“Our swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans.” — Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
On April 3, Lew Rockwell wrote:
More and more Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the storm that is brewing on the horizon, a storm driven by the possibility of a complete economic collapse.
Anyone who is paying attention to the banks collapsing and the subsequent bailouts, ballooning inflation, the forced acceptance of immoral lifestyles, the teaching of perversion in the country’s classrooms, the loss of trust in elections, and, finally, the acceleration of the disarmament of civilians must agree with Rockwell. And unless something is changed — urgently and drastically — that violent storm on the horizon will continue to gather strength.
This tyrannical tempest was foreseen by another wise man, James Madison. In The Federalist, No. 46, Madison wrote that he believed Americans would never be crazy enough to allow the federal government to tyrannize them, much less continue to fund the federal government after the despotism was discovered. He wrote:
That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
Even a casual observer today would have to report to Mr. Madison that we are in the middle of the “incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy” that mark a society that not only has allowed the federal government to rob us of our liberties, but continues to pay for the pleasure.
Mr. Madison wasn’t naive, however, and he provided a way to rouse Americans to a remembrance of their rights, should they demonstrate that “counterfeit zeal” he warned about. Noting the advantage of being armed that Americans have over the people of Europe, Madison described how citizens would be able to repel a standing federal force bent on advancing the cause of tyranny:
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. 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.
Rockwell quoted Noah Webster echoing Madison’s method of throwing off the chains of tyranny, should the federal government ever forge them and force them onto the people of America:
A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
Finally, Rockwell pointed to the president’s penchant for erecting tyranny on a foundation of fear, and how that effort must be resisted:
You can be sure that brain-dead Biden and his gang of neocon controllers will use the latest school shooting to try to restrict our right to own guns, despite the fact that the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment. They will say, “AR-15s and AK-47s are military-style weapons. People shouldn’t be allowed to own them.” But we need weapons like this to protect us from a tyrannical government.
Speaking of people insisting that no one needs “military style” weapons, I’m reminded of that time in 2018 when, after being told that his attempt to confiscate “assault rifles” from Americans would result in a war, Representative Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) predicted a quick end to such a showdown over the Second Amendment.
“…It would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them,” he tweeted.
The United States has certainly turned a corner toward total armed civil strife when a sitting member of Congress threatens (sarcastically, he claimed) to use the federal government’s nuclear arsenal to quell any attempt by citizens to keep and bear arms in the face of federal forces tasked with taking them away.
Rockwell closed his article by calling on his countrymen to come to the defense of their liberty:
Let’s do everything we can to protect our right to own guns. Our life and liberty depend on it.
I’ll second that sentiment and end as I began, with a statement by a forgotten Founding Father, Tench Coxe, reminding us by whom — patriotic Americans — and with what tyranny can be defeated:
Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
