Brian’s Column: The Blood of Patriots and Tyrants

Reflections on John Adams and Tax Day (2008)

Adams2And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? The remedy is to set them [the rulers] right as to the facts….  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

—Thomas Jefferson

The full quote from Mr. Jefferson can be found in a number of places on the Web, but be advised as you fire up your browser: Homeland Security will probably be looking over your shoulder. Strange how far we’ve gone down Tyranny Road without so much as a peep from the general nonlibertarian population—perhaps such lack of resistance is explained by another Jeffersonian passage:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Which, as we all know, is from the Declaration of Independence.

[Note: This is a column originally posted in 2008 in conjunction with ‘tax day.’ Which I used to dread, but now know differently having read and practiced the discoveries of Pete Hendrickson from Cracking the Code. I have purposely jettisoned that section dealing with ‘tax day’ from this transcription of the 2008 column.]

In the Tom Hanks-produced HBO Series, John Adams (and the book by David McCullough on which the series is faithfully based), modern-day patriots will watch the second episode, Independence, with constant chills.  Mr. Adams, his cousin Samuel, and the entire New England delegations to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia advocate forcefully that “these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states….” The reason I get chills—indeed, I feel them now and every time I consider the rigors conveyed by Independence—is that these are my people and I’m awestruck by the intelligence and courage of their convictions.  And I feel we mustn’t betray them.

These were men of principle and action.  It was a time when life for most colonists was still relatively “nasty, brutish, and short,” when the journey from Boston to Philadelphia required two weeks, when the population of Philadelphia was merely 30,000 (Boston, half that), when smallpox and other diseases killed many—life expectancy was perhaps 40—and news traveled only as fast as wind and horse.  How did the ideas of liberty, much more the rumblings of revolution, take root in so rugged a New World?  From the hot stirrings of Sam Adams to the coolly passionate arguings of Thomas Paine (Common Sense) to the agitations of ideologs in Williamsburg, Virginia, the spirit of The Rights of Man was breaking out all over.  Adams himself put it best:

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations… This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. — John Adams

And of course the ideas of the Enlightenment—from lonely often persecuted writers and scholars in Scotland, France, England, etc.—had through several generations given rise to “…the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people” on the verge of independence and constitutional self government.  But, as we read in David McCullough’s book or see in Tom Hanks’ series, American freedom would have been stillborn had not men of conviction—John Adams appears to have been the leader in this regard—stood their ground, worked together, and told King George and his corporate lackeys[1] to stick it where the sun don’t shine.  [Signers of the Declaration of Independence were fully aware they could be hanged as traitors should they fail.][2]

Fast forward to April 15, 2008

[From the original column posted in 2008:]
As I pointed out in my article on the Free State Liberty Forum back in January, recent activities of the US federal government, in particular, evince a clear design to “reduce us under absolute despotism:”

  1. The illegal and arbitrary raid on the Liberty Dollar
  2. The attempted injunction against Bill Benson’s First Amendment rights for promoting his book, The Law that Never Was.
  3. Barriers to 9/11 Truth
  4. The continuing Drug War atrocities
  5. The continuing War atrocities
  6. Depleted uranium poisoning
  7. The apparent refusal of the Supreme Court to rule on the redress of grievances petition by We the People for Constitutional Education
  8. Dismissal of the lawsuit against the DEA to allow North Dakota farmers to grow agricultural hemp
  9. Border guards entering trains, stopping cars, insisting on showing your papers
  10. Immigration proposals to biochip all Americans
  11. The North American Union and the Texas Transcontinental Corridor (TTC)
  12. An aggressive military buildup of weapons in space by the US government (to rain down hell on any who resist empire)
  13. Secret programs of the NSS (national security state) producing killers and terror false flags… e.g. 9/11
  14. Massive voter fraud and electronic elections tampering

The above infractions are representative of a much longer list.  We have more than enough justification for withdrawing our allegiance and our financial support.  Our system of government no longer abides by the founding documents in any substantial way; indeed, with torture and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the continued ordinary liberty—the freedom to go about our affairs without state interference—of any of us no longer exists. The king’s agents may this very day, without any pretense of law, swoop down, throw you in jail, torture you, kill you… and not tell anyone.  I’m not making this up.  Only the thinnest of cultural barriers prevents widespread roundup of “dissidents.”

Will they?  Who knows.  We know they’ve already sent several people away—mostly on tax, gun, and drug charges—or expropriated their businesses, as with the aggression on the Liberty Dollar offices.  [Comes the revolution, my friends, the first order of business is your liberation.] As I speculated in my seminal column for the year, I feel 2008 is a tipping point.  For example, such a seemingly small freedom as legal agricultural hemp will probably collapse cartel oil and agribusiness.  In another realm, if the truth about federal agency planning and execution of 9/11 breaks out (Jesse Ventura’s mantra that “two planes do not bring down three buildings, certainly not in a free-fall disintegration” may be a tipper), a whole lotta federal Lucys will have some serious “‘splainin’ to do.”

Candidly, I feel the days of federal tyranny are numbered.  Mainly because we freedom people have only to tip one major issue our way for massive decontrol/decentralization of power to occur.  On the other hand, the US corporate state(s) has to contain, what, 20 to 30, serious brushfires of liberation at the same time.  It’s running out of money, and it’s running out of popular support.  Could it launch a “10/12” followup attack to 9/11, declare a national emergency, and march the decades-in-the-making-dumbed-down American booboosie full-tilt boogie toward Prison Planet?[3]  Yes, it could, but I believe that ship has sailed.

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[1] I’m fond of pointing out, according to Thom Hartmann’s book on illegitimate corporate power Unequal Protection, a significant incentive toward revolutionary independence was the Crown’s insistence on according the chartered East India Company—of which the king was a stockholder—special privileges over American businesses.

[2] There’s a well-known document many of us have seen that claims the Declaration’s signers were almost universally scourged by the Brits.  Even though, the signers bore risks and some suffered, that document appears to be dubious as shown in this article on Urban Legends.

[3] This has disturbed me deeply, the fact that FEMA has built more than 800 detention centers for purposes that are unclear.  It’s something to ponder, but I tend to feel the National Guard is largely deployed in quagmires overseas and not enough military and police resources would cooperate.

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