Patriots,
I stand with Mr. Rawles in this challenge. I am not confident that we could raise 14,000 riflemen within 24 hours, as did Paul Revere and the other riders on April 18th-19th, 1775.
We need to: A) Be Aware B) Be pissed off C) Be ready D) Be willing.
I’m Re-inventorying my gear and making it ready to go. I encourage (no, implore) you to do the same.
-JJS
(ps: The pic of gear on the left is not my personal load-out kit. It’s a pic I copied off the internet)
The article below, written by James Rawles about a week ago, is posted in its entirety, just as it appeared originally at Survivalblog.com. Full credit and rights belong to JW Rawles and Survivalblog.com.
SurvivalBlog reader B.B. suggested this piece by Mark Steyn: The Drift toward Despotism. And joining the chorus, even more stridently: The Creeping Police State. Soon after sending those links, B.B. sent this brilliant essay from Daren Jonescu: The Progressive Degradation of Freedom.
Reading Jonescu’s cogent words crystallized a nascent theory that had been nagging me for a decade. It is this: America’s systemic reaction to the unspeakable horror of the 9/11 attacks was to “protect” ourselves by planting the seeds for a police state that will eventually strangle the freedom that we grew up cherishing. Each incremental step seems toward tyranny so “logical” and so “justified” to the minds of the statist Powers That Be. The citizenry, mimicking the Germans of the 1930s passively goes along with each of these baby steps, never quite chafing to the point of outright rebellion. The end result is a society that has made itself voluntarily monitored 24/7, agreed to centralized background checks just to exercise a Constitutional right, that has agreed to being either fondled or x-rayed by blue glove-wearing half-wits at airports. With our own tax dollars (annually self-assessed, of course) we have equipped an army of steroid-pumped henchmen who are ready, willing, and able to not just Taser us at the slightest sign of noncompliance, but even willing to arrest and drag us to a hospital for multiple rectal examinations because of the mere suspicion that we “might be hiding something.”
Unless we individually and collectively develop some backbone, right quick, then it will be too late. The chains will be too solidly forged. The web of surveillance will be too complete. And the cross-correlated list of malcontents will be small and easy to round up. Unless we get active politically and forcefully stand up to tyranny, then we’ll become outnumbered.
Benjamin Franklin presciently wrote: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
You were right, Ben.
So…
Here is it folks, the challenge for our generation, most likely to be answered in this decade: The next time there is another Ruby Ridge or Waco-style “standoff” with “extremists” happens, We The People will have two choices: We can passively sit by, watch it all on high definition television, wringing our hands and just muttering “That’s so awful.” Or, will enough of us grab our gear and drive there and set up a perimeter around their perimeter. Once in place, we’ll show some backbone and take photos, take video, take names, and if need be be prepared to take lives. The choice is yours, America. Are you going to show up to the event and do what is right, or are you going to let the ninja-jackboot-thugs simply haul us off to the gulag one by one?
I’ll leave you with another quote from the brilliant mind of Benjamin Franklin: “We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”
– J.W.R.
I stand with JWR and JJS – we can no longer stand by and just let our country slip into tyranny! Get mad folks… don’t just let things slip through our fingers!
I doubt Mr. Rawles will leave his home and “take names…” etc..
Who shall we send? Who shall go forth among us?….Send me.
“As the red flag of tyranny flies in the open, is THAT when you’ll finally notice?”
Jordan Page “Liberty”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bitxwy6okn4
First they came for …
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me. M. Niemoller
@ John D – I think it’s grossly unfair to judge a man on something that hasn’t happened yet. So even though what may/may not be, will your doubts preclude You from “standing for your neighbor” as well?
“Yes I’m only a stranger here and I’m a long, long way from my home
But I’m going to change the things I find strange
For I know that I’m not alone
Yes I know, I’m not alone
Not alone.”
Name one country that had its rights or guns taken away that “Just said NO” and fought back.
Just one!
Face it we live in a NATION and WORLD OF COWARDS! My guess is they could do an all out gun ban tomorrow and 99.99999% would grumble as they handed them over BUT DO NOTHING! Very few will fight and even fewer will help there fellow man. We have raised a nation of spineless cowards.
“Name one country…” // I understand the frustration …//
Do thirteen colonies count?
Of course back then, we were a single nation steeped in Christianity as a way of civil and personal life & many had – or at least aspired to have – belief deeper than fear of death (which IS inevitable anyway…) They were a nation hardened by nearly continuous Indian wars, the French & Indian wars fought while living the often brutal life in the wilderness of North America. Lest we forget, just COMING to America at that time required TEN TIMES as much travel time as Apollo astronauts required to reach the moon. To leave Europe for America was not most people’s FIRST choice of lifestyle. Many stayed home in Europe who were content to live under the boot of any perfumed prince and would worship as the government told them to, or found ways to hide their faith. Those would would not, generally died, or left as refugees to places like Holland, Genevae and America.
In North America, warfare was conducted with no federal Army in the modern sense of the word, most of it fought by volunteers, and possibly (hopefully) competent and experienced cadre’ for leadership. No air lifting of troops & supplies, no DUSTOFF birds (medevac helicopters), no antibiotics, no morphine injectors. Death by infection was very common after being wounded. These were militiamen who left their families back on small farms and in the occasional city, hoping that the enemy would not find and destroy them before the volunteers could return from battle. There was also the knowledge that should they never return, it could realistically mean starvation for the entire family.
Without national repentance, we will not win. With national repentance, it might just be like Gideon’s 300 men who ‘could not possibly win’ against the huge army of the Midianites, but did, by the hand of God.
Remember: We’re not here to never die. We’re here to be faithful and let the results belong to God. If ordered by some government thug, under pain of death, to bow the knee to Baal, there is only ONE answer: Hooah! (loosely translated from Acts 4:19)
Popeye