Tag Archives: Freedom vs tyranny

Revolution, the Only Solution

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The 2020 election was stolen. That is an irrefutable fact. The 2022 election was stolen. That is an irrefutable fact. Now, there is a coordinated effort to steal the 2024 election. That is an irrefutable fact. If the radical revolutionary perpetrators, who are both entrenched in government and command it from the shadows, steal another election, assassinate either of the candidates, attempt to suspend or cancel the election, refuse to sit a candidate who legitimately wins, or otherwise effect regime change unconstitutionally, We the People of the United States must revolt, overthrow the tyrants, and restore the Republic.

This is not a joke. This is not a game. These are heavy words for a heavy time. Our nation is in the most serious crisis it has ever faced – a crisis superseding the Civil War and which has the potential to do far more damage both in terms of loss of life and loss of Liberty. Indeed, we are on the brink of another civil war that will look more like the movie The Purge than a North-vs-South civil war. Rather, we are on the brink of total anarchy, mobocracy, and societal collapse that will ravage neighborhoods, turn friends against each other, and rip the Republic into pieces. We will descend into wild tribalism and bloodletting will hold sway in our communities. Starvation, famine, rapine, murder, unchecked criminality, and rampant disease are coming. Unless that is the future we want for our families, an organized revolution designed to arrest the decay and thwart the schemes of traitors is our only solution.

Let’s be honest, the American People have been justified in initiating revolution for many, many years in response to the abuse that has been heaped upon us. Since at least 1913 when the privately-owned cabal of bankers and political fiends foisted the Federal Reserve upon us and seized control of our economy, we have had sufficient justification to revolt. Our justification has increased and become stronger as presidents have illegally taken us to war, wasted our blood in foreign lands, sent trillions of our dollars abroad, used the organs of government to oppress us and persecute political dissidents, driven us into mindboggling debt, squandered our prosperity on fanciful social programs that amount to theft and wealth redistribution, taxed us to death (and have even taxed death itself), lied to us on a daily basis, used intelligence agencies to spy on us, violated the Constitution in every particular, grossly consolidated government and abused the delicate system of checks and balances that once kept government small and efficient, and generally treated We the People with contempt the same a feudal lord shows his serfs.

Let’s also establish another fact; namely, that the People – any people – have a right to rebel. This right is acknowledged and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. The option is always available to us. Now, in our national emergency, it’s time to break the glass and use this terrible tool. The Declaration states:

“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, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Please note what this says and its implications for us today. At least these three fundamental truths can be drawn from this glorious proclamation: 1) Rights come from God; 2) the sole purpose of government is to secure, ensure, and defend God-given rights; and 3) the People have a right to “alter,” “abolish,” or “throw off” the government when it violates its mission to secure rights.

Government has no authority in and of itself. None. It receives 100% of its authority to act in precise and enumerated cases from you and from me. That power is delegated under specific terms and conditions. It is conditional and may be revoked. Government’s express mission is to secure our rights; rights which do not come from government but from God.

In his monumental work The Law, the French philosopher Frederic Bastiat defined our basic rights and explained government’s role in protecting them:

“It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

“Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

“If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense.

“Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted” (Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 2).

Because rights existed prior to government, government was created to preserve them. People collectively authorized agents to work on their behalf to defend their rights. These agents form what is known as a government and are empowered only with that power they need to defend rights and prosecute violators. To repeat, they are chosen, elected, or appointed for the purpose of defending the rights of those who hired or sent them. This is government’s only “reason for existing.” When the agents who are sent to defend rights violate their duty and, instead, use their positions of trust to infringe upon those very rights they were sent to protect, the social compact is severed and the agents of government are enemies who may be rooted out.

Alexander Hamilton likewise taught that rights preexisted government. He said, “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power” (Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted). Try as they might, government bureaucrats and tyrants can never extinguish rights, such as the right to rebel against tyrants and the right of self-defense.

Samuel Adams, the illustrious Father of the American Revolution, expounded on what our rights are and government’s relation to them in a 1772 address. He taught:

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

“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; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact. . . .

“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 the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence, and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honorable support from the same principle that “the laborer is worthy of his hire.” But then the same community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors have no right to seek and take what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty.

“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, 1772).

Adams noted that our four primary rights are life, Liberty, property, and self-defense. These are undeniable, irrefutable, and sacrosanct. Men have a right to defend these rights with every means necessary – and to defend them against anyone and everyone, including government. When men form a government, they may elect or appoint people to defend their God-given rights on their behalf. They have no power, however, to renounce their own rights, since they are endowments from God and, as Hamilton concurred, cannot be erased by mortal power. The denial of rights – or slavery – is against nature, against God, and against Freedom itself. It is contrary to reason, then, that any government appointed for the purpose of securing rights actually has the authority to enslave people by infringing upon their rights of life, Liberty, property, and self-defense. When this becomes the sad state of affairs, it becomes not only the right, but the solemn duty of the People to rebel.

Note that the Declaration of Independence cited previously not only said the People has a right to revolt, but that it has a duty to rebel! Thomas Jefferson, the original author of that sentiment, expressed it a different way on another occasion, stating: “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical . . . It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government” (Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787). When a society is sick, it needs medicine. Rebellion is that medicine. And our society, dear reader, is deathly sick.

John Adams, known for his delightfully blunt manner, gave his voice in support of revolution and the right to rebel against tyrants. He affirmed:

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than that to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for a worse, unless the people have sense, spirit, and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against tyranny; against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. Let it be the study, therefore, of lawgivers and philosophers, to enlighten the people’s understandings and improve their morals, by good and general education; to enable them to comprehend the scheme of government, and to know upon what points their liberties depend; to dissipate those vulgar prejudices and popular superstitions that oppose themselves to good government; and to teach them that obedience to the laws is as indispensable in them as in lords and kings” (John Adams, “Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States,” 1787).

Fleas are bloodsucking parasites that live by draining the lifeforce of others. The tyrants and traitors who infest our government do the same. Their host, however, is not a dog or cat, but the American People. They have drained our national treasury, stripped us of hope, robbed us of dignity, infringed our rights, and treated us like a thing to be devoured and discarded.

Like bloodsucking fleas, the traitors who wear a mask to appear like normal Americans can be hard to kill. They must be decisively crushed. When enough force is applied in the right manner, they die easily. The key is to spot them and to act with focus to corner and crush them. The American People, unfortunately, has become largely deaf to the roar of tyrants. Said differently, we have ignored them on purpose, seeking to avoid so-called “contention” and a confrontation. Contention itself is not good, but can it truly be said to be “contention” when we are fighting for our survival and for the rights which God has given us and expects us to defend?

As the tyranny has become so painfully obvious that no one who pays attention can deny it, millions of Americans have awoken. Tens upon tens of millions of Americans are firmly in Donald Trump’s camp, which can only be seen as an indictment of the ruling political class of demagogues and despots. Most of these tens of millions do not truly comprehend the Constitution or the principles of Liberty, yet they sense at a gut level that they are being attacked and abused, mistreated and maligned. They selected Donald Trump in 2016 as a backlash to Obama’s brazen tyranny. They selected Trump again in 2020 in the face of the idea of Biden’s continuation of Obama’s Marxist agenda. Yet, the voice of the People was silenced in 2020, and again in 2022. This time, the People are rising and voicing themselves even more forcefully in favor of Trump and against Harris and round three of Obama-style Marxist internationalism, anti-Americanism, and weakness. If our voice is stolen and silenced yet again, what other choice do we have but revolution?

The lyrics of a song state, “Revolution, the only solution. The armed response of an entire nation” (System of a Down, “P.L.U.C.K.”). What other response can there be if elections are compromised? If our voice is stolen, to arms we must resort. No rational person wants to pick up arms and revolt. Our Founding Fathers did not want to do it. They tried everything possible, and suffered horribly for years, before finally declaring Independence and fighting back against their wicked government with full force. What is our red line? We have sufficient justification to rebel now; what else are we waiting for? If our elections are taken from us, and our ability to choose our leaders is stolen, there is no other choice – our hand has been forced.

I perhaps misspeak when I say that if elections are stolen, we have no other choice but to revolt. We have another choice – surrender and submit. We can simply go along with the tyranny and renounce our right to choose our leaders. We can submit like slaves. We can work on high-tech feudal manors while despots lord over us. Sure, that’s an option. In fact, Ronald Reagan said as much in his epic “A Time for Choosing” speech. He spoke of the titanic clash between communism and the free world. Some think that war has passed, that the Cold War is old news, but that war never ended. We are participants in that same war. It is raging now more ferociously than ever before. And the choice is the same now as it was in the past – fight to be free, surrender to be enslaved. Reagan explained:

“Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace – and you can have it in the next second – surrender.

“Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand, the ultimatum. And what then, when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.

“You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin – just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ‘round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools . . . Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.

“You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” And this – this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” . . . .

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

“We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness” (Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing,” October 27, 1964).

Ladies and gentlemen, Reagan was right. The option facing us is to fight or to surrender. We are already at war, as much as we might not want to admit it. We are being attacked, assaulted, and abused on every front. The enemies are abroad, and they are at home. They are the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, Israelis, and other foreigners, but they are also Democrats and Republicans, Antifa and BLM, union bosses and local schoolboard mini-tyrants. This insidious enemy is working from within to undermine the government, the Constitution, families, and our other precious institution. They are attacking our Faith, Families, and Freedom. It is a war as any other with long-lasting consequences, including spiritual and moral consequences. If we have no ability to rectify our problems through peaceful debate and voting, then, in all seriousness, what other option do we have but revolution?

I repeat it again, if the 2024 presidential election is stolen like the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen, if either of the candidates is assassinated, if any entity attempts to cancel or suspend the election, the People’s legitimate choice is prevented from taking office, or regime change is brought about by any unconstitutional method, we have no choice but to rebel against the tyrants causing this oppression. At that stage, if it happens, revolution will be the only solution if we want to be free.

This is not about waging an offensive war; this is about retaliating against tyrants in the name of reclaiming our God-given, constitutionally-guaranteed rights. We are not guilty of drawing first blood, the despots in government have drawn first blood already. In fact, they have cut us over and over and over and have become emboldened by our pathetic and sickening inaction. We are bleeding to death but we feel to ashamed to save ourselves. Is the solution radical? Yes. But is the solution necessary for survival? Yes. And do we have a right to do it. Absolutely!

President Calvin Coolidge gave an incredible statement that I wish could be hung in every school and home. He said:

““The issues of the world must be met and met squarely. The forces of evil do not disdain preparation, they are always prepared and always preparing . . . The welfare of America, the cause of civilization will forever require the contribution of some part of the life of all our citizens to the natural, the necessary, and the inevitable demand for the defense of the right and the truth. There is no substitute for a militant freedom. The only alternative is submission and slavery” (Calvin Coolidge, The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses, 159).

Every right-thinking individual past or present has come to the same conclusion – that we must fight for Freedom or languish in slavery. There is no alternative. There is no middle way. Neutrality is a vote for the opposition and a pledge of submission to despotism. The only way we win is by fighting back and defeating the enemy with a militant Freedom.

J. Edgar Hoover, one of communism’s greatest enemies, made a relevant statement. I wish we would take it to heart:

“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). 

Many of us have spent years dragging the conspiracy into the light and revealing its inherent flaws. It is long past time for the People to rise like lions and tear it apart. If we are not allowed to do so at the ballot box, we must use another type of box. One way or another, we have the right to be free and to elect guards for our rights. We are under no obligation to be saddled with tyranny. I will not raise my daughters in despotism. I will not live my precious life beholden to twenty-first century feudal lords. I will not allow my God-given rights to be trampled while I bow down and grovel to traitors.

If January 20, 2025 comes and the election has been stolen, rigged, suspended, or otherwise tampered with, I pray to the God of Heaven with the passion of my soul that Americans will grow a spine and embrace the American heritage of rebellion to tyrants. The truth is that rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

Such rebellion is just, correct, and even necessary when our natural rights are threatened. Our forefathers understood this and even enshrined this understanding in the Declaration of Independence. Will we cherish our Freedom as much as they did? Will we be men enough to fight as they fought to ensure the protection and welfare of our families, our country, and our rights? If not, we deserve all the damnation that God has in store for the wicked, and all the horrors that tyrants can deliver to compliant and slavish serfs.

A final point. I have often said that repentance is the only remedy to our problems. That is true. Yet, here I have said that revolution is the only solution. That is also true. The two go hand in hand. Revolution is the only solution, given that we also repent. Repentance without an accompanying revolution frees our soul from spiritual bondage but does not remove us from physical/political bondage. And revolution without repentance accomplishes might make us outwardly free but would not fix the cultural degradation we see, which would consequently usher in a reign of more chaos and despotism, for an immoral people is incapable of retaining Freedom for long.

That is why we must understand that rebelling against tyrants is a duty we owe to God, and that serving Him is part of being a true revolutionary. Amoral revolutionaries are communists – the most wicked of all conspirators. They are the ones we must revolt against. However, defending the Constitution, even by force, if necessary, is a godly responsibility. Self-defense is a duty every man owes to his family, and which every person may exercise in behalf of the rights which God gave them at birth. Fighting for Freedom is as noble a pursuit as worshipping Jesus. Indeed, it is what He expects. No moral person will begrudge anyone for defending their God-given rights and fighting to protect their Faith, Family, and Freedom. And no moral person will sit on the sidelines while Liberty is being ravished.

Unless America reverses course politically, economically, morally, and spiritually, are days as a nation are numbered. Our days as a free nation are already behind us. We live in a corrupt age where tyrants and traitors infest the halls of government, dominate schools, rule the press, control the injustice system, and collude with our foreign enemies to bring us to our knees. We have endured this abuse long enough. Now, the oppression is so blatant that our enemies are brazenly stealing elections and attempting to imprison and assassinate their political opposition. This cannot continue. November 5 is do-or-die day for America. If the Establishment candidate wins by hook and crook, we are through and our children will wade through unimaginable nightmares. If this election is stolen, buckle up, because revolution will be the only solution.

Zack Strong
October 5, 2024

Tyranny is Not Reasonable

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The worst Vice-President in history, Kamala Harris, recently said that gross violations of our God-given right of self-defense are “reasonable.” Tyranny is not reasonable. Take your feelings, cut them into shreds, and burn them. I don’t care what you “feel” about my right to defend my Faith, Family, and Freedom. God gave me that right; not you, not popular consensus, not the President, not Congress, not the Supreme Court, and not even the U.S. Constitution. 

The Second Amendment of the United States is perhaps the clearest of all amendments in the Bill of Rights. It affirms that our “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” “Shall not be infringed” is not followed with “. . . unless we feel unsafe” or “. . . unless Californians don’t like it” or “. . . unless nine unelected tyrants in black robes say otherwise” or “. . . unless the United Nations decides people shouldn’t be armed” or “. . . unless there is a crisis” or “. . . unless a criminal or terrorist commits a deadly act with a weapon” or “. . . unless the Vice-President thinks it’s “reasonable” to do so.”  

The right to keep and bear arms in personal and private self-defense by any means necessary is not a constitutional right – there is no such thing as a constitutional right; rather, it is a God-given natural right inherited at birth and which cannot be justifiably taken away or restricted. You may forfeit your rights by misusing them to violate other people’s rights, but no one can rightfully take them from you. Period. Full stop. 

That ought to be the end of the debate. Unfortunately, conniving tyrants and ravenous despots clawing their way to power need to remove their last obstacle – an armed population. James Madison famously spoke of the “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.” The context of his statement makes it even more powerful. 

In Federalist No. 46, Madison discoursed on federalism and attacked the “visionary” notion that the states would ever be dominated by the federal government. He said that in order for that to happen the federal government would need to amass a standing army, which was completely contrary to the Founding Fathers’ principles. In response, Madison suggested that even if the federal government were able to create such an army, it would be no match the armed population of the people of each state: 

“Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.” 

Madison was not afraid of federal tyranny because the American People were armed to the teeth. Not only were states equipped with the power, right, and duty to call up the militia (i.e. the armed people of their jurisdiction), but the people themselves had a complete and absolute right to be armed, to wield arms, and to defend themselves. The idea that the average person could and should be armed, as a right from God, for the sake of defending his own Liberty and that of his country, is the genesis of the Second Amendment. Thus, the right to keep and bear arms preceded and is superior to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Second Amendment. No government, state or federal, can strip anyone of this God-given right. To do so is brazen tyranny and treason. 

If we allow ourselves to be disarmed, we will be led as lambs to the slaughter. We will become like every other weak and enslaved nation if we relinquish our right to protect what matters most – our Faith, Family, and Freedom. Barring authentic revelation from Almighty God, no true man and especially no real Christian would give up his arms and leave his family defenseless and surrender his rights to maniacal tyrants and vain oppressors. You are duty-bound to defend your family even to bloodshed if necessary. 

Remember, it is the duty of the American People to shatter in pieces any tyrannical government that attempts to set itself up over them. The Declaration of Independence affirms: 

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” 

Please burn this truth in your mind – it is not only your authentic right, but your sacred duty to “throw off” and “abolish” any government that would violate your rights. This is what our forefathers did in 1776. They did not fight against a foreign government; they overthrew their own government that had become oppressive. They therefore declared it as a permanent right that all peoples possess at all times to rise up and overthrow any government that becomes despotic and tramples their rights. 

Lastly, I give you the words of John Adams. In his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, he proclaimed: 

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than that to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for a worse, unless the people have sense, spirit, and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against tyranny; against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. Let it be the study, therefore, of lawgivers and philosophers, to enlighten the people’s understandings and improve their morals, by good and general education; to enable them to comprehend the scheme of government, and to know upon what points their liberties depend; to dissipate those vulgar prejudices and popular superstitions that oppose themselves to good government; and to teach them that obedience to the laws is as indispensable in them as in lords and kings.” 

Tyrants, by definition, have abused their oaths and violated the rights of the People. They have therefore come out as enemies to the country and to the God of Liberty. It is therefore the right of that nation so abused to kill the tyrants who oppress them and who Lord over them without right or authority. 

John Adams’ caution is also crucial. In order to win in this war against tyranny, we must be moral, good, and upright. It would lead to chaos worse than before if we removed a tyrannical regime but left a vacuum that could be filled with every imaginable type of oppressive government from tribalism to monarchy to democracy. As it currently stands, though tyrants infest every nook and cranny of our federal government, we still have the Constitution as a broad framework. No government was ever more inspired and wisely formed than the Constitution if we would only follow it and hold our elected “representatives” accountable. Thus, we must be wise, upright, good, moral, just, and religious people. We must turn to God and, in His strength, rise up to remove obstructions to our full exercise of Liberty, to prosperity, and to peace. 

Without our God-given right to keep and bear arms in self-defense, we would have little hope of ever reversing our current plight and maintaining what Liberty remains. Never surrender your arms. Never barter away your rights. Never acquiesce to grasping tyrants who hate you, want to enslave you, and pretend they are your masters. Embrace the American tradition of rebellion to tyrants. 

I leave off with this encouragement from Patrick Henry on the eve of the opening shots of the glorious American Revolution: 

“Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. 

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” 

Zack Strong, 
February 15, 2024

Authority and Usurpation

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“An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed.” – U.S. Supreme Court, Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 (1886) 

Today, I was cited $150 in fines for ludicrous and contrived traffic violations in Panama where I temporarily live. I want to devote this article to explaining, yet again, what tyranny is, why most government operations – including police functions – are tyranny under a different name, and where true political authority comes from. 

Before I discourse on what tyranny is, let me say what crime is not. Crime is not violating the law. That’s not crime, because “the law” is often unjust, tyrannical, arbitrary, oppressive, unequal, disproportional, and, consequently, invalid and illegitimate. It is no crime to disobey and reject unjust, unequal, and rights-violating “laws.” 

This idea comes directly from our unique American heritage and is foreign in most nations. Rebellion to tyrants is the American tradition. Our Founding Fathers rebelled against their government, shot or tarred and feathered government agents, waged war against their government, and created a new legal system and society. Had their revolution failed, they would have been executed as “traitors” because they indeed committed “treason” according to the atrocious “laws” of Great Britain and its corrupt king. 

Five of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in fact, were captured, tortured, and murdered. Other signers were killed by the British in the course of their revolt against tyranny. Yet, despite the laws and edicts prohibiting them from doing what they did, our forefathers “illegally” rebuffed Parliament’s unjust laws, “rebelliously” defied the king’s immoral edicts, and “treasonously” rose in armed rebellion against their oppressors. 

I repeat: It is no crime to merely disobey a law if that law is unjust or otherwise immoral. Don’t just take my word for it. Here is what the great Thomas Jefferson said: 

“[R]ightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual” (Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, April 4, 1819). 

The law is often – I would say usually – “the tyrant’s will.” And it is always tyranny when it steps on, violates, abrogates, infringes upon, or ignores your God-given, natural, individual rights in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Every law loses its force and validity the moment it steps one toe across the line of your Liberty. 

It was not only Thomas Jefferson who espoused this view. All of the Founding Fathers believed in a similar fashion and wrote in many different ways, under varied circumstances, about what constitutes illegitimate government. Theophilus Parsons expressed this sentiment at the Massachusetts ratifying convention: 

“No power was given to Congress to infringe on any one of the natural rights of the people by this Constitution; and should they attempt it without constitutional authority, the act would be a nullity, and could not be enforced” (Theophilus Parsons, in Neil L. York, ed., Toward a More Perfect Union: Six Essays on the Constitution, 163). 

Roger Sherman explained another situation where government acts are void: 

“The powers vested in the federal government are only such as respect the common interests of the Union, and are particularly defined, so that each State retains its sovereignty in what respects its own internal government, and a right to exercise every power of a sovereign State not delegated to the United States. And tho’ the general government in matters within its jurisdiction is paramount to the constitutions and laws of the particular States, yet all acts of the Congress not warranted by the constitution would be void. Nor could they be enforced contrary to the sense of a majority of the States. One excellency of the constitution is that when the government of the United States acts within its proper bounds it will be the interest of the legislatures of the particular States to support it, but when it overleaps those bounds and interferes with the rights of the State governments, they will be powerful enough to check it; but distinction between their jurisdictions will be so obvious, that there will be no great danger of interference” (Roger Sherman, December 8, 1787). 

The famed St. George Tucker observed: 

“All men being by nature equal, in respect to their rights, no man nor set of men, can have any natural, or inherent right, to rule over the rest. 

“This right cannot be acquired by conquest. . . . 

“The right of governing can, therefore, be acquired only by consent. . . . 

“Legitimate government can therefore be derived only from the voluntary grant of the people, and exercised for their benefit. 

“Since the union of the sovereignty with the government, constitutes a state of absolute power, or tyranny, over the people, every attempt to effect such a union is treason against the sovereignty, in the actors; and every extension of the administrative authority beyond its constitutional limits, is absolutely an act of usurpation in the government, of that sovereignty, which the people have reserved to themselves” (St. George Tucker, in Warren L. McFerran, The Principles of Constitutional Government: Political Sovereignty, 48-49). 

Founding Father Oliver Ellsworth, who was a lawyer, the third chief justice of the Supreme Court, a senator from Connecticut, and played a key role at the Constitutional Convention, stated: 

“This Constitution defines the extent of the powers of the general government. If the general legislature should at any time overleap their limits, the judicial department is a constitutional check. If the United States go beyond their powers, if they make a law which the Constitution does not authorize, it is void; and the judicial power, the national judges, who to secure their impartiality, are to be made independent, will declare it to be void. On the other hand, if the states go beyond their limits, if they make a law which is a usurpation upon the federal government the law is void; and upright, independent judges will declare it to be so.” 

Next, one of the first Supreme Court justices under President Washington, James Iredell, discussed this principle by giving us a hypothetical: 

“If any future Congress should pass an act concerning the religion of the country, it would be an act which they are not authorized to pass, by the Constitution, and which the people would not obey. Every one would ask, “Who authorized the government to pass such an act? It is not warranted by the Constitution, and is barefaced usurpation.”” 

Finally, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46: 

“[S]hould an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.” 

We could do this all day, but those few statements give you the flavor of our Founders’ thoughts. When government oversteps its bounds, it abdicates its authority, violates the social compact, and its acts become null and void. This is true of individual officers as well as government considered collectively. No one is bound by the illegitimate acts of government. No one must submit to illegitimate government. No one must demand compliance with unconstitutional, immoral, arbitrary, unjust, or oppressive “laws” no matter how many congresses, presidents, judges, and voters approve them because, as Samuel Adams put it in “The Rights of the Colonists” in 1772: 

“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.” 

Political sovereignty transmits outward from the People. And the People is comprised of individuals. Each individual holds equal rights and authority as any other. No police officer or government agent has any authority greater than the lowest citizen. While many of the above statements concerned the relationship between the states and the federal government, I affirm that they apply in local and state situations. In fact, they apply always and forever because the matter of authority vs usurpation is always and forever present and preexisted government, the Constitution, or manmade conventions. 

Here, then, is the greatest litmus test to determine whether an action, policy, law, rule, or regulation is appropriate, just, and right: Do you have the authority and right to do it? If so, then you may delegate that authority to a police officer or to government, as the case may be. However, if you personally, as a private citizen, do not have a right to do a thing, you cannot delegate any such authority to another person no matter who he is. You can’t delegate what you don’t by right possess. 

Hans Verlan Andersen, in his must-read book Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen, explained: 

“The danger that we will abuse the police power any time that it is made subject to our direction is most likely for several reasons: 

“1. It is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. (D&C 121:39) 
“2. When we use force upon each other through government, we do so without fear of retaliation or condemnation, so conscience alone remains to restrain us. 
“3. We are easily deceived about government, because we are inclined to accept the following fallacies: 

“(a) Anything legal is also moral. 
“(b) We are not individually responsible for government action. 
“(c) A different moral law applies when men act in concert, than it does when they act alone” (Hans Verlan Andersen, Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen, 2-3). 

Let’s apply these principles to several situations and see what we surmise. Can you randomly pull up behind someone in your car and force them to pull over onto the side of the road? Can you randomly demand to see another person’s identification? Can you stop another person and compel them to pay a toll to pass a random point? Can you take away a person’s means of self-defense? Can you confiscate a person’s property or wealth or earnings? Can you take a child out of a family’s home, excepting, of course, if that child is in authentic danger? Can you even enter another person’s house or property without permission? Can you demand that a person pay you money for the privilege of traveling, or getting married, or driving a vehicle, or entering public land, or lighting a fire outside, or walking across a street at an “unauthorized” point, ad infinitum? 

No cop, no government representative, no judge, no IRS agent, no military general, no mayor, no president, no priest, no teacher, no school board stooge, no border patrol agent, no security guard, no banker, no neighbor, and no posse, has any ounce of moral authority to strip another peaceable individual of his personal property, which includes his earnings, money, and livelihood. Period. 

We do not have power over other people. We may not interfere in their lives. We only have the authority and right to direct our own personal stewardship. So, too, when acting together in government, we don’t have the authority to interfere in other people’s lives. Only when someone surrenders his rights by violating the rights of another person or of society may we then act to take from that person his life, Liberty, or property, according to the severity of the crime. 

Apply this understanding to your daily life and you will see that most of what government does is illegitimate and unauthorized by any reasonable sense of justice. Marriage licenses, driver’s licenses, building permits, death taxes, property restrictions, are all illicit and immoral. They all constitute gross usurpations and overreach. 

Now let me make this personal. I opened this article by stating that I was cited for $150 worth of bogus traffic violations by a traffic cop clearly behind in his quotas. While the corpulent cop who randomly flagged me down at a pseudo checkpoint where a gaggle of officers sat licking their chops to rob passersby of their hard-earned money indeed had a “legal” right to arbitrarily steal $150 from my pocket, this authority is illegitimate because, as a private citizen, he has no such right. 

Even when his fellow officer wanted to ignore the situation, he persisted and eagerly tallied up all the infractions he could think up while ignoring the petitions of my wife who was made late for work by this incident. I broke no law of any substance, even though I was indeed in violation of arbitrary regulations that would never be on the books in a sane society – such as having an outdated license plate (i.e. failing to give more of my money to the government for no good reason).  

Think about it more deeply. If a random person cannot randomly accost you and take your money (that is called theft in most places), neither can a cop who gets 100% of his authority from that random person. The law allowing this mini-tyrant to steal property from other people is tyrannical, oppressive, and unjust. The law be damned! The servile line-toers and enforcers of the law be damned as well! 

In situations like these, the people I am with always get mad at me and tell me to calm down instead of getting indignant at the unjust tyranny-enforcer (they must not be fond of me calling police “parasites” and describing, in so many words, why public execution of tyrants should be brought back. It made me even angrier to think that, at that very moment, I had a pocket Constitution and Declaration of Independence in my pocket, but that it is not recognized in this banana republic). My blood can’t help but boil because I understand my rights, I know what tyranny is when I see it, and I am not one of those of whom Thomas Jefferson said “all timid men . . . prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty” (Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, April 24, 1796).  

I am not a timid man and I curse the timid who comply, submit, and slavishly follow those in so-called “authority.” If only they knew it, these bootlickers are the true sovereigns who hold every ounce of power and authority that those in uniform hold on loan from them. In a coming day, there will be confrontation between those with legitimate authority – that is, the People – and the usurpers of all stripes, whether they be local police, IRS agents, federal judges, presidents, senators, or Kathy on the schoolboard. Tyrants will be hurled down from their false thrones. They will be humbled. Their corrupt temple of lies and infamy will be demolished. The tree of Liberty will be nourished once more with the blood of traitors. 

Revolutionary patriot James Otis was a fiery figure who rebuffed the British government for its usurpations and oppression. In one article, he took off the gloves and stated the qualities of a true patriot and representative of the People and what we should do when our rights are trampled: 

“Integrity, with a sincere love for liberty & the British constitution, are also absolutely necessary; without integrity you cannot rely on his wisdom or abilities, and without a regard for liberty and the British constitution, he may value his own interest before that of his country; such a man will be always unfit to represent a free people, as he will be liable to yield to bribery of one kind or other, and sacrifice the public good to his private emolument, whenever he shall be tempted. Prudence and fortitude are likewise essential; if he has not prudence he may needlessly irritate your enemies; if he has not fortitude he may timidly give up your just Rights. There is however no character so dangerous to liberty as the man of prudence. You may possibly be right, but at this juncture it is not prudent to insist upon it, is the language of artful courtiers, and has done more hurt than can well be imagined. When our rights are invaded, it is high time to throw aside prudence, and believe me my countrymen, he is not worthy your suffrages who on such an occasion wou’d prudently resign them for the sake of peace. He that is afraid to speak his mind, and is for suffering injury, injustice or oppression, rather than disturb public tranquility or more properly dangerous security, is not to be confided in; for it is always safer to oppose any the least infraction of our happy constitution, than prudently to acquiesce for the preservation of peace. He that does not know ambition as well as avarice in rulers is never satisfied, and to yield in the material point only makes way for another, and so on till there is no more to give, must be a novice indeed; and he that knowing this, still persists to act on maxims of prudence, where our charter rights are concerned, is no better than a traitor to his country. A free government never degenerated into tyranny all at once, it is the work of years. There is nothing however will in the end more surely work the destruction of liberty, than a prevailing opinion that it is better tamely to submit than nobly assert and vindicate our priviledges. Prudence is necessary and only desirable to temper his conduct, and preserve him from ill timed and over heated zeal, in affairs of little or no moment, and which cannot affect the constitution: but he that is constantly preaching up this doctrine as suitable on all occasions is not to be trusted; as by that means he may ignorantly if not willfully betray your rights, and resign them into the hands of such men as are watching for your destruction” (James Otis, April 27, 1767). 

Dear reader, our rights are being invaded daily by oath-breakers, usurpers, and totalitarians. War is being waged against us. Governments in all lands have exceeded their mandate, violated the rights of their citizens, and lord over people as if they have a natural right to rule them. Shackles are being fastened on our wrists. Our pocketbooks are being systematically robbed in what Frederic Bastiat called “legal plunder.” In fact, he observed: “The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!” 

Yes, police play a crucial role in the march of tyranny. If police refused to enforce unjust laws, there would be no unjust laws. It would be as if they didn’t exist and the People would remain free. Yet, police have, by and large, sided with the enemy. They, like the sad example of a man who legally robbed me today, have chosen the path of power over others instead of the Liberty wherewith the Lord has made us free. All of this evil, including legalized plunder, enslavement of populations, and literal genocide, is being perpetrated against our world by a cult of criminals and their gaggle of local power-hungry enforcers. Are you ready yet to cast aside prudence? 

When will we rise? When will the slaves rise up against their masters? We virtue signal and say that slavery is wrong, but our actions show that we don’t really believe it. If we did, we would rebel at the creeping attempt by usurpers to shackle us economically, politically, and spiritually. Slavery is evil no matter whether it is Jews in Israel enslaving Eastern European women or Europeans enslaving blacks or Africans enslaving Africans or Arabs enslaving white women or Thai people enslaving each other or Mexican cartels enslaving children and trafficking them across the open U.S. border or governments enslaving their peoples from China to Australia to Chile to France. It’s all the same and it’s wrong. 

This corrupt temple will be cleansed. Will you help cleanse it or will you timidly go along with the lies that police and governments can do whatever they want, that they have authority over you, and that they submitting to them is a virtue? If parasitic police stealing your money based on asinine traffic violations that have no modicum of justice and legitimate authority to support them makes you angry, it should! Get angry! Our rights are being invaded, restricted, and deleted on a daily basis. It must end. But it will only end when those with legitimate authority – that is, you – care enough to stand up and fight. 

“Let the people, the whole American people, rise up and say they will have these abuses regulated, and no longer suffer political demagogues to gamble away their money, but turn them out of office to attend to their own business. Let the people make a whip, if not of good tough rawhide, of small cords at least, and walk into the temple of the nation, and cleanse it thoroughly out, and put in men who will legislate for their good, instead of gambling away their money and trifling with the sacred interests of the nation which have been entrusted to their keeping.” – Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, 13-14, July 4, 1854. 

Zack Strong, 
August 23, 2022