What is tyranny? How should we define it? To the founding fathers of America, tyranny was “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism…” To narrow it further, Thomas Jefferson said that tyranny is “when something is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.” Oxford languages defines it as “cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.” Too often people have abused the word and watered down its meaning. “The tyranny of the nine-to-five” or saying that someone is a tyrant or a dictator for causing them a minor inconvenience.
Watering down this word has harmed us as a society because it causes the word to have no meaning to people. When members of the Roman senate assassinated Julius Caesar, they proclaimed “SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!” When John Wilkes Booth fired his pistol into the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head; a man he and many others believed to be a tyrant, Booth shouted those same words. The phrase is so powerful that in 1776 the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted it as its official motto and today the phrase is still stamped onto the seal of that land.
Translated, the phrase means “Thus always to tyrants” and suggests that bad but justified outcomes should or eventually will befall Tyrants. It is a reminder to those who would abuse their authority that they will not be long for this world. It is and should rightly be the most powerful statement in a free society. Not only should it be spoken to those who genuinely act tyrannical, but the actions it suggests should be carried out in due course, but not so long as the meaning of the phrase becomes diluted. We should heed this advice and apply it judiciously and appropriately.
Thomas Pain writes “Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.”
When looking at the Constitutional Republic, such as ours in America, we are able to place blame quickly but not often accurately. When things go wrong in our system; the President is blamed by the citizenry, then he will deny it is his fault and push blame to Congress, who in turn will blame the political parties that which oppose them. By the time the citizenry finds who is actually to blame for their suffering, their energy has been expended in so many directions that were fruitless that only the most fanatical of them are willing to continue on this path of placing blame.
While it can become confusing as to who is directly to blame for the suffering in our political system, all we needs must do is look at who each political party blames - each other. No matter the issue, surely the opposition is to blame! And while the politicians blame each other for the suffering of the citizenry, they somehow manage to convince people to consistently vote them into power.
What was once a noble action, determining the best person to represent and fight for you politically, has been usurped by checking a box that has either an R or a D next to it. No longer does a candidate's policy positions affect the average citizen's choice, but their party affiliation is their prime qualifier. And herein lies the problem of our system. We have abdicated our representation in politics. By allowing this abdication, we have left the door open to an increasingly long string of incompetent and counter Republican politicians. And I’m not speaking of the GOP when I say Republican.
Our political representatives, no longer subject to the citizenry, are beholden to private corporations and individuals who hold their purse strings. Political campaigns are financed by these entities, expecting a return on their investment when their candidate gets into office. The politician then ensures their patron gets preferential treatment - early access to restricted information, no bid contracts, and legislation entered that when turned into law would benefit their patron or push an agenda that they have.
Is this not a form of tyranny? For often the agenda they pursue is counter to our Constitutional Republic. Often they seek to whittle away our natural rights, rob us of our capitol, and arrest our pursuit of happiness. I would declare that these are not isolated incidents, but a long train of abuses and usurpations with a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, wrapped in the flag of the Federal government.
So if our recourse rests not in the hands of the President, our own elected sovereign, nor in our representatives in Congress, then it must fall to the judiciary. The last legal check in our system of checks and balances will surely stand against tyranny and champion the cause of the citizenry! But what happens to our system when the supreme arbitrators of justice, the highest court in our borders, is filled with political appointees. What happens when they rule against the two other branches of government and then are increased in size and packed with additional yesmen?
We need not look too far. On the 8th of June, 2022 the Supreme Court ruled on a case that reinforces the immunity of Federal Agents from lawsuits related to claims of violations of Constitutional rights. In Egbert v. Boule, the court showed that they are an instrument of the bloated government. Yes, they are still a check on power, but no longer on government power but on our own.
And what of these agents of law enforcement, the muscle behind the politicians? It has been ruled in the Supreme Court, time and again, that law enforcement has no duty to protect you. So this would make them nothing more than mercenary highwaymen; whose job is to extract money from you, restrict your rights, and to collect a paycheck. They are not protectors of the citizenry, but of the State. When questioned, the most common reply from these agents of the law is “that they don’t make the laws, they just enforce them” showing a lack of critical thinking on their part as they echo a concept that is fully Hitlarian.
The lack of critical thinking exercised by law enforcement personnel is a window into where we are as a society. By abdicating our own security into the hands of the mercenaries of the state, we have allowed tyranny to slip in. Then, like the good tories of old, there is a large group amongst the citizenry who will defend law enforcement and their agents' actions till judgment day. These people cannot fathom a world without “a cop on every corner”. They have always been in our lands, but somehow they are everywhere these days. It is our duty to exclude these loyalists from our world.
And as for our duties, to what more of it must we rally? One hundred millions of people in this land who are armed and loudly proclaim their willingness to action, just not yet! That we must wait for a critical mass, a Lexington green moment, or someone else to light the wick on the candle of liberty. That the “arsenal of democracy” is too great and they would rather let our legal system be the battlefield until we must take the fight to the hills.
To these voices, I will directly quote Patrick Henry of Virginia from his March 1775 speech to the Second Virginia Convention: “They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies have bound us hand and foot?”
Your inaction has led us to this place in history. By compromising our natural rights away, you have signaled to the tyrants that have taken roost in our capitals that the armed citizenry is nothing more than a paper tiger. That a swift breeze and a little patience will get them their desired outcome. Listen closely, your time is up.
Either you, the compromising gun owner, stand with us or be branded as traitors. Your voices will be alienated, isolated, and disregarded should you continue on your path. You have failed to protect us from tyranny and now it is up to the new generation of gun owners to take back what you bartered away.
When all of the above is taken into account, many will wonder “what next?” or “where do we go from here?”. When you ask most Americans if the country should become separate regions, they often respond that it should. But there are those who say “absolutely not” or that they would support it but China would invade so we shouldn’t. These people are not grounded in reality.
When a couple finds that nothing has helped them; not talking to one another, not asking their friends for advice or even seeking professional help, they end their relationship and amicably go their separate ways.
Foreign military action here has been rendered to the realm of fiction. Red Dawn is not going to happen. The occupying force here wouldn’t wear the flag of a foreign nation or a blue helmet, they do wear the American flag however. They call themselves the National Guard or the police, and they demand that you thank them for their service, even if that service is incinerating 72 Americans in West Texas.
These people don't speak for you and I. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. We know that our history is full of rebellions. From Concord bridge to Federal Hill; from Daniel Shays to the Whiskey Rebellion, Fries’s rebellion and the German Coast Uprising. Nat Turner and the 1842 slave revolt to Taos revolt, John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry, and Southern secession. From the New York City draft riots to the Green Corn Rebellion. From the coalfields of Appalachia to the densy woodland of Blair Mountain. From Athens, Tennessee to the Attica Prison Uprising, to the dusty stretch of Nevada that was the Bundy Ranch farm and the cold plateau of the Malheur standoff.
Rebellion is in our blood. Revolution, our birthright. We must have a national divorce if we are to prevent the ever increasing walk towards tyranny. If our politicians and courts wont hold themselves accountable, then we shall hang them accountable.
Do our founding fathers look down on us and see their noble sons driven down beneath a cowards heel? Our path forward is shrouded in darkness, but so was theirs. We must band together to light the candle of liberty and to burn out the dark forces of tyranny. If there’s no fire to guide our way then we’ll have to start our own. By blood or sweat, we’ll overcome the tyrants who have usurped our home from us.
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Artwork and image captions by B.R