assault charges when they use a Taser improperly or threaten to do so. However, citizens who behave in similar fashion can expect to face that charge, and any related charges with which a creative prosecutor can fill a docket.

A resident of Daytona Beach, Florida was recently charged with felonious aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for threatening another person with a stun gun – a low-power, commercially available version of the more common police-issue Taser. The defendant, who threatened an employee at a fast food restaurant over a botched order, never actually used the device.

Had the defendant been wearing a government-issued costume, she would face a suspension or perhaps termination, rather than a prison term.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 18, 2010

Seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was sleeping on the couch in the living room of her family’s Detroit home when the SWAT team arrived at midnight. Seconds later, Aiyana was dead.

The official story is that a sidearm was accidentally discharged while a SWAT operator struggled with Aiyana’s 46-year-old grandmother. An attorney for the family claims that a video of the incident shows that a shot was fired into the house before the SWAT team entered.

The purpose of this operation was to arrest a murder suspect, who reportedly was found in the other half of the duplex. Why carry out a midnight SWAT raid on a home occupied by children? The most obvious answer is that the Detroit Police wanted to stage a telegenic operation for an A&E cable network camera crew that was embedded with the SWAT team.

By serving their PR needs, the police not only failed to protect Aiyana Jones, they killed her through depraved indifference. May God grant peace to her soul, and comfort to her family.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 17, 2010

From 2005 until 2008, Solicitor General and prospective Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was part of an advisory board to the Goldman Sachs investment banking conglomerate.

Kagan was formally associated with Goldman during a period when its corporate leadership was cynically bundling bad mortgage loans into marketable securities.

While Goldman was selling those junk securities in one department, another department was hedging against them in the knowledge that the housing market would bust. This can reasonably be described as a form of deliberate criminal fraud.

The Obama administration, like its immediate predecessors, is thickly populated with so-called “Goldies” – that is, people who have been employed by Goldman Sachs or received contributions or other emoluments from the bank. Goldman is Obama’s second-largest campaign contributor, something that most likely played a role in Obama’s 2008 vote in support of a bank bailout he had described in detail as an act of corrupt cynicism.

Corporate socialism is just as fatal to freedom and prosperity as any other variety.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 14, 2010

When persistence inflicts unjustified injury on others, it ceases to be a virtue. The War on Drugs offers a splendid illustration of that principle.

Over the past 40 years, the Federal Government has spent more than a trillion dollars, imprisoned millions, killed thousands, and exported violence to Mexico, Columbia, and elsewhere in its crusade to regulate the bloodstream of individual Americans. Yet the rate of illegal drug use among youth is the same as it was in 1970; the rate of addiction is likewise unchanged; drugs are more available than ever; and narcotics-related corruption is widespread among law enforcement personnel.

The lasting impacts of this misbegotten crusade can be seen in the militarization of law enforcement, the institutionalization of officially sanctioned theft in the name of asset forfeiture, and the creation of the world’s largest prison population. Nearly all of the criminal violence associated with illegal immigration is blow-back from the War on Drugs.

Persisting in this course of action isn’t a virtue; it’s a crime.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 13, 2010

Emily Dennis of Picture Rocks, Arizona was charged with 21 counts of animal cruelty in February 2008. Acting on suspicion that she and her boyfriend were breeding stock for dogfights, county authorities seized and destroyed 110 dogs. The trial judge then dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

Pima County assistant district attorney Kevin Krejci is continuing civil asset forfeiture proceedings to seize Patrick’s property, despite the fact that criminal charges have been dismissed.

According to Krejci, “being acquitted means the state was unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn’t necessarily mean that criminal activity didn’t occur on the property in question.”

In fact, as a matter of law, that is exactly what it means: If the state can’t prove the charges, the alleged criminal activity, for all intents and purposes, didn’t occur. The only provable criminal conduct here is that carried out by Krejci and his cohorts, who – like hundreds of their disreputable ilk nation-wide – are stealing property in the name of asset forfeiture.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 12, 2010

Rod Tuason apparently suffers from a personality disorder common to professional bullies — a tendency to think that bullying behavior is hilarious.

Tuason, a detective with the East Palo Alto Police Department, used his Facebook page last February to joke about shooting “open carry” advocates.

“Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night!” wrote Tuason. “Should’ve pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them makes a furtive movement … 2 weeks off!!!”

East Palo Alto Mayor David E. Woods told a local TV station that while he disapproved of Tuason’s comments, he is “concerned — although it’s legal — about people walking around with firearms.”
That is to say that Woods is more concerned about law-abiding private citizens exercising a constitutionally protected right than the fact that a police detective can joke about murdering innocent citizes with impunity.

Incidentally, the case against Michigan’s Hutaree Militia is based on exactly the same kind of adolescent humor in which Tuason engaged.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 11, 2010

Sometimes it seems as if the U.S. Constitution should be published with a disclaimer, such as “Void where prohibited by law” or “Warning: Contents may offend the politically correct.” To judge from the disdain displayed by politicians and policymakers, the Constitution contained an expiration date of 1913 and is essentially irrelevant to contemporary concerns.

Walter Olson of the Cato Institute reports that a paperback copy of the Constitution published in 2008 by Wilder Press contains the following warning label:

“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

A similar caveat is attached by the publisher to its edition of the Federalist Papers, which is likewise considered unsuitable for children without appropriate, politically correct parental guidance.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 10, 2010

Without congressional action of any kind, American taxpayers have been forced to surrender hundreds of billions of dollars to backstop European banks and prop up the EU’s fiat currency, the euro.

On May 9 – a Sunday – the Federal Reserve announced “a program to ship U.S. dollars to Europe in a move to head off a broader financial crisis on the continent.” The so-called “dollar swap,” which will continue at least until January of next year, will involve undisclosed amounts of money created by the Fed, its value siphoned away from what each of us has earned and saved.

At the same time, U.S. taxpayers are being plundered for at least 17 percent of the roughly $1 trillion being spent by the International Monetary Fund to prop up the euro. he debt contagion that has claimed GreeceT is threatening Spain, Portugal, and other EU members, thereby imperiling the superstate’s fiat currency.

None of this would be happening to us if we were, in any sense, an independent constitutional republic.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 7, 2010

Veteran law enforcement officers are among the most impassioned critics of Arizona’s new immigration law.

The new law authorizes police to demand proof of legal residency during any “lawful contact” with a member of the public. Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris believes it will “divert our officers from investigating property crimes and violent crimes….” That criticism is echoed by Clarence Dupnik, Sheriff of Arizona’s Pima County.

Defenders of the new law insist that illegal immigration has turned Arizona into an Hobbesian nightmare of violent crime. Phoenix, we are told, is the kidnapping capital of the country. As it happens, immigration – both legal and illegal – is declining in Arizona. Violent crime of all kinds is down. This includes kidnapping , which is confined to those involved in narcotics smuggling; in other words, it’s blowback from the “War on Drugs.”

Several states are preparing to enact Arizona-style identification laws. They would be wise to wait and see if the concerns of Chief Harris and Sheriff Dupnik are vindicated.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 6, 2010

As we’ve recently observed, an unprecedented number of Americans living abroad are being driven to repudiate their U.S. citizenship because of double taxation.

Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman has proposed a new measure that would strip U.S. citizenship from any American suspected of association with an organization designated a terrorist group by the State Department.

Involuntary expatriation would be done through an administrative process. It wouldn’t require a criminal conviction, indictment, or even a formal charge. According to Lieberman, it would be necessary only to show an “association” between a citizen and a designated terrorist group. The State Department could employ secret evidence against the subject, and suppress exculpatory evidence on “national security” grounds.

The objective is to make it possible to deprive U.S. citizens of due process guarantees and make them subject to trial by military tribunals. Arbitrary, extra-judicial revocation of citizenship is a critical element of a Soviet-style system of institutionalized injustice.

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

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Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 5, 2010

Which is the greater danger to a seven-year-old child: A father possessing a minuscule amount of marijuana, or a home invasion carried out by marauders packing military-grade firearms?

On February 11, a SWAT team staged a nighttime drug raid on the home of Columbia, Missouri resident Jonathan Whitworth. Their first act was to shoot and kill one family dog; then they killed another in front of Whitworth’s seven-year-old son.

After terrorizing Whitworth’s wife and child, the Stormtroopers found barely enough marijuana to justify a misdemeanor charge against the 25-year-old father. Whitworth was also charged with child endangerment, owing to the fact that the military-style raid mounted by the police to deal with a misdemeanor narcotics charge jeopardized his son.

A video recording captured the Soviet-style raid in all its malignant glory. Hundreds of similar raids take place every day in the United States. Many choose to believe this kind of thing only happens in one of “those” countries. We are one of “those” countries.

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

Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 4, 2010

During the White House Correspondents Dinner a few years ago, former President Bush narrated a series of photos in which he seemed to be searching for something. The punchline was that he was looking in and around his desk in the Oval Office for the missing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – thereby making light of the lies that led to a stupid, useless war that has slaughtered tens of thousands.

Barack Obama actually topped that feat of tastelessness during this year’s dinner by telling a joke about assassinating the singing Jonas Brothers if they displayed improper attention toward his daughters: “Two words: Predator drones. You’ll never see it coming.”

Hundreds of innocent people have died from drone strikes ordered by Obama, who maintains an actual hit list of U.S. citizens subject to summary execution from above.

Bullies and rulers alike enjoy the privilege of making cruel jokes at their victims’ expense. They do so in the serene confidence that underlings and flatterers will laugh heartily, or at least pretend to.

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

Will Grigg’s Liberty Minute

May 3, 2010

At first glance, the TV ad seems like an Orwellian satire.
Under the narration of a vaguely mechanical female voice, the earth is shown from the perspective of a distantly orbiting surveillance satellite.

“Your name is Tom. You live just off Fifth Street,” recites the voice. “Nice house, Tom. Nice car. What’s not so nice is that you owe Pennsylvania $4212 in back taxes. “

As the camera pulls closer to the ground, the narrator urges “Tom” to pay the assessment by June 18.

“Tom, we know who you are,” concludes the clip as what appears to be a targeting scope focuses on a specific house. The closing title card warns: “Find us before we find you.”

This isn’t a satire. It is a public service spot produced by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, paid for with tax dollars extorted from “Tom” and millions like him. It is a potent illustration of the tax-consuming class’s unremitting war against the productive – and the totalitarian means at their disposal.

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