By Zack Strong
November 5, 2025

“Remember, remember! The fifth of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot. . .” – The Fifth of November, 1870.

Guy Fawkes may have been a Catholic terrorist attempting to blow up the Protestant British Parliament in real life, but I celebrate his on-screen adaptation in the 2005 film V for Vendetta. I celebrate what he stood for, rebellion to tyrants and the destruction of corruption. Despots who lord over others as if they were entitled to such authority by birth are the scum of the earth. They are the real enemies of all mankind no matter their stripe, party, race, gender, or nationality.

The great Thomas Jefferson declared, “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” (Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800). I have made a similar oath in my own life. Whatever it may cost, I reject and oppose tyranny.

“Thomas Jefferson’s Oath” by Arthur Szyk, 1951

Tyranny grows out of an elitist assumption. That assumption is that mankind are stupid sheep who need to be herded together and ruled by men of superior intelligence. It was Plato’s damnable philosopher-kings idea, which found its fulfillment in modern Illumined communism-socialism, that has plagued mankind since the beginning.

This prideful, self-serving philosophy originated with the Father of Lies who the word of God tells us sought to dominate others and “ascend into heaven” and dethrone God. “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God,” Lucifer boasted. “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” For his sedition, the Heavens lamented, “Thy pomp is brought down to the grave. . . . How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground” (Isaiah 14:11-14).

It is not surprising that like their Dark Master, “the servants of Satan that do uphold his work” seek to ascend above others and sit on golden thrones (Doctrine and Covenants 10:5). Thomas Jefferson countered this poverty of thought when he said, “[T]he mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god” (Thomas Jefferson to Roger Chew Weightman, June 24, 1826).

Freedom is the birthright of every man and woman. Rights are God-given and are claimed at birth. This is the American creed articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that God exists, that He created all men equal and endowed them with rights, that it is the primary purpose of government to secure these rights, that whenever government fails in defending these rights the People may alter or abolish the government, and that people are accountable to their Creator. Fundamental to this Freedom philosophy is the principle of individual agency and free will. The U.S. Constitution later affirmed this fact, securing to each individual his God-given rights and made him a free agent and, thus, accountable to God for his actions.

Those who denied this philosophy of personal Freedom and political Liberty were rightly considered enemies. There have only ever been two classes of people, according to Jefferson, “wolves and sheep.” The wolves come out of the shadows when people become inattentive. “Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind” (Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787).

Near the end of this life, Jefferson remained steadfast in this view. He said, “[I]n every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. call them therefore liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats or by whatever name you please; they are the same parties still and pursue the same object” (Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, August 10, 1824). He also observed that “tories are tories still, by whatever name they may be called” (Thomas Jefferson to Martin Van Buren, June 29, 1824).

In every generation and age, demagogues and despots rise to grasp for power and lord over others. They seek to deceive and devour the sheep. Mafias, gangs, and cartels do great destruction, but government is the chief mechanism that the worst conspirators use to enslave, pillage, rape, and destroy God’s sons and daughters. Their principles are eternally the same, with only inconsequential variations in form and hue. These disastrous ideas are merely given new window dressing and updated branding. The Tories, the vicious wolves who stalk the sheep, are the same in principle today as in 1824.

Yes, these wolves seek power by infiltrating and controlling government. The French philosopher Frederic Bastiat, in this book The Law, which is required reading for every patriot, correctly identified the evil that faces mankind as “legal plunder.” As wicked as they are, it is not mafiosos and narco-terrorists that threaten society most, but politicians and bureaucrats and those who vote them into office and stare blankly as they usurp more and more power. Bastiat pinpointed the problem, “The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish!” (Frederic Bastiat, The Law (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007), 1, 13).

Tories, Democrats, Republicans, communists, socialists, Marxists – the name matters not. They are traitors who violate God-given rights, who seek authority over others, and who use government to oppress, swindle, and deceive. Like their faux god who sought God’s throne and fell, they will fall; their doom is sealed. The outcome of the war is known, yet the fighting rages. Individuals can still fall even though we know Freedom will triumph in the end. The Lord of Liberty guarantees it and has already paid the price of victory with His holy blood.

In 1605, Guy Fawkes recoiled against laws restricting the rights of Catholics in England. However, his intention was as evil as the laws he sought to overthrow. He wanted to assassinate King James I and Parliament, kidnap the princess Elizabeth and use her as a puppet monarch, and bring England back under Roman Catholic rule. He was caught in the act preparing to light the fuse on 36 barrels of gunpowder stored beneath Parliament, if the accounts can be trusted, and, after torture, confessed. Others, after torture or persuasion, also confessed. The capture of Guy Fawkes was commemorated by English Protestant as Bonfire Night when Guy Fawkes was burned in effigy.

In the 2005 movie adaption of the story, England is a dystopian prison state – much as it is today. One man, V, stands up to the tyranny. V blows up the Central Criminal Court of England, the Old Bailey, and then hacks the nationwide TV system that usually broadcasts propaganda messages into every home, North Korean style. The prerecorded message that V broadcasts is reproduced almost in its entirety here. Its prescience and applicability to our current situation cannot be doubted:

“I expect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you. And in your panic, you turned to [insert name of current or past leader]. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.”

The real-life echoes of this speech are chilling. I have long used a similar phrase when assigning blame for the nightmare in which we are living: If you want to know who is to blame, simply look in the mirror. In the American context, those who vote Republican and Democrat are to blame. Both parties are wings of the same bird of prey. Both are teeming with ravenous wolves. Both are overflowing with tyrants and would-be dictators. Both violate the Constitution with impunity. Both take us to war. Both spend, spend, spend, and drive us deeper into debt. Both pass more laws than they repeal. Both prop up the privately-owned and predatory Federal Reserve banking cartel. Both coverup crimes and lie to the public (Epstein Files and Charlie Kirk, anyone?). And, sadly, both continue to be voted into power by Americans in spite of their crimes.

During the Coronahoax, you complied with illegal and unconstitutional government demands to stay inside your homes, social distance, wear oxygen-inhibiting masks, and threw a window as grandma died (was murdered) on a ventilator. You obeyed, lined up, and offered up your arm to receive a poisoned experimental bioweapon billed as a miracle “vaccine.” You did nothing when Democrats, aided by foreign actors and domestic criminals, stole the 2020 election. You did nothing when our hijacked government and other complicit conspirators blew up the Twin Towers and lied to send our boys to die on foreign soil. We, collectively speaking, have allowed our nation to be bled dry, raped, savaged, brutalized, gaslit, and enslaved. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Until we learn that fact, we can never restore the Republic.

The statesman Ezra Taft Benson was prophetic when he warned in his 1968 sermon “Americans Are Destroying America”:

“If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers—normally good Americans, but Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free—Americans who have been lulled away into a false security.

“Great nations are never conquered from outside unless they are rotten inside. Our greatest national problem today is erosion, not the erosion of the soil, but erosion of the national morality—erosion of traditional enforcement of law and order.”

Elsewhere in the sermon, he warned, “Our priceless heritage is threatened today as never before in our lifetime: from without by the forces of Godless Communism, and at home by our complacency and by the insidious forces of the Socialist-Communist conspiracy, with the help of those who would abandon the ancient landmarks set by our fathers and take us down the road to destruction.”

Benson continued, “The facts are clear. Our problem centers in Washington, D.C. And this applies to the administration of both political parties. In the words of James Madison, “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.” (Elliot’s Debates, Vol. 3, p. 87.)

Again, he said, “Those of us conscious of the seriousness of the situation must act, and act now. It has been said that it takes something spectacular to get folks excited, like a burning house. Nobody notices one that is simply decaying. But in America today we not only have decaying but burning before our very eyes.”

If America was on fire in 1968, it must be an absolute inferno now – an inferno of immorality, ignorance, complacency, corruption, contention, conspiracy, and chaos. Despite his dire warnings, Ezra Taft Benson gave us encouragement and marked the path forward:

“If America is to withstand these influences and trends, there must be a renewal of the spirit of our forefathers, an appreciation of the American way of life, a strengthening of muscle and sinew and the character of the nation. America needs guts as well as guns. National character is the core of national defense.

“Could many of our ills today have resulted from our failure to train a strong citizenry from the only source we have—the boys and girls of each community? Have they grown up to believe in politics without principle, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without effort, wealth without work, business without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice? . . . .

“We can never survive unless our young people understand and appreciate our American system, which has given more of the good things of life than any other system in the world—unless they have a dedication that exceeds the dedication of the enemy. Character must become important in this country again. The old essentials of honesty, self-respect, loyalty, and support for law and order must be taught the younger generation. . . .

“As American citizens who love freedom, we must return to a respect for national morality—respect for law and order. There is no other way of safety for us and our posterity. The hour is late; the time is short. We must begin now, in earnest, and invite God’s blessings on our efforts.

“The United States should be a bastion of real freedom. We should not support the world’s greatest evil, the Godless, Socialist-Communist conspiracy that seeks to destroy all we hold dear as a great Christian nation and to promote insidiously the breakdown of law and order and the erosion of our morality.

“With God’s help we must return to those basic concepts, those eternal verities, the rule of law and order upon which this nation was established. With an aroused citizenry and the help of Almighty God it can be accomplished. God grant it may be so, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

America could salve her wounds by repentance and by embracing the constitutional, republican principles of 1776. An awakening is growing across America as the corruption becomes so blatant, and as traitors wearing the “conservative” mask reveal their true allegiances. Yet, there is no evidence we are, as a whole, returning to our forefathers’ Freedom philosophy. There is little being done to save the Constitution or preserve – and not even to teach – the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The American Creed laid out above is unknown to the average American who could not articulate it to save his life.

Still, the embers of Freedom’s fire glow red in the fireplace. The ideas of our noble founding, those glorious ideals of 1776, cannot be annihilated. The fire of Freedom cannot be extinguished. In The American Crisis, the fiery patriot Thomas Paine said:

“I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, “Well! give me peace in my day.” Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation [between England and America] must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;” and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.”

Liberty’s flame has dwindled, but the coal can never expire. It merely needs the right spark. If we give the goal a spark and vigorously fan the flames, we can create a roaring blaze. The ferro rod and fan are in your hands. What will you do with them?

Like V, Benson recognized the source of the problems – the People. The cruelty, injustice, intolerance, and oppression of our day may be attributed to ignorance, apathy, and fear. Complacency abetted criminality. Weak men created hard times. Fortunately, hard times create strong men, who, after much sacrifice, make good times.

Strong men must act. Wise men must act. Freemen must act. As General George Washington told his warriors on the eve of battle in 1776:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die” (George Washington, General Orders, July 2, 1776).

Conquer or die – those are the stakes. We can only win by uniting ourselves with the correct principles. Those are the principles of 1776, the doctrines of Christ, the laws of the Lord of Liberty. These ideas cannot be killed, silenced, or smothered. With them, we will rise to the top triumphantly.

In the climactic battle of V for Vendetta, an astonished Mr. Creedy, one of the chief bureaucratic mini-tyrants and commissars of the show, exasperatedly asked V, “Why won’t you die?” V’s response should be lodged in our souls: “Beneath this mask, there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask, there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.”

Yes, ideas are bulletproof! Freedom, Liberty, Independence! These ideas cannot be contained. The fire of Freedom cannot be extinguished. Victory cannot be daunted. The only thing left to decide is whether you will be on the winning side, and how much more we will put up with before we force the issue, rout the tyrants, and restore our embattled Liberty.

Days before his graduation to immortality on the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson voiced confidence in our eventual victory over tyrants when he said:

“[M]ay [the American Revolution] be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all.) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which Monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self government. the form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. all eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. these are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves let the annual return of this day, for ever refresh our recollections of these rights and an undiminished devotion to them” (Thomas Jefferson to Roger Chew Weightman, June 24, 1826).

So, on this Fifth of November, the 420th Anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, let us burst our mental chains. Let us fully engage in the fight for Freedom. Let us rally against traitors and tyrants. Let us swear eternal hostility against them. Let us act the part of patriots and freemen and sacrifice, if we must, to destroy despotism in our day and exercise our God-given rights of self-government. Let us proclaim in the strength of God, Sic Semper Tyrannis! Long Live Liberty!