V for Violence, by IAP Chairman Kelly Gneiting

“Remember remember the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot.  I see of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot”.

Based on a real event which took place on Nov. 5th, 1605, the opening lines of the Hollywood thriller ‘V for Vendetta’ are memorable.  As is the movie’s poster slogan taken from a quote by Thomas Jefferson, “People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments.  Governments should be afraid of their people.”  Yet when one studies and discerns the history of governments, it’s apparent the word “vendetta” is too tame.

That history always repeats itself is not known only to those who know not history.  Hence, predicting the future of governments with accompanying levels of tyranny and slavery is not arduous.  George Mason University professor Walter E. Williams penned a very poignant thought in his Forward to Frederic Bastiat’s masterpiece “The Law” that has become our reality:

“Mankind’s history is one of systematic, arbitrary abuse and control by the elite acting privately, through the church, but mostly through government.  It is a tragic history where hundreds of millions of unfortunate souls have been slaughtered, mostly by their own governments.  A historian writing 200 or 300 years from now might view the liberties that existed for a tiny portion of mankinds’ population (early America) for only a tiny portion of its history, as a historical curiosity that defies explanation.  But it was only a temporary phenomenon since mankind reverted back to the traditional state of arbitrary control and abuse.”

It was Thomas Jefferson who stated, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  Yet without forthcoming, God-fearing patriots in America, our blood won’t have the honor of being spilled at all, except for a trickle to pierce our nose cavity and attach a ring.

This day, today, is more accurately Nov. 13th, 1765, the day when the writings of Samuel Adams broached, for the first time, a decisive break between the 13 colonies and Great Britain– Independence!  Independence and freedom from unjust taxes, laws, and oppression did miraculously come, but not fully until a river of blood later.  Yet this blood yielded something historically unparalled, as all true historians will recognize!

“Oh, what a glorious morning this is!” exclaimed Samuel Adams to fellow Founder John Hancock, both hiding in a church from searching British troops.  The date was April 19th, 1775 and the shot at Lexington and Concord initiating the War of Independence was heard “’round the world.”  New England, and particularly Massachusetts, where Adams and Hancock hailed from, led the struggle for liberty.

Today which State will lead this parallel struggle?  Let examples of patriots be found throughout America.  An example government has been established for all of time.  Voices of dead patriots who left behind pearls of text are louder than anything from the bulwark of current political leaders.  True patriots don’t compromise, and will gladly sacrifice the immediate for the eventual—the promise of today for the promise of forever.

To you who believe all is well with our current government, I echo sentiments from Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet ‘Common Sense’, “…as a man who is attached to a prostitute, and is thus unfit to judge a wife, so any prepossession in favor of a rotten government will disable us from discerning a good one.”

Patriots are peacekeepers of now through the distant future.  Peacekeepers with weapons and ammo, and perhaps as in 1775 Boston, gunpowder beneath church pulpits!  Americans, your most treasured act of patriotism is to value the wheel that has already been invented.  Fear God and prepare for the ongoing struggle.  Unite yourself with the river of Patriots already flowing in the direction you and your children want to be heading!  Jump on in, the water’s fine.