Right Back Where We Started At...
(And Maybe A Few Steps Back)
by Maj. Gen. William A. Flatt
I believe that if the Founders were alive to check on the nation they started, they would be devastated with sorrow. Not because we're the richest, most powerful nation in the world, but because the American people have allowed their birthright to be taken away from them without a fight.
What is our birthright? Liberty. Yes, it is true that we still have some freedom to do some of the things that we have the inalienable Right to do, but by and large, this country looks nothing like what our ancestors intended for it to be.
A ROUGH START
Sure, we started off on the wrong foot in some ways. We began as a nation that held certain people in slavery while at the same time agitating for "Liberty or Death". Worse yet is the fact that some of the Founders were among those who owned slaves. Even worse still is the fact that the "Father of our Nation", George Washington, was not inclined to respect the inalienable humanity of the Africans, in spite of his devoutly Christian character.
It was men like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson who represented the conscience of the nation and who put into words the ideals by which we strive to attain as a nation. While Jefferson did indeed maintain "ownership" of slaves, his interest in these people was to spare them the sort of lives that they would endure at the hands of others. Unlike Washington, Jefferson did not disdain the Africans. He believed in the inherent humanity and equality of nonwhites, although he was realistic enough to know that his libertarian viewpoints were ahead of his time and not likely to be adopted by his fellow countrymen anytime soon.
But racist and elitist attitudes were not the only undesirable traits transplanted to America by our British colonial forebears. Notions about collectivism and centralized government were also transplanted. Alexander Hamilton was a statist and envisioned an American aristocracy; and although he argued that such an aristocracy be based on merit rather than family bloodlines, nonetheless he imagined a nation where a new and different class of elites could rule the masses. As Secretary of the Treasury, he helped usher into our newborn republic a centralized banking establishment, the very instrument and clique that would implement the eventual destruction of our freedom.
Few today who have attended the government controlled indoctrination centers we call 'schools' know that while America has a history of greatness, we also have a history of tyranny. Because we have as of late become ignorant of our whole history, we are allowing the barbarians of collectivism inside the gates. To remedy this, I recommend to all my friends the book "The New World Order". [W Publishing Group, 1992. ISBN 0849933943]
In 2005, on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, how many Americans stopped to contemplate the significance of this date, and what our Founding Fathers did to create a new nation? For most people today, unfortunately, July 4 is just another holiday - another excuse to drink beer, barbecue, watch sports, and generally goof off. Not much effort is being expended in contemplating the wonder of what these people did to create a free republic. Even fewer people are actively engaged in passing to future generations a meaningful understanding of Independence Day and what was done to create this country. Even fewer still are attempting to pass to future generations the zeal to help this country achieve liberty for all, as Jefferson envisioned it.
If our current state of affairs is any indication, we're rolling backward where freedom is concerned. I'm not going to rail against the Patriot Acts (1,2, or 3) or the National ID Card, or the centralization of our dozens of spy agencies under one man with a mandate to spy on Americans. It's all just the latest examples of what has become a long train of abuses and usurpations, like the Supreme Court abolishing the Right to property ownership recently. No, I don't have the time to make a list, though I've spent the last few years trying to do just that. In fact, it would be fair to say that every grievance in the Declaration of Independence applies today to the federal government, and a whole lot more!
It would be instructive to examine the Declaration and see what those grievances are, as a starting point. However, there are literally thousands more violations of our natural Rights and the wholesale disregard of the Constitution to which our federal and state governments to which we must consider.
In 1992, libertarians Jarrett Wollstein and Vincent H. Miller wrote an educational brochure for ISIL called the 'New Declaration of Independence', which can be seen at
Here we begin to see some of the grievances that are relevant to today's tyranny. In my editorial from October 2003, I listed some more grievances. These lists are not exhaustive by any means. While every part of the Bill of Rights has been infringed, disparaged, or eviscerated by court rulings, acts of legislature, or executive order; that too is insufficient to relate the scope of the tyranny. While the John Birch Society is correct in pointing out the globalist aims of what's going on, they too are falling short of the whole scope of what is going on. One astute man who really DID know what's happening to our liberty put it in these words:
"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil that has been introduced into our midst."
- J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, August 1956
This seems pretty prophetic, considering that while a few Americans have grasped and understand what has happened, most have no clue about what's going on.
Documentary filmmaker, talk radio host and patriot, Alex Jones, says that this legacy of tyranny has only one design: the total enslavement of mankind. This may be true, and certainly the Bible speaks of the Antichrist in these terms. But this doesn't mean that we have to 'accept the inevitable', nor should we consent to the abominable!
So we are right back where we started at, nearly 230 years later, with conditions that are immeasurably worse than before. American freedom is on the verge of flatlining. Some argue that "America is already dead". The nation and its people may survive, but what is disputable is whether our Liberty is. If it is not, then certainly what we have is merely the illusion of Liberty, and that can be easily taken away.
Rather than turning this editorial into an endless stream of words, I will stop here even if my disgust for politicians and my heartache for my country does not. Please click Here for a more complete (but still not exhaustive) list of grievances.
