The Natural Law of Self-Defense

Posted on June 30, 2020 by zeev1776

Man’s right of self-defense did not begin with the adoption of the Second Amendment. It has nothing to do with guns or with the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it has no connection whatsoever to any man-made law or technology. Self-defense by any means is a natural human right that each person enjoys by virtue of his or her humanity. It is the right which guarantees all others.

One of the most provocative statements ever made on how comprehensive our individual right of self-defense is was made by the famed English philosopher John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government. Locke, whose political philosophy greatly influenced our American Founding Fathers, explained how the natural law works and why the individual is justified in defending himself with lethal force when necessary:

“THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man’s life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other’s power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.

“And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life: for I have reason to conclude, that he who would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for no body can desire to have me in his absolute power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation; and reason bids me look on him, as an enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that, in the state of nature, would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state, must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away every thing else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that, in the state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to design to take away from them every thing else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.

“This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than, by the use of force, so to get him in his power, as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he has no right, to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away every thing else. And therefore it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me, i.e. kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it.

“. . . force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war: and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, tho’ he be in society and a fellow subject. Thus a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat; because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature: force without right, upon a man’s person, makes a state of war, both where there is, and is not, a common judge” (Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Chapter 3, Sections 17-19).

Elsewhere in his Treatise, Locke explained:

“In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing the like mischief. And in the case, and upon this ground, MAN HATH A RIGHT TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE. . . .

“From these two distinct rights, the one of punishing the crime for restraint, and preventing the like offence, which right of punishing is in every body; the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured party, comes it to pass that the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the common right of punishing put into his hands, can often, where the public good demands not the execution of the law, remit the punishment of criminal offences by his own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private man for the damage he has received. That, he who has suffered the damage has a right to demand in his own name, and he alone can remit: the damnified person has this power of appropriating to himself the goods or service of the offender, by right of self preservation, as every man has a power to punish the crime, to prevent its being committed again, by the right he has of preserving all mankind, and doing all reasonable things he can in order to that end: and thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to mankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom men can have no society nor security: and upon this is grounded that great law of nature, Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Locke, Second Treatise, Chapter 2, Sections 8 and 11).

Finally, Locke observed:

“Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it” (Locke, Treatise, Chapter 7, Section 87).

Let’s recapitulate a few of the things we’ve learned from Mr. Locke. Locke explained that there exists a “fundamental law of nature” which gives the individual a right to “destroy that which threatens” him. When someone cuts the common ties, or laws, that bind a society together and protect its members, he becomes “noxious” and dangerous to the society. In fact, he enters into a “state of war” against those whose rights – whether their life, Liberty, and property – are threatened. Inasmuch as a person behaves like a “savage beast” and endangers those around him, he may be put down like a mad dog. This is not only common sense, but a right we each enjoy in the “state of nature.”

Some may argue, however, that we do not live in a “state of nature.” We can all admit that this is accurate. We live in a well-ordered society with laws, a police force, judges, systems of justice, mechanisms to redress grievances, and so forth. However, to deny our individual right of self-defense merely because we live in a society tramples on the very idea of natural rights and the most basic conception of Freedom.

Samuel Adams explained that we always retain our rights regardless of whether we enter into civil society. A person, if he chooses, may exist society at any time. When he does, he takes all his rights with him. We cannot, according to Mr. Adams, renounce our rights because they are endowments from Almighty God. He explained:

“All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.

“When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent. . . .

“The natural liberty of man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is necessary for the great end of society, the best good of the whole.

“In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but he no more renounces his original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators. . . .

“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. . . .

“In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave” (Samuel Adams, “The Rights of the Colonists,” November 20, 1772).

Please note that Adams said people do not “renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights” when they agree to live in society with others. These prerogatives – to enjoy one’s natural rights and to defend them – always remain with the individual. It is “the greatest absurdity” to say we do not have a right to defend and preserve our other essential rights.

We allow police and others to defend us because, on paper, this system operates more efficiently. However, law enforcement personnel have no inherent right to police our neighborhoods. They have no intrinsic power to stop criminals just as courts have no inborn authority to punish criminals. Every power and authority a police officer posses comes directly from you, the individual. And this authority is merely on loan and can be reclaimed at any time – such as when no police are present or when public servants abuse the authority you have loaned them. The same is true with any and all powers claimed by government. They belong, of right, to individuals first and foremost.

Furthermore, there are many times in society when the individual does not have immediate access to society’s collective means of self-defense – whether law enforcement, the courts, or the nation’s armies – yet must immediately address a threat to his life, Liberty, or property. Such instances may include a woman walking down the road who needs to defend herself from sexual assault, a man defending his family from a home invader during the middle of the night, a store owner protecting his property and livelihood from arsonists or vandals, a person being carjacked by a criminal while driving to work, or a church-goer who suddenly find himself faced with a maniac attempting to shoot up his congregation. In these and myriad other scenarios, there is no possible way to reach out to society for help; there is no time to wait for the police to arrive, for the sheriff to investigate the matter, or for a jury to deliberate.

All of these instances share at least one thing in common; namely, that the victim’s rights are being violated. In the case of the woman, someone is trying to violate her body and free will or, in other words, her Liberty. In the case of the store owner, someone is trying to destroy his property. In the case of the church-goer, his and other innocent people’s right to life is threatened. In the case of the man defending his family or the person being carjacked, he doesn’t know the intention of the perpetrator is – kidnapping, murder, robbery, rape, etc., – and must act as if any of these is a distinct possibility.

Consider what John Locke said in the quote above: “He that, in the state of nature, would take away the freedom that belongs to any one . . . must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away every thing else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest.” We don’t know the intention of someone who is attacking, robbing, or otherwise assaulting us. All we know for certain is that a person is trampling our precious rights and clearly has no respect for us, the law, or morality.

A person who would violate any of your cherished rights automatically shows that he holds all your other rights in contempt. Such a person, theoretically, is capable of any thing – including taking your life. Since you do not know his intention, but simply know that he is willing to violate your rights, you must treat him as an existential threat to all of your Liberties. Remember, Locke explained:

It is lawful, according to the law of nature, to kill one who attempts to violate your right to life, Liberty, or property. This is the most basic and fundamental principle in the book of Liberty. “In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done him,” as Samuel Adams said. When a state of war and hostility is commenced against you by an assailant whose intentions are unknown, you become the “judge and sole judge” of your rights and have a just right to defend yourself, your life, your Freedom, your family, your dignity as a human being, and your property. I would even argue that you have a duty to defend your rights since they are gifts from Almighty God.

Self-defense is not a new concept – wherever there is Liberty, there exists the right to defend it and those who enjoy it. Self-defense is an eternal law recognized by enlightened people in all ages. Anciently, the Roman statesman Cicero explained:

“[T]here exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. When weapons reduce them to silence, the laws no longer expect one to await their pronouncements. For people who decide to wait for these will have to wait for justice, too – and meanwhile they must suffer injustice first. Indeed, even the wisdom of the law itself, by a sort of tacit implication, permits self-defense, because it does not actually forbid men to kill; what it does, instead, is to forbid the bearing of a weapon with the intention to kill. When, therefore, an inquiry passes beyond the mere question of the weapon and starts to consider the motive, a man who has used arms in self-defence is not regarded as having carried them with a homicidal aim” (Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, 13).

I repeat: Self-defense is part of the “natural law.” The natural law written in our hearts by the finger of God permits us to defend ourselves against “plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies.” Literally “every method” and means to defend ourselves when endangered is “morally right.” Not only is it morally correct to defend ourselves, our lives, and our property, but the Declaration of Independence and Constitution both support the idea and enshrine it in the regal robes of legality.

Let’s leave behind the realm of the hypothetical and discuss a real example. Two nights ago, in Hunter, Oklahoma, a man shot a woman who entered his property at 3 A.M. and attempted to steal a flag. The flag was the National Socialist flag bearing the swastika. Whether or not you think he should have been flying the flag is not on trial here. What is being discussed, however, is the actual situation – that is, an individual trespassing on someone’s property at 3 A.M., attempting a robbery, and being shot in the process of fleeing with stolen property.

Since the incident, the local “authorities” have confiscated the man’s fourteen firearms and have charged him with “shooting with the intent to kill and assault and battery with a deadly weapon.” They are holding him without bail despite the fact that he was compliant with police and has never caused any trouble. One anonymous individual, in fact, said the man was very nice and would mow neighbors’ lawns and smile and wave. In spite of all this, he is being treated as a murderer.

The woman, by the way, survived the incident and is being treated for her wounds. Amazingly, the district attorney has not yet decided whether to charge her with a crime despite the fact that no one denies she was trying to steal property from the man’s home! I doubt whether the criminals who previously stole the man’s flag’s were charged with theft or trespassing either.

If I was on the jury that will try this case, given the information we know at this point, my conscience would not allow me to convict the man of anything. I’m quite sure John Locke would also vote “not guilty.” It was he, after all, who said, that it is “lawful for a man to kill a thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life.” How can we refute his logic?

When you examine stories like this one from Oklahoma, don’t fall into the trap of asking whether the man should have fired his weapon. That’s not the point. That’s irrelevant, in fact. That is between him and his God. What you need to decide, rather, is whether or not the man had a right to defend himself and his property with force.

I contend that each of us has a natural right of self-defense which no earthly force, no government, no majority, no law, can ever erase. I hold it as sacrosanct that the laws of nature give me, the individual, a right to protect my life, my Liberty, and my property – and those of my family and innocent people – with lethal force whenever and wherever necessary. I further affirm that the benefit of the doubt should always be given to the victim of an illicit act, not to the criminal who was fortunately thwarted in his or her attempt to violate the victim’s sacred rights.

You may not care about swastika flags, but you should care very much about property rights. You may not agree with the personal viewpoints of the shooter in this case, but you should care about whether his right to defend his home and possessions is held inviolate. You may have sympathy for the woman who was shot, but you should never let your judgment become so clouded with emotion that you can’t label her a thief and a criminal. You will rarely go astray in your judgment if you always keep in mind the importance of our natural rights and our paramount right of self-defense. Self-defense, even when it means ending the life of an offender, is part of the “perfect freedom” with which man is born.

Zack Strong,

June 30, 2020

Our Heavenly Father

Posted on June 22, 2020 by zeev1776

Last Fathers’ Day, I wrote a tribute to my Dad. This Fathers’ Day, I pen a tribute to my Heavenly Father. I love my Father in Heaven and long for the day that I will return to Him and feel His arms around me. This brief piece is meant to honor Him – the Supreme Power in the universe, the God of Creation, the very personal, involved, and loving Father of us all.

The resurrected Lord Jesus Christ told Mary Magdalene, as she embraced Him outside of the empty tomb, that He needed to ascend to “my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). Jesus had a Father – a literal Father. This Being begat Jesus with Mary and was His literal, physical Father from whom He inherited the power of God, the power to break the bands of death, the power to redeem all mankind.

During His mortal ministry, Jesus frequently referred to God as “Father.” He taught: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). He explained: “[M]y father hath taught me. . . . I speak that which I have seen with my Father” (John 8:38). Jesus admonished that whoever hates Him, “hateth my Father also” (John 15:23). On the other hand, He promised: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). Jesus prayed for His disciples in these words: “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are” (John 17:11). Finally, when He was in anguish of soul as He began working out the awesome Atonement, the Lord pleaded: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

In all things, Jesus gave honor and glory to His Father. Even the title which Jesus used to refer to Himself more than 80 times, “Son of Man,” is a reference to the Father. “Man of Holiness” is a title attributed to the Father. When Jesus called Himself the “Son of a Man,” it really meant the “Son of the Man of Holiness,” highlighting the fact that He was the Son of a holy and exalted Man, the Man, the very Eternal Father. Jesus loved His Father, deferred to His Father, taught us the things His Father wanted us to know, and, most importantly, showed us that His Father was also our Father.

It is one of the most misunderstood, yet superlative, of all doctrines that God is our literal Father and that we lived in His presence before our time on earth. My book The Lineage of the Gods is devoted to explaining our Parent-child relationship with our Eternal Father. Our Father in Heaven is the literal Father of our spirits. We are His literal children! His spiritual DNA is intertwined in our souls. We hail from His lineage. Our pedigree runs directly back to God our Father. His home is our true home – our first home.

As His actual children, we are loved by our Father more than we can comprehend. He has been with us, quite literally, from the beginning. He has watched over our first steps – spiritual and physical. We are created in His image just like every child is created in the image of his or her earthly parents. It opens the Heavens to us and makes our prayers more meaningful when realize our true relationship with our Father.

To understand ourselves, it is helpful to understand more about the Personage we call Father. In fact, it is essential to know both the Father and the Son. Jesus taught: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). We often hear that God is “unknowable” and “indefinable.” As the scripture just cited demonstrates, this is false doctrine. Not only can we know God, we must know Him!

Our Father is separate from the Son and from the Holy Spirit. They are three individual Beings. The Father and Son have glorified bodies of flesh and bone; the Holy Ghost is a Personage of spirit Who will one day receive a body. Together, these three divine Individuals comprise the “Godhead.” They are “One” in the sense that they share the same purpose and mission – to save and exalt mankind.

Furthermore, the members of the Godhead are not devoid of bodies, parts, and passions. As noted, the Father is a Man of Holiness. He is a Man, albeit a glorified and exalted Man. Jesus, clearly, was a Man – though He was also God. Recognizing the humanity of our Father and our Redeemer is essential to knowing them.

We can learn more about the Father by looking at the Son. We are told by Luke that the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ has a perfected body of flesh and bone. He could be seen by mortal eyes and felt by human hands. He could even eat food. You and I can relate to all of these activities and attributes because they are so very human. And as the Son is and does, so is and does the Father. When we recognize this, we can relate better to Him and say that we know something of Him.

Every trait of goodness, compassion, and love that we rightly attribute to Jesus the Christ is equally attributable to our Eternal Father. In fact, the Lord once said that “none is good, save one, that is, God” (Luke 18:19). Our Father is the galactic epitome of greatness, goodness, light, justice, truth, charity, mercy, and love. It’s no wonder that Jesus said: “[T]he true worshippers shall worship the Father” (John 4:23).

The Christian firebrand, Brigham Young, made this intriguing remark about how we can know God. He said:

“This intelligence which is within you and me is from heaven. In gazing upon the intelligence reflected in the countenances of my fellow beings, I gaze upon the image of Him whom I worship—the God I serve. I see His image and a certain amount of His intelligence there. I feel it within myself. My nature shrinks at the divinity we see in others” (President Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, 171, May 29, 1870).

We all have a portion of our Father’s divinity inside of us. Our Father’s spiritual DNA is wound tightly into our souls. We are from His lineage and, like any children, we have the potential to become like Him. The honorable Ezra Taft Benson made this remark:

“As God’s offspring, we have His attributes in us. We are gods in embryo, and thus have an unlimited potential for progress and attainment” (President Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 21).

This is a controversial point in Christendom, nevertheless it is substantiated in numerous places throughout the Bible. I cite only three. The Lord Himself, referring to ancient revelation He had given as Jehovah, stated: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods” (John 10:34). And again, the Apostle Paul plainly stated: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17). Finally, John said: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

It is a glorious truth that we are the children of our Father and that we may, through the redemption of Christ, become like Him and dwell eternally in His Kingdom. What kind of a Kingdom will it be? It will be a Kingdom of light, love, and joy because our Father is a Being of light, love, and joy. Many years ago, a Christian leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave this wonderful description of our Holy Father:

“I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit. That is one reason why I know; and another is – the Lord said, through Joseph Smith, “I delight in a glad heart and a cheerful countenance.” That arises from the perfection of His attributes; He is a jovial, lively person, and a beautiful man” (President Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, February 8, 1857).

It warms my heart to think of my Father as “a jovial, lively person, and a beautiful man.” I want to be like Him and to eventually grow into His attributes. Since I know that I’m a son, I also know that I can become like my Father. These truths have been pressed into my soul by the witness of the Holy Spirit. They’ve also been in my mind since childhood when I sang the hymn “I Am a Child of God.” The verses teach:

“I am a child of God,

And he has sent me here,

Has given me an earthly home

With parents kind and dear.

“I am a child of God,

And so my needs are great;

Help me to understand his words

Before it grows too late.

“I am a child of God.

Rich blessings are in store;

If I but learn to do his will

I’ll live with him once more.”

We are children of God. He is our Father. And we will return to His Heavenly Home one day if we understand His words, follow His Son, and really come to know Them.

This Fathers’ Day, I encourage everyone to get on their knees and pray to their Father in Heaven. Express gratitude to Him that He is your Father and that you are His child. Thank Him from the depth of your soul for sending His Son – our Elder Brother – Jesus Christ to redeem us from death and hell. Pour out your gratitude to your Father for watching over you throughout your life, providing a beautiful world to live on, giving you the necessities of food, water, and a home, and answering your prayers.

The best gift you can give your Eternal Father this holiday is to acknowledge Him, speak with Him, and follow His Son so that the Lord may bring us back to Him one day. Always remember the words of our Savior:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17).

Zack Strong,

June 21, 2020

Erasing History, Destroying Heritage

Posted on June 13, 2020 by zeev1776

In Memory of “The Boys Who Wore the Gray.” – Inscription on the Chatham County Confederate Monument disgracefully removed in the dead of night on November 20, 2019

I began writing this article in 2019 – long before the George Floyd riots engulfed America and brought the destruction of historical monuments and the denigration of national heroes to the forefront. The anti-American Antifa and Black Lives Matter thugs have used the cover of chaos resulting from the riots they instigated to ramp up their devious assault on our history, culture, and character as a People. Turncoat politicians have seized their opportunity to tear down and remove historical landmarks as part of their effort to transform America and corrupt the rising generation. This article seeks to explain the coordinated effort to erase our history, destroy our heritage, and transform America into a Marxist slave state.

I begin with the incident that prompted this article in the first place. On November 20, 2019, in the dead of night, a group of bandits crept onto public land in Pittsboro, North Carolina and absconded with an historical monument to dead American soldiers. Unlike their Antifa counterparts, these bandits did not wear masks – they were from the government. The 112-year-old monument to Confederate soldiers was removed on orders of Chatham County’s Board of Commissioners. According to Mike Dash, head of that board, the decision to remove the monument was prompted by “high emotions, division and even violence.” Allegedly “the overwhelming majority of [Chatham County’s] residents are eager to move forward.”

What Dash conveniently left out of his remarks is the fact that the “violence” was being caused by those trying to illicitly tear down the statue – not by so-called “racists” who wanted to preserve the memorial as a sign of “white supremacy.” The North Carolina chapter of the Sons and Daughters of Confederate Veterans stated of the outrageous action taken by Commissioner Dash and his posse: “Like a thief in the night, under cover of darkness the Chatham County Confederate Soldiers Memorial has been illegally removed.” And so it was. This statue, which honored the some 1,900 Chatham men who signed up to fight with the Confederacy during Lincoln’s War, now sits in a “safe” place until a new home can be found.

The Chatham County disgrace has since been eclipsed by the rash of monument-destroying in 2020. Since the death of the drug-addled career criminal George Floyd, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and socialist politicians have combined to perpetrate a series of outrageous attacks on American history and heritage. They attacked Confederate memorials first, but they’ve broadened their campaign of destruction to include anything and everything that is traditionally American or related to America’s rise and greatness.

For instance, the man who discovered America and opened it to European settlement, Christopher Columbus, has been put on the chopping block – literally. In Boston, a statue of the great admiral was decapitated. Falling into lockstep with the politically-correct crowd, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement about the vandalized statue:

“This particular statue has been subject of repeated vandalism here in Boston. Given the conversations that we are certainly having right now in our city of Boston and throughout the country, we are going to take time to assess the historic meaning of the statue.”

Likely, appeasers will cave to the mob and remove Columbus’s statue to a less public location rather than protecting it and prosecuting those guilty of defacing public property. Boston isn’t the only place where Columbus statues have suffered the wrath of the enraged mob. In Richmond, Virginia a gang of criminals recently tore down another Columbus statue, spray-painted it, lit it on fire, and threw it into a lake.

The outrage against Columbus is wholly unjustified and based on lies, as I detailed in my article “Christopher Columbus and So-Called Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” The notion that Columbus or any European settlers in what is now the United States of America committed “genocide” against Indians is patently false and historically unsubstantiated. In fact, it totally ignores verifiable Indian atrocities – rape, torture, murder – against European settlers. But because Columbus was a white explorer with strong Christian sentiments and paved the way for the civilizing of this hemisphere, his memory must be destroyed by those who hate Western culture.

George Washington, our first president, the hero of the American Revolution, and the Father of our Country, has also come under attack. During the George Floyd riots in Newark, rioters spray-painted a George Washington statue while tearing down, stomping, and burning U.S. flags. In Philadelphia, rioters vandalized statues of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, spray-painting “I can’t breathe” on Franklin and “Black Lives Matter” on Washington. Philadelphia also removed a statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo for alleged “racism.”

In a San Francisco, California school last year, a large mural of George Washington was deemed “offensive” after protesters claimed their children were “traumatized” by the image. The school board considered paying $600,000 to have the painting literally erased from the walls, but eventually decided, in a narrow 4-3 vote, to cover it instead. And in 2017, Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia removed plaques honoring General Washington because, according to church leaders: “The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome.” The plaques were there to remind people that this is where George Washington, a devout Christian, usually attended worship services. But to cite that fact is now taboo in our humanistic culture.

My hero, Thomas Jefferson, has of course been targeted by the Marxist mob. A petition is currently circulating calling for the removal of a Thomas Jefferson statue at the University of Missouri. University students have defiled the statue with post-it notes bearing labels such as “liar,” “racist,” and “oppressor.” They even frog-marched out the old, debunked myth that Jefferson had sex with Sally Hemmings. In fact, they claimed he raped her! One of the 3,000+ petition signers, who doubtless makes the university proud of their history department, made this deluded remark:

“As an alum, I fully support the removal of the Jefferson statue. Keep him in the history class books and museums as a reminder of America’s hypocrisy.”

Additionally, CNN stooge Angela Rye has said that statues of Jefferson and Washington “all need to come down.” She opined:

“I’m not going to say it’s OK for Robert E. Lee and not a George Washington. We need to call it what it is. I’m not giving any deference to George Washington or Robert E. Lee.”

Self-hating, America-hating, Freedom-hating people everywhere despise Jefferson and Washington. Yet, it is Jefferson who has rightly been called the “Apostle of Liberty.” It was Jefferson who penned the iconic words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was Jefferson who pushed so strongly for religious Freedom, established the University of Virginia to promote education, had uniquely cordial relations with the Indians, and repeatedly proposed laws to end slavery. Yet this man, this wonderful patriotic man, is reviled by ignorant radicals who don’t know the first thing about American history and whose lives are an offense to the memory of his virtuous deeds.

It’s not just Washington and Jefferson whose memories have been tarnished. All of our forefathers have been disgraced by those suffering from Marxist-induced “white guilt.” In 2018, for instance, a petition circulated at George Washington University to change the mascot name from “Colonials” to something that was not “extremely offensive.” Apparently it’s “extremely offensive” to have been a white person in the American colonies. That would include my Strong family line and many of your ancestors. These people not only hate whites, but they despise the civilization they created. They hate the rule-of-law society they built. They hate America.

Ironically, black Americans have also had their names and deeds insulted. In their blind spirit of destruction, rioters graffitied and vandalized a Civil War monument to the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment. Perhaps the criminals didn’t know that the 54^th was an all-black volunteer regiment that fought for the Union. This and the fact that rioters also vandalized a statue of Mahatma Ghandi outside the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. belie the idea that the riots have anything to do with fighting alleged “racism.”

The U.S. Army has jumped on the hate bandwagon and has publicly contemplated renaming ten Army bases named after Confederate leaders such as General Braxton Bragg and Brigadier General Henry Benning. Not to be outdone, the U.S. Marines is now “officially barring symbols depicting the Confederate battle flag from public spaces on Marine Corps installations,” alleging the symbols present “a threat to our core values, unit cohesion, security, and good order and discipline.” The Navy followed suit. Now the Army and Air Force are both saying they may also ban Confederate symbols.

President Trump chimed in on his wayward military forces, saying:

“It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!”

It is not the thrust of this article and will only be touched upon briefly, but I note another instance of the U.S. military tampering with history. In the fallout from the George Floyd riots, Veterans Affairs has announced that it will remove swastikas from the graves of German soldiers interred on U.S. soil. The swastika – the symbol most hated by communists everywhere – is actually one of the oldest and most widely-used symbols in human history. It has been found on artifacts, structures, and documents in every corner of the globe, including on ancient American Indian artifacts. Yet, the swastika and anything that even remotely reminds easily-offended and ignorant people of Adolf Hitler is under attack every bit as much as the Confederate flag. And the attacks on the swastika are as unfounded and fallacious as those on Confederate memorials.

Sports leagues are likewise caving to the political correctness of the mob. NASCAR, for instance, has just announced that it will ban the Confederate flag at its events after the lone black race car driver, Bubba Wallace, said he’s offended. Wallace, sporting his “I can’t breathe” shirt, said he’ll drive a Black Lives Matter car as a form of protest. Similarly, the NFL, which has been an extreme leftist propaganda outlet for years, has backtracked its policy of banning players for taking a knee during the National Anthem, a disgusting trend started by the Che Guevara-loving Colin Kaepernick. In an error-ridden statement that may as well have been written by Karl Marx, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell quipped:

“We, the NFL, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people.

“We, the NFL, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the NFL, believe black lives matter.

“I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much needed change in this country.

“Without black players there would be no National Football League and the protests around the country are emblematic of centuries of silence, inequality and oppression of black players, coaches, fans and staff.”

There is no “systematic oppression” of blacks in America. Period. Anyone who says so is either a liar or pathetically ignorant. There’s no institutional racism. There’s no institutional inequality aimed at blacks or people of color. This is obvious in many ways, including the fact that most professional athletes are black. I’d love to be as “oppressed” as these millionaire sports stars are! And for any organization to side with Black Lives Matter, a Marxist front organization responsible for massive carnage in American cities and the promotion of racial division, is utterly insane.

It is Confederate monuments which raise the most ire, however. In Kentucky, Governor Beshear is planning to have a statue of Jefferson Davis removed from its current location at the state capitol. He whined: “I believe the statue of Jefferson Davis is a symbol that divides us.” In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Mr. Davis was toppled by rioters. Jefferson Davis was a U.S. senator from Mississippi before the state seceded. Davis was then elected president of the Confederate States of America and served in that capacity until the end of the Civil War. In spite of his deep love for the U.S. Constitution and his dignity as a statesman, we’re now tearing down his statues and disgracing his name.

In Virginia, the tyrannical Governor Northam, who has been on an anti-gun, anti-First Amendment spree, has joined in the attempt to remove a large statue of General Robert E. Lee on Richmond’s Monument Avenue. The statue was vandalized with vile and profane graffiti by George Floyd rioters and is slated for removal. Fortunately, a judge has temporarily suspended the action after William C. Gregory filed a lawsuit showing that he has a deed wherein the state of Virginia pledged to his great-grandparents to “faithfully guard” the statue that sat on land owned by the family before being entrusted to the state. A second lawsuit makes the point that the state’s plan “violates federally designated landmark law.” As the Confederacy’s most beloved man, in fact, a man beloved throughout America in his day, General Lee will remain a high-value target for the history-destroying Marxists whether or not this particular statue is removed.

A few more random instances of destruction of historical memorials seems appropriate to list. In Birmingham, Alabama a crowd of criminals tore down a statue in honor of Confederate Captain Charles Linn. The statue was located in Linn Park. Near the Linn statue was a statue honoring World War One soldiers. It was also vandalized and later removed by the city. In Montgomery, Alabama a statue of General Robert E. Lee outside a high school named in his honor was toppled by rioters.

In California, a Confederate memorial was vandalized in the Santa Ana Cemetery last year. The graves of Confederate soldiers have been vandalized in numerous locations in the past and in this current round of crazed violence. A statue of former U.S. Senator Edward Carmack in the Tennessee Capitol rotunda was recently destroyed. In Charleston, South Carolina the Confederate Defenders memorial was vandalized. In Chicago, a statue of early American settlers was vandalized and scrawled with vile graffiti such as “f**k white supremacy.” A statue of Nathanael Greene, a hero from the War for Independence, was recently defaced in Georgia. The Alamo Cenotaph in Texas was graffitied in a similar manner, prompting armed militiamen to stand guard at the historic monument. Thugs also burned down the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters in Richmond, Virginia as well as buildings around the National Civil War Naval Museum.

Furthermore, in Washington, D.C., the outside of the Lincoln Memorial was graffitied (a Lincoln statue in London was also vandalized). The National World War II Memorial was also vandalized. Rioters even attempted to burn down the historic St. John’s Church. And to add insult to injury, the radical D.C. mayor had the section of 16^th Ave in front of the White House renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”

The monument-toppling craze has gone global. In the UK, Antifa goons are destroying and vandalizing monuments of such people as Robert the Bruce and Winston Churchill. A website called toppletheracists.org shows a “crowdsourced map of UK statues and monuments that celebrate slavery and racism.” Statues on their hit list include those in memory of Captain Cook, William Gladstone, and even the major globalist conspirator Cecil Rhodes. They also want to tear down an entire castle built by funds from “former slave owners” as well as several schools. So far, at least eight of the items on their list have been removed. More will no doubt follow. Other locations in Europe, such as Belgium, and places as distant as India, have likewise suffered the wrath of the history-destroyers since ex-con George Floyd’s accidental death in police custody.

Finally, less tangible memorials such as books and TV shows have been attacked relentlessly over the years. We’ve all heard that books like Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been blacklisted from schools on phony “racism” charges. Now, the classic film “Gone with the Wind,” has been removed from HBO Max for supposed “racism.” The TV show “Cops” has been canceled after 33 successful seasons. And even Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is changing the definition of “racism” after a mindless complaint from a young black woman in Missouri. We’re enduring a full-scale assault on our culture, heritage, and history, ladies and gentlemen.

Now I attempt to answer the question why Black Lives Matter and their fellow thugs are so hell-bent on destroying American history. We start with Confederate monuments. The ostensible rationale behind destroying Confederate memorials is the age-old lie that the Confederates were all racists who broke away from the United States to preserve the institution of slavery. Therefore, the history-destroyers claim, Confederate monuments are inherently “racist” and symbols of “oppression.” Anyone who stands up to defend Confederate monuments, the Confederate flag, or Confederate history, is automatically labeled a “white supremacist,” a “racist,” or a “KKK” member. Right-thinking people, of course, know this is preposterous.

More will be said in a future article about the reasons for Lincoln’s War, but suffice it to say that it was not fought over slavery. Midway through the struggle, Lincoln launched a clever campaign to make the war he started about slavery, but that’s not how it began. To shatter the myth that Lincoln’s War was about slavery one needs only remember that over 400,000 slaves existed in states that joined the Union. Northerners enjoyed a lucrative trade in “fugitive” slaves from the South that continued throughout much of the war. And more free blacks fought for the Confederacy than for the Union.

Major actors on both sides of the bloody drama, as well European observers, acknowledged that the war had little to do with slavery at first. After the war, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, wrote a detailed analysis of how it all started. He first mentioned the 1832 secession crisis and then explained how the War Between the States began:

“The complaint was not of slavery, but of “the acquisition of more weight at the other extremity” of the Union. It was not slavery that threatened a rupture in 1832, but the unjust and unequal operation of a protective tariff.

“It happened, however, on all these occasions, that the line of demarkation of sectional interests coincided exactly or very nearly with that dividing the States in which negro servitude existed from those in which it had been abolished. . . .

“The preamble to the Constitution declared the object of its founders to be, “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” Now, however (in 1860), the people of a portion of the States had assumed an attitude of avowed hostility, not only to the provisions of the Constitution itself, but to the “domestic tranquillity” of the people of other States. Long before the formation of the Constitution, one of the charges preferred in the Declaration of Independence against the Government of Great Britain, as justifying the separation of the colonies from that country, was that of having “excited domestic insurrections among us.” Now, the mails were burdened with incendiary publications, secret emissaries had been sent, and in one case an armed invasion of one of the States had taken place for the very purpose of exciting “domestic insurrection.”

“It was not the passage of the “personal liberty laws,” it was not the circulation of incendiary documents, it was not the raid of John Brown, it was not the operation of unjust and unequal tariff laws, nor all combined, that constituted the intolerable grievance, but it was the systematic and persistent struggle to deprive the Southern States of equality in the Union – generally to discriminate in legislation against the interests of their people; culminating in their exclusion from the Territories, the common property of the States, as well as by the infraction of their compact to promote domestic tranquillity. . . .

“No alternative remained except to seek the security out of the Union which they had vainly tried to obtain within it. The hope of our people may be stated in a sentence. It was to es- cape from injury and strife in the Union, to find prosperity and peace out of it” (Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, 79, 82-83, 85).

Numerous other authorities could be appealed to, but suffice it to say the Southern states did not leave the Union because of slavery. Of course, slavery was an important economic consideration, but other factors weighed more heavily on the minds and hearts of our Southern brothers; factors such as the U.S. Constitution, states’ rights, and economics. And other villains omitted from the history books entirely also had a hand in causing the rupture in the United States, such as the international banking cartel and Illuminati-communist agents (these were behind John Brown’s terror attacks against the South, as Arthur Thompson explained in his book To the Victor Go the Myths and Monuments).

Despite the fact that Lincoln’s War was illegally launched by the radical Republican president for reasons other than slavery and in spite of the fact that states have the inherent right to secede from the Union, modern rioters and Social Justice Warriors are busy destroying monuments and expunging our history using “the Confederacy was racist” as their justification. They seem to not understand that human imperfections don’t give them a right to conceal history, destroy property, and bully others into supporting their point of view.

Let’s be clear on something: All sane people agree that slavery is a morally repugnant institution and that all states ought to have outlawed slavery voluntarily as the Founding Fathers had wished. All informed individuals know that slavery has been practiced by all races and is not an inherently white institution (indeed, numerous black slave owners, including black women, were black!) And all knowledgeable people know that the Founding Fathers were generally opposed to slavery and created the Constitution in such a way so that slavery could be eventually phased out as public opinion caught up with the times. Despite the flaws in implementing it, the Constitution has defended more people in the enjoyment of their God-given rights than any system of government in world history.

Dear reader, we are witnessing the wholesale, coordinated, planned demolition our history and heritage. The slavery and discrimination of past ages are being used as justification for upending our present society. What good has ever come from destroying the past and concealing history? Should the Colosseum be demolished because slaves were forced to fight to the death within its walls? Should the Great Wall of China be leveled because Chinese emperors used slave labor to construct it? Should the Egyptian pyramids be deconstructed or defaced because peasants were forced to construct them? Should all nations on earth which have periods of dark history (i.e. all of them) destroy their monuments and burn their history books to appease modern thugs?

In her excellent article “Destroying Confederate Monuments Hurts Us All – and Accomplishes Nothing,” Cheryl Benard wrote:

“The semi-hysterical push to remove [Confederate monuments] is, I strongly believe, a mistake, a dangerous precedent, and an exercise in ignorance. Mobs pull statues down. ISIS destroys monuments. Fanatics rewrite history to edit out the bits they don’t like. Our country should not be walking down that road.

“To the advocates of historic cleansing, this is about racism. Remove its reminders from public spaces, and you are helping to remove it from society. That is a bold assumption – in fact it’s many assumptions: that what a monument says to you is what it says to everyone. That negative periods of history should be erased. That the losing side in a conflict also loses, for all time, the right to honor or mourn its dead. That driving an opposing sentiment underground will make it go away. . . .

“. . . the idea that the way to deal with history is to destroy any relics that remind you of something you don’t like, is highly alarming. . . .

“. . . Erase your story and you erase yourself.”

Amen to every word! When we erase our shared heritage, we erase ourselves. Like it or not, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. They both inherited them, never wanted them, and later freed them – but no one wants to talk about that little bit. Erasing their names doesn’t change the past, but it does darken the future. Casting a shadow of doubt on the high character of these men tends to make young people reluctant to learn about them. And what a tragedy that would be! They would grow up without knowledge of Jefferson’s brilliance and Washington’s valor. They would miss out on stories of Washington’s extreme faith in God and Jefferson’s passionate pleas for Liberty for all.

Yet, that is exactly what the Marxists want! They want us to think badly of our Founding Fathers. They want us to hate them and to replace them in our hearts with men like Marx and Lenin. They want to poison our attitudes towards them so badly that we also reject the work of their hands; that is, the republican institutions epitomized by the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

If they get us to reject the men, they can get us to reject their principles and works. You cannot denigrate one without also condemning the other. And you cannot love America while simultaneously castigating those who created her. In this manner, the communists hope to deconstruct our faith in our Founding Fathers, our faith in the Constitution, and our faith in our Republic. When we’re faithless and rootless, we can be easily molded into a militant Marxist society. The social programmers will then be able to create “the new Soviet man” they’ve dreamed about for decades.

I share a warning from the honorable Ezra Taft Benson. Speaking of dignified men like George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Benjamin Franklin, Benson admonished:

“When one casts doubt about the character of these noble sons of God, I believe he or she will have to answer to the God of heaven for it” (Ezra Taft Benson, “God’s Hand in Our Nation’s History,” BYU Address, March 28, 1977).

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Lincoln, Lenin, and Stalin featured at a communist rally

By the same token, the Marxists want us to reject the Confederates because by rejecting them we also reject ideas such as defending the Constitution by arms if necessary, states’ rights, and secession from tyrannical government. Yes, I’m saying that Abraham Lincoln was, at least in the beginning of his reign, a tyrant. It’s no secret that Lincoln was beloved by Karl Marx. It was no mistake that the largely Jewish group of communist revolutionaries who traveled from the United States to participate in the bloody Spanish Civil War named themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. And it is no secret that Lincoln is often held up by today’s communists as a rallying symbol. By rejecting Confederate heroes like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, we also reject a sense of patriotism as well as their deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ. Again, the result is that a society deprived of a moral compass and ideals worth fighting for is one that can be Sovietized.

Historian Orlando Figes described how the communists went about creating the “new Soviet man” in Russia, a process which ought to be familiar to Americans who know how our public school system operates today:

“The Bolsheviks saw education as the key to the creation of a socialist society. Through the schools and Communist youth leagues they aimed to indoctrinate the next generation in the new collective way of life.

“The dissemination of Communist values was the guiding principle of the Soviet school curriculum. In the United Labour Schools there was an emphasis on teaching children science and economy through practical activities. Progressive schools were organized as miniature versions of the Soviet state: work plans and achievements were displayed in graphs and pie-charts on the walls; children were encouraged to set up councils to monitor the pupils and teachers for ‘anti-Soviet’ views. Children were encouraged to play at being ‘revolutionaries’.

“Politically, the education system was geared towards producing activists. Children were to be indoctrinated in the practices, cults and rituals of the Soviet system so that they would grow up to become loyal and active Communists.”

Today, anything smacking of “anti-Soviet” views in America such as the Freedom philosophy of our Founding Fathers is also being smeared and destroyed. Political correctness, a Soviet import to America, is one of the chief tools of this campaign. The most effective instrument, however, is the public school system which inculcates American children with Marxist ideas from their earliest years, while stripping them of love for their country and their God. The pincer of political correctness and public school indoctrination is too powerful for many Americans to escape. They become lost to the Red tide that rising around us.

The culture assassins are aided tremendously by the feelings of guilt they’ve been able to induce in white Americans. After a decades’ long propaganda barrage, the native white population of Anglo-Saxon and European stock has been guilt-tripped into believing that our ancestors were horrible human beings – slavers, oppressors, colonizers, tyrants, and murderers. We’re supposed to buy the lie that our progenitors committed genocide, stole the Indians’ land, and founded a nation of brigands. We’re told to believe the false narrative that our forefathers were backwards, intolerant, hateful bigots, chauvinists, and racists. We’re taught that the nation our hardworking, industrious ancestors built was actually built “on the backs of slaves” and that our People’s unrivaled accomplishments were only possible through the alleged “oppression” of other peoples – Indians, blacks, Latinos, and women.

So thorough has the propaganda campaign been that even saying words like “Indians,” “blacks,” “Latinos,” and “women” can get you in trouble. After all, isn’t it “First Nations,” “Indigenous Peoples,” or “Native Americans,” “African-Americans,” “Hispanics” or “The Race,” and “wymyn”? The communist culture-destroyers have hijacked our minds, transformed our language, and converted our history into a lie. Through political correctness, social pressure, and constant Hollywood, media, and public school indoctrination, generations of Americans have been tricked into hating their past and being ashamed for their ancestors – even being ashamed at their own skin color!

You must understand that the powers-that-be do not want us united. They know than a unified America is unstoppable. They cannot stand against an ideologically-united America that believe in the ideals of Liberty, limited republican government, rule of law, universal moral principles, and so forth. Instead, they want us divided into warring tribal factions – blacks against whites, Republicans against Democrats, urban people against rural folks, etc. Divide and conquer is their strategy. The slavery of past ages is the perfect excuse to incite racial division and heat emotions to the boiling point.

The Elite have encouraged division by getting us to refer to ourselves as “hyphenated Americans,” to steal a term from Teddy Roosevelt. In spite of his progressive principles, President Roosevelt was an American first and foremost. He knew that subdividing ourselves into groups is dangerous. Roosevelt explained and warned:

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else” (Roosevelt, 1915, in David M. Kennedy and Thomas A. Bailey, The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by Contemporaries, Vol. 2, 268).

People who incessantly refer to themselves as “African-Americans,” “Mexican-Americans,” and so forth, have “no place here.” They’re not true Americans. They’ve failed to capture the spirit of Americanism – the spirit that unites us on principle and ignores race, ethnicity, gender, and so on. America needs nationalism. But we need a nationalism that centers on principles and ideology, a nationalism that binds us to the Constitution, and a nationalism that puts America first. Those who promote “hyphenated Americanism” are agitators. Real Americans should “unsparingly condemn” anyone who holds any other allegiance than to America and the ideals that made her great.

Our national monuments are being torn down to appease the politically-correct crowd that infests our country like a cancer. This seditious group, led by the avowed Marxists and communist agitators like Antifa, is gnawing through and undermining our societal pillars like termites chew through and eviscerate wood. Hundreds of Confederate memorials, monuments to great figures from our past, murals depicting moments of American greatness, and other reminders of our traditional values have been obliterated in the brazen attempt to erase our history, thereby destroying our heritage and leaving us rootless and ready to be reshaped. If America is to survive, this terrorism must cease.

A nation without a shared history that is cherished and preserved is no nation at all. A nation without monuments and memorials to the past is a nation of little substance. A people cut off from its roots by failing to hand down the stories of its ancestors and their achievements is aimless and weak and ready to be conquered by a force, regardless of how vicious, that is sure of itself and has a sense of destiny.

Americans need not be ashamed – we share a glorious history! No other nation has a heritage of Liberty like we do. Our noble ancestors settled and civilized this continent and built the greatest, most powerful, most prosperous, most influential, and freest nation in world history. They weren’t perfect, but they accomplished great things and paved the way for the implementation of the Freedom we take for granted today. They lived in a world that thought nothing of slavery, yet they fought against it. They lived in a world of kings and empires, yet established a Republic. They lived in a world of aristocracy, yet promoted a system where average folks could excel and succeed. Don’t be ashamed of your country’s past, dear American. Claim the title “American” as your birthright and your sincere honor!

It’s time to rise in just anger against the Marxists and their dupes who are attempting to destroy our Republic, who constantly insult our forefathers, who trample our national history, who threaten to enslave our People, and who spew the vilest hate on our institutions. It’s time to become militant against this violent and existential threat. It’s time to organize and unify to safeguard our Faith, Families, and Freedom. If we do not, the culture-destroyers will not stop at decapitating monuments and lighting churches on fire, but will turn their fury against us, the American freemen, and blood will flow through the streets like it did during the French and Bolshevik Revolutions. God help us see sense and act manfully before that terrible storm hits us!

Zack Strong,

June 13, 2020

“Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.” – John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 26, 1777

In Support of the President’s Use of Domestic Military Force

Posted on June 3, 2020 by zeev1776

Turn on any TV and you’ll see scenes of destruction, lawlessness, and violence being played out from coast to coast. Organized mobs are brutally attacking police and random citizens, injuring dozens and leaving several dead. They’ve started hundreds of fires, destroyed businesses, looted stores, threatened to rampage through the suburbs, graffitied national monuments, and clashed with Secret Service at the White House. Our Republic is in the grip of a cleverly-orchestrated revolt.

The malevolent forces behind this revolt are the Marxists and their front groups such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter. To his credit, President Donald Trump has mobilized the military to put down this savage insurrection. The goal of this article is to explain the constitutional and moral justifications for calling in the military to restore law and order and to punish the renegades, and to demonstrate why the riots are not spontaneous events but part of a larger agenda.

On June 1, President Trump delivered a speech at the White House. To me, it was the greatest speech he’s yet given. I quote it nearly in full to contextualize my remarks:

“I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters. But in recent days our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others. A number of state and local governments have failed to necessary action to safeguard their residents. Innocent people have been savagely beaten like the young man in Dallas, Texas who was left dying on the street or the woman in upstate New York viciously attacked by dangerous thugs. Small business owners have seen their dreams utterly destroyed. New York’s finest have been hit in the face with bricks. Brave nurses who have battled the virus are afraid to leave their homes. A police precinct has been overrun. Here in the nation’s capital, he Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial have been vandalized. One of our most historic churches was set ablaze. A federal officer in California, an African American enforcement hero, was shot and killed.

“These are not acts of peaceful protest. These are acts of domestic terror. The destruction of innocent life and the spilling of innocent blood is an offense to humanity and a crime against God. America needs creation, not destruction; cooperation, not contempt; security, not anarchy; healing, not hatred; justice, not chaos. This is our mission and we will succeed. 100% we will succeed. Our country always wins.

“That is why I am taking immediate presidential action to stop the violence and restore security and safety in America. I am authorizing all available federal resources civilian and military to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans including your Second Amendment rights. Therefore, the following measures are going into effect immediately:

“First, we are ending the riots and lawlessness that have spread throughout our country. We will end it now. Today I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled. If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.

“I am also taking swift and decisive action to protect our great capital, Washington, D.C. What happened in this city last night was a total disgrace. As we speak, I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property. We are putting everybody on warning our 7 o’clock curfew will be strictly informed.

“Those who threaten innocent life and property will be arrested, detained, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I want the organizers of this terror to be on notice that you will face severe criminal penalties and lengthy sentences in jail. This includes Antifa and others who are leading instigators of this violence.

“One law and order. And that is what it is. We have one beautiful law. And once that is restored and fully restored, we will help you, we will help your business, and we will help your family. America is founded upon the rule of law. It is the foundation of our prosperity, our freedom, and our very way of life. But where there is no law, there is no opportunity. Where there is no justice, there is no liberty. Where there is no safety, there is no future.

“We must never give into anger or hatred. If malice or violence reigns, then none of us is free. I take these actions today with firm resolve and with true and passionate love for our country. By far our greatest days lie ahead.”

I don’t often say this about a political speech, but in this excerpt, every word is accurate. I endorse it in full. But just what am I endorsing?

To begin with, President Trump correctly refuted the idea that what’s happening are “peaceful protests.” He gave multiple examples of the violence, destruction, and murder that’s occurring. He could have given thousands more. The controlled media has pushed the false narrative that this is all “peaceful,” even as cities burn, people lose their life savings, stores are looted, rioters threaten to “kill white people,” people are assaulted, police cars and offices are torched, and so on. At least 23 states have now activated their National Guard, yet this is supposedly a “peaceful” event!

President Trump correctly described the anarchy as “domestic terror.” Antifa, one of the radical Judeo-Marxist organizations spearheading the riots, has a 10-point plan to cause enough chaos to effect regime change. To give you a flavor of their scheme, I quote two proposals. Point #2 threatens: “We will destroy the state, police, military, corporations and all those who run the American plantation.” And point #10 says: “Liberation begins where America dies.”

Suffice it to say, I was ecstatic three days ago when when the president designated Antifa a “terrorist organization.” I’ve advocated doing that for years. In fact, I propose labeling all openly Marxist organizations, political parties, and publications as terroristic and/or subversive and formally outlawing them and rounding up their members. More on that later.

The president went farther by pointing out that not only is the violence “domestic terror,” but that it is being orchestrated by “professional anarchists.” He put “the organizers of this terror . . . on notice” and referred to Antifa thugs as “leading instigators of this violence.” It is perfectly accurate to say that these riots are not organic or spontaneous. They were pre-planned and only needed the right pretext to set them in motion.

Is there evidence that the riots are being formally organized by malevolent organizations? Yes there is. The evidence is of two sorts – real and theoretical. First, protesters in multiple locations have been caught with printed instructions for how to cause violence and whom to call for bail if arrested. BuzzFeed and Vox, among others, have published online guides for how to protest. BuzzFeed posted a 19-point guide, which included the tip: “Wear clothing that covers tattoos, discernible scars, and birth marks that could be used to identify you.” And Joe Biden’s campaign has been busy bailing Minneapolis rioters out of jail, thus sanctioning the violence.

Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul stated several days ago that every person who had at that point been arrested in connection with the riot was non-local. They had traveled to the hot spot to engage in and incite violence. The police chief of Minneapolis likewise said that the core group of thugs who kicked off the melee were not local residents, but had arrived from other locations. In Richmond, Virginia, Police Chief Will Smith recounted the following:

“Last night, protesters intentionally set a fire to an occupied building on Broad Street. This is not the only occupied building that has been set fire to over the last two days, but they prohibited us from getting on scene. We had to force our way to make a clear path for the fire department. Protesters intercepted that fire apparatus several blocks away with vehicles and blocked that fire department’s access to the structure fire. Inside that home was a child. Officers were able to help those people out of the house. We were able to get the fire department there safely.

“. . . We have people from across the country who have traveled many states to be here. We know that this is an organized effort. We’re committed to try and identify those that are behind it. And we’re doing our very level best to arrest those that are perpetrating the violence on our community, and our city, and our citizens.”

Here we have more out-of-staters coming into an area and coordinating violence against the population. Can anyone doubt that the various riots are planned and directed from above?

Furthermore, a strange video showed a man in a mask walk up behind a crowd, smash out store windows, and calmly walk off. Another short video showing a bedraggled hippie paying rioters and directing their operations has also come to light. From Kansas City to Baltimore to New York City, piles of bricks for rioters to throw have also been mysteriously showing up in countless locations, strategically located near high-end stores and places where they can inflame passions the most. An article in The Most Important News (TMIN) noted that some of the anarchist groups are using networks of bicycle scouts to communicate with rioters on the ground and direct their operations. TMIN also cited police reports from Minnesota where “several caches of flammable materials” had been found in various neighborhoods, having “been planted days ago and some only in the last 24 hours.”

Foreign intervention has similarly been uncovered. While writing this, news broke that FBI agents in several locations have arrested groups from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Honduras for paying thugs to create violence during the riots. An investigator in the FBI sting operation told the news: “There are definitely individuals associated with Venezuela who paid trips to people to various cities in the United States to promote chaos.” The article carrying this story noted:

“Several of the detainees are residents of the Miami area known as Little Haiti, who participated in the riots in downtown Miami between Friday and Saturday, the source said.

“Activists marching with the flag of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the party of Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, also participated in the demonstrations.”

The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a well-known Soviet front organization founded during the Cold War for the promotion of socialism in Nicaragua. It’s no surprise that the revolutionary Marxist Sandinistas are participating in the communist-inspired riots alongside Antifa and others of like ideology.

Some in the media are accusing Russia of involvement in the rioting, while others on the “conservative” side are calling this accusation “fake news.” Yet, is it really “fake news” when you consider that Russian proxy states like Cuba and Venezuela, and Russia-supported groups like the Sandinistas, are being caught red-handed financing rioters? It was an acknowledged Soviet tactic to do their dirty work (terrorism, assassination, drug smuggling, etc.) through proxy states so they could claim their hands were clean. They continue to use the tactic to this day. Similarly, the Red Chinese have openly said the rioting is a “beautiful sight to behold.” China has also invested billions of dollars in radicalizing American youth, especially on university campuses. You can be sure that time will reveal more Russian and Chinese fingerprints on these violent riots.

All of these things demonstrate that paid professional provocateurs are being used to cause chaos, inflame tensions, and whip up clashes with police. Rioters are being provided with the fuel – sometimes literally – to continue their rampaging. Justice is being denied by people with deep pockets bailing out the criminals. The mark of prior planning and coordinated action is obvious to see.

The next kind of evidence is theoretical. That is to say, these riots follow a distinct pattern. They play out according to a well-crafted script. This script is used again and again. It’s such a distinct program that it’s immediately recognizable. This script was used to pull of the Kent State Massacre false flag, which I recently wrote about. It was used more recently in the Occupy Wall Street and Ferguson riots. It’s the same blueprint set down by the communists and implemented by a professional cadre of revolutionaries whenever the pretext presents itself (or can be made to appear).

In my article “George Floyd and the Scourge of Black Criminality,” I quoted several statements explaining the communist blueprint for insurrection. Today, I briefly refer to them, expand on one observation, and add an additional quotation. First, the Russian immigrant author Alexander Markovsky succinctly summarized the Bolshevik playbook for revolution:

“Lenin was a master at taking advantage of chaos. He believed that crises create opportunities for change, or, in his mind, revolution. “Our task,” Lenin wrote in 1902 in What Is to Be Done, “is to utilize every manifestation of discontent, and to collect and utilize every grain of rudimentary protest.” Indeed, if you want to change a society, here is Lenin’s script: cause the problem. Spread the misery. Send a cadre of professional community organizers to unite all of the angry and disinherited spirits to fuel an organized revolt. Entice chaos and violence. Exploit chaos for larger political objectives. Blame your political opponents, demonize and criminalize them. Move decisively to request a temporary suspension of civil liberties in exchange for the restoration of law and order. Usurp power before the deceived masses realize that there is more permanent in politics than something temporary. . . .

“Taking advantage of a crisis has always been a strategy for extremists to make fundamental changes in society. . . .

““Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times, echoing Lenin and Strasser” (Alexander G. Markovsky, Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It, 28).

Crisis, reaction, solution. That’s the way the Marxist Elite operate. They cause a crisis, they manage and steer the public’s reaction to the crisis, and then they offer a “solution” that will benefit their agenda. In other words, they make people’s lives miserable and then rush in with “solutions,” posing as the savior. They run the same script over and over, as many times as necessary to construct their communist monopoly piece by piece.

Ezra Taft Benson referred to this tactic in 1967 when, in the midst of the communist-controlled Civil Rights Movement, he warned:

“As far back as 1928, the Communists declared that the cultural, economic, and social differences between the races in America could be exploited by them to create the animosity, fear, and hatred between large segments of our people that would be necessary beginning ingredients for their revolution.

“Briefly, the three broad objectives were and are as follows:

1. Create hatred

2. Trigger violence

3. Overthrow established government. . . .

“Police and National Guard units will never be adequate to handle such widespread anarchy, especially if a large part of our men and equipment are drained away in fighting foreign wars. In self-defense, larger numbers are brought into fighting on both sides. The appearance of a nationwide civil war takes form. In the confusion, potential anti-Communist leaders of both races are assassinated, apparently the accidental casualties of race war.

“Time the attack to coincide, if possible, with large-scale sabotage a water supplies, power grids, main rail road and highway arteries, communication centers, and government buildings With fires raging in every conceivable part of town, with wanton looting going on in the darkness of a big city without routine police protection, without water to drink, without electrical refrigeration, without transportation or radio or TV, the public will panic, lock its doors in trembling fear, and make it that much easier for the small but assembled and fully disciplined guerrilla bands to capture the power centers of each community. Overthrow the government! After complete control is consolidated (and that may take many months, as in Cuba), only then allow the people to discover that it was a Communist revolution after all. . . .

“In such countries as Czechoslovakia, the Communists have used an entirely different method of internal conquest. Instead of the force and violence of a bloody revolution (a “war of national liberation”), parliamentary and political means were used to bring about a more peaceful transition to Communism. The Communist strategists call this alternate plan a “proletarian” revolution.

“This plan is as follows: Using unidentified Communist agents and non-Communist sympathizers in key positions in government, in communications media, and in mass organizations, such as labor unions and civil rights groups, demand more and more government power as the solution to all civil rights problems. Total government is the objective of Communism. Without calling it by name, build Communism piece by piece through mass pressures for presidential decrees, court orders, and legislation that appear to be aimed at improving civil rights and other social reforms. If there is social, economic, or educational discrimination, then advocate more government programs and control.

“And what if riots come? Then more government housing, government welfare, government job training, and, finally, federal control over police. Thus the essential economic and political structure of Communism can be built entirely “legally” and in apparent response to the wishes of the people who have clamored for some kind of solution to the problems played-up, aggravated, or created outright by Communists for just that purpose. After the machinery of Communism is firmly established, then allow the hidden Communists one by one to make their identities known. Liquidate first the anti-Communists and then the non-Communist sympathizers who are no longer needed in government. The total state mechanism can now openly and “peacefully” be transferred into the hands of Communists. Such is the so-called proletarian revolution. Such has happened in other, once free, countries. It has already started here.

“The Communists are not entirely certain whether force and violence or legal and political means or a combination of both would be best for the internal conquest of America. At first, there was talk of splitting away the “Black Belt,” those southern states in which the Negro held a majority, and calling them a Negro Soviet Republic. But, as conditions changed and more Negroes migrated to the northern states, they applied this same strategy to the so-called ghetto areas in the North. It now seems probable that the Communists are determined to use force and violence to its fullest, coupled with a weakening of the economy and military setbacks abroad, in an effort to create as much havoc as possible to weaken America internally and to create the kind of psychological desperation in the minds of all citizens that will lead them to accept blindly the application of legal and political means as the final blow.”

There’s a lot to consider here and the full address is even more powerful, but the key takeaway is that the communists have always planned to use riots – particularly race riots – to create chaos in which they can come to power. If enough chaos can be created and sustained, they may be able to give the system a shove and topple it altogether and come to power. But more than likely, it will take many attempts and so they settle for causing crisis after crisis, and each time enacting more and more restrictive legislation. Eventually, by hook or by crook, the communist revolutionaries hope to demoralize, confuse, and conquer America. The current riots are a part of that overall strategy.

I quote one more important statement from Benson. In 1963, Benson explained different methods the communists have planned to capture the United States:

“There are three possible methods by which the Communists might take us over. One would be through a sufficient amount of infiltration and propaganda, to disguise Communism as just another political party.

“The second method would be by fomenting internal civil war in this country, and aiding the communists’ side in that war with all necessary military might.

“The third method would be by a slow insidious infiltration resulting in a takeover without the American people realizing it.

“The Soviets would not attempt military conquest of so powerful and so extensive a country as the United States without availing themselves of a sufficiently strong fifth column in our midst, a fifth column which would provide the sabotage, the false leadership, and the sudden seizures of power and of means of communication, needed to convert the struggle, from the very beginning, into a civil war rather than clear-cut with an external enemy.

“We can foresee a possibility of the Kremlin taking this gamble in time. In fact, it is clear that the Communists long ago made plans to have this method available, in whole or in part, to whatever extent it might be useful. The trouble in our southern states has been fomented almost entirely by the Communists for this purpose. It has been their plan, gradually carried out over a long period with meticulous cunning, to stir up such bitterness between the whites and blacks in the South that small flames of civil disorder would inevitably result. They could then fan and coalesce these little flames into one great conflagration of civil war, in time, if the need arose” (Ezra Taft Benson, “We Must Become Alerted and Informed,” speech, December 13, 1963).

I trust you can see that the communist playbook of old is being used right now, this very day, in the mass riots across our nation. The Red blueprint is being implemented precisely as drawn up. Lenin’s old script is being used yet again. Whether the average thug rioter knows it or not, he’s playing a part in the Bolshevik conquest of America. Whether the average Black Lives Matter dupe admits it, he’s cannon fodder for this final communist revolution.

Political commentator Dan Bongino was quick to point out that the rioting did not begin spontaneously. He observed:

“This is not some run-of-the-mill criminality by people who have nothing to do on a Saturday night. Yes, there are some people there who are just there to cause trouble. This is a sophisticated insurrection-type attack. This is not a joke.”

Bongino also said:

“This isn’t a protest anymore, this is a coup. This is an organized internal coup by a small group of agitators acting as a domestic terror group. That’s a fact.”

It is a fact. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other organizations are teaming up in a coordinated effort to cause mayhem, bring our government to a screeching halt, and prepare the way for a regime change – a regime that that would, ironically, ruthlessly prohibit the sort of rioting these people are engaged in.

To fight these domestic terrorists, President Trump has called up the military. In particular, the famed 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army is heading Washington, D.C. and possibly Minnesota to put an end to the outlawry. Tens of thousands of National Guard troops have been activated. Numerous other federal personnel are joining the fight to suppress this Marxist uprising. Fortunately, this is not “the big one” and we should be able to bring things to a speedy conclusion. Unfortunately, this is a shadow of worse things yet to come.

Now I will address the constitutional and moral justifications for using military force domestically. This is necessary because people on both sides are calling President Trump’s move an overreach, a usurpation, and even an act of tyranny. The perpetual Trump-haters call anything the president does “tyrannical.” Their knee-jerk reactions don’t matter. I’m addressing my words to those who love America, my fellow constitutionalists and conspiracy researchers, and patriots everywhere.

As soon as the word broke that President Trump was calling up the military, people began citing the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. Posse comitatus is a Latin term meaning “force of the country.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the function of posse comitatus as an “ancient English institution consisting of the shire’s force of able-bodied private citizens summoned to assist in maintaining public order. Originally raised and commanded by the sheriff, the posse comitatus became a purely civil instrument as the office of sheriff later lost its military functions.”

The Act in question essentially states that the military will not be used to enforce domestic laws. The context of this Act is important, however. After Lincoln’s war against the Confederacy, the South was occupied by the Union Army. The Army served as a police force. Eventually, it was necessary to end the military occupation and restore civilian control of the Southern states. Posse Comitatus was passed to accomplish this. Today, many are invoking Posse Comitatus to claim President Trump is overstepping his authority by using the military to ensure law and order.

I would ask, whence does the president derive his authority? From the Posse Comitatus Act? No. He gets his authority from the American People by virtue of the Constitution which he swears an oath to uphold and defend.

The Constitution is our national creed. It’s what binds us together as Americans. It’s the “cement of the Union,” as James Madison called it (James Madison, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809). The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and in its sphere it trumps all state and local laws. Indeed, even federal laws are only valid if they conform to the principles of the Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The purpose of the Constitution, therefore, is to limit government in such a way as to protect individual rights; that is, our lives, our Liberty, our property, and so forth. More explicitly, the Bill of Rights defends our right of self-defense, our right to peaceably assemble, our right to privacy, our right to jury trial, our right to freely worship God, our right to have our property protected, and so on. The entire purpose of the U.S. government is to do secure our rights and defend us from those who would violate them.

To defend our rights, the Constitution has certain mechanisms. One is the Supremacy Clause which ensures that no state or local laws can ever justly violate the Constitution and another is the president’s oath of office which states that his sole job is to uphold the Constitution.

The most common sense idea is that the president, as the chief officer of the federal government, has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that the rights of Americans everywhere are being protected. It only makes sense that if a state decided to curtail its people’s right of worship, for instance, the federal government – headed by the president – could, and should, step in and correct this flagrant abuse of God-given rights. Who will protest this fact? I believe only one who doesn’t understand the purpose and necessity of a general government can deny the president his just right to defend the American People from abuse, even if must use military force.

What’s more, I would ask: If the federal government doesn’t have the authority to compel obedience to the Constitution, then why does it exist? If it doesn’t possess the authority to compel obedience to just laws, then it’s a dead letter – a useless instrument that should be tossed on the ash heap of history. Thankfully, it does contain the authority for the government to step in and defend the rights of citizens. President George Washington expressed the idea this way his immortal Farewell Address:

“This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.”

As General Washington said, we owe obedience to the government’s laws, inasmuch as they do not infringe upon our rights. The government therefore has inherent power to compel obedience while the People ratify the government with their consent and while its actions are harmonious with our Liberty. And as the chief executive, the president commands the power to compel.

Furthermore, our history furnishes precedent for the president using the military domestically. To justify his actions, President Trump took the advice of Senator Tom Cotton and invoked the 1807 Insurrection Act. The Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson, authorizes the president to deploy the military or militias during times of insurrection or when general law and order have been thwarted. The purpose of authorizing military force is for putting down insurrection or causing the laws to be duly executed. Congress has, more than once, reaffirmed the Insurrection Act and, thus, legally speaking, President Trump has every authority necessary to call in the military and use them to suppress the dangerous rioting that has already claimed the lives of multiple individuals and has set the whole nation on edge.

Even before the Insurrection Act, President George Washington demonstrated that the president has the right, when the situation calls for it, to use the military to bring about law and order. In 1791, the Whiskey Rebellion began. The rebellion lasted three years with the government futilely attempting the tax evaders. The final straw came in 1794 when 6,000 demonstrators erected mock guillotines and threatened government leaders (think of what was happening in France at the time). President Washington was so furious that the laws set forth by a government ratified by the consent of the People were being flouted that he issued a stern proclamation on August 7, 1794. In part, it read:

“[I]t is in my Judgment necessary under the circumstances of the case to take measures for calling forth the militia in order to suppress the Combinations aforesaid and to cause the Laws to be duly executed, and I have accordingly determined so to do, feeling the deepest regret for the occasion, but withal the most Solemn conviction, that the essential interests of the Union demand it, that the very existence of Government and the fundamental principles of social order are materially involved in the issue, and that the patriotism and firmness of all good Citizens are seriously called upon, as occasion may require, to aid in the effectual suppression of so fatal a Spirit.

“Wherefore, and in pursuance of the Proviso above recited, I George Washington, President of the United States, do hereby command all persons, being insurgents as aforesaid and all others whom it may concern on or before the first day of September next to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes. And I do moreover warn all persons whomsoever against aiding abetting or comforting the perpetrators of the aforesaid treasonable Acts: and do require all officers and other Citizens according to their respective duties and the laws of the land to exert their utmost endeavors to prevent and suppress such dangerous proceedings.”

President Washington, citing the 1792 Militia Acts, suited up in his old general’s uniform and rode at the head of an army of 13,000 militiamen to quell the “treasonable” uprising and punish the “insurgents.” Most of the “insurgents” departed peaceably, a number were arrested, a few were tried, two were found guilty of treason, and in the end Washington pardoned them. In that same year, James Madison wrote:

“The result of the insurrection ought to be a lesson to every part of the Union against disobedience to the laws. Examples of this kind are as favorable to the enemies of republican government as the event proves them to be dangerous to the authors” (James Madison to Hubbard Taylor, November 15, 1794).

Some then and now challenge Washington’s authority in this matter, yet the General understood that the president has the inherent right to enforce the Constitution – even by military means. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, for instance, initially disagreed with President Washington’s move. Yet, it was Thomas Jefferson, supported by James Madison, who, feeling the necessity to use troops to suppress a brewing rebellion by Aaron Burr, pushed for and signed the Insurrection Act a few short years later. Today, real patriots should be able to agree with Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Madison that situations arise in which the president must have the authority and power to use the nation’s military might domestically.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Constitution does not allow the president to use the military in domestic matters when a crisis calls for it. Even in this scenario, the president would be in the right to use the military to bring order. He would be justified by the “laws of necessity.”

Thomas Jefferson spoke often of the “laws of necessity” as being higher than the actual written law. I concur as emphatically as mortal words allow me to. The great sage explained:

“The question you propose, whether circumstances do not sometimes occur, which make it a duty in officers of high trust, to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrassing in practice. A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means” (Thomas Jefferson to John B. Colvin, September 20, 1810).

Another time, Jefferson simply stated that “necessity is above all law” (Thomas Jefferson, “Report on Navigation of the Mississippi,” 1792).

The “laws of necessity” are of higher value even than the Constitution, which I consider to be a literally Heaven-inspired document. I revere the Constitution as I do the Bible and other holy scripture. Yet, the “laws of necessity” supersede all mortal laws. Even Heavenly laws such as “thou shalt not kill” can be justly broken when self-defense or the punishment of criminals necessitates it.

Think of the situation we find ourselves in as a People. Thousands of violent rioters from Miami to New York City to Baltimore to Houston to Minneapolis to L.A. are looting stores, destroying private property, burning down apartments and police stations, murdering law enforcement personnel, attacking truck drivers, and causing general chaos. Doesn’t necessity require a swift end to the violence? Doesn’t necessity dictate that our nation’s military, which exists to protect our Republic, be used to do their job? Fortunately, even if you can’t yet hear the call of necessity, you can settle your mind in the fact that the Insurrection Act championed by the great Thomas Jefferson authorizes domestic military intervention during legitimate crises.

I don’t say this often, but God bless Donald Trump! I didn’t vote for him in 2016 and I won’t be voting for him in 2020. However, even while he has done many things I find deplorable, he has done more good than any president in my lifetime. During the past week alone he has hit several home runs: Moving to designate Antifa a terrorist organization; taking the United States out of the World Health Organization (WHO); moving to stop censorship by social media outlets that take tax-payer money; expelling Chinese “students” associated with the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from America; and now deploying the military to put down violent Marxist riots.

If I was in the presidency, I would use the office to designate all organizations, parties, publications, groups, and clubs promoting Marxism as “subversive.” I would move to disband and criminalize them. I would do everything in my power – including using the military – to round up the members of these organizations. They would be placed through an educational course similar to what prospective U.S. citizens take. At the end, they would be given an option: Swear allegiance to the U.S. Constitution or be exiled. In extreme cases, I propose the death penalty. Capital punishment has always been the penalty for traitors.

This proposal no doubt sounds draconian. After all, isn’t this what Hitler did to the communists who were attempting to overthrow Germany? Yes, it is. And by so doing, he saved Germany from a communist coup d’état! Despite how authoritarian it seems, removing the source of violence and disturbance is an essential duty of the officers of government. Think of it in other terms. When you find a cancerous tumor in your body, do you leave it there or do you cut it out? You of course remove it. If you leave it in the body, it spreads, festers, damages tissue cells and bone marrow, and eventually kills you – sometimes in an agonizing manner. The same is true of political contagions like communism. If they are not ruthlessly rooted out, the society will deteriorate, convulse, and die.

We have to ask ourselves if we’re willing to let our cities burn and watch our people’s lives, livelihoods, and property be destroyed in the name of an organized mob fighting so-called “injustice.” Are we prepared to sit by idly as the law if flouted and savage mobs roam the streets like hyenas searching for prey? Or are we willing to do what necessity requires and fight back? Thankfully, President Trump has decided to do his duty and fight back. According to one poll, 58% of Americans support his decision. Even if they did not, however, it would still be the right thing to do. It is the only moral thing to do in this dire situation.

Even as I emphatically support the president’s decision, I offer a word of caution. Having a standing army on our streets was something the Founding Fathers collectively feared. They distrusted military establishments. The Constitution in fact only permits Congress to fund a military two years at a time – a clear attempt to check a future police state. History bears out the fact that tyrants often rise out of the habitual use of military force. Would-be-despots love crises because they give a pretext for instituting martial law.

President Trump is not the one who will use the military to oppress Americans and enact full martial law. However, if we get comfortable with having the military patrol our streets or if we allow the Marxist plague to force the military to be called out again and again, there will come a day when a future president will use the military to overthrow the Constitution.

I call on everyone to unite to cut the communist cancer from the American body once and for all. We must focus all our attention on the real enemy:

“We must not become confused over side issues. Our enemy is not the Catholic, not the Protestant, not the Negro, not the white man, not the Jew, not the Gentile, not employers, not employees, not the wealthy, not the poor, not the worker, and not the employer. Our mortal enemies are the Satanic Communists and those who prepare the path for them” (Ezra Taft Benson, “A Race Against Time,” BYU Address, December 10, 1963).

Not only are Black Lives Matter and Antifa goons communists themselves, but they’re preparing the path for a much eviler criminal cult to take power in the chaos – the very chaos people endorse and sanction when they erroneously identify the riots as “peaceful protests,” add “Black Lives Matter” filters to their Facebook pictures, and call people “racists” for not going along with their white-guilt-fueled professions of sorrow.

Finally, I echo J. Edgar Hoover who encouraged American patriots, saying:

“Communism can exist only where it is protected and hidden. The spotlight of public exposure is the most effective means we have to use in destroying the communist conspiracy. Drag that conspiracy into the light! Tear it apart. Reveal the flaws in its philosophy. Keep the pressure on it. Force it into retreat” (J. Edgar Hoover, The Lion, October, 1957, in Jerreld Newquist, ed., Prophets, Principles and National Survival, 251).

Fellow American, do your part to drag this diabolical conspiracy into the light where it will wither and die. Use your influence, however great or small, to denounce communism while advocating in favor of our Faith, Families, and Freedom. We have an opportunity, if we’re wise, moral, and courageous enough to take it, to deal a major blow to the communist conspiracy in America. If we fail to exterminate communism from our Republic, or if we allow our military to be improperly used in this fight, we may be signing our own death certificate. God help the pure in heart see the day when the communist gravediggers lie in the same mass grave they dug for us!

Zack Strong,
June 3, 2020

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The American Citadel

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Monthly Archives: June 2020

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