Live free or die

Traditional Americana once put a high value on Liberty. The motto “Live Free or Die” was written by General John Stark, New Hampshire’s most famous soldier of the American Revolutionary War.

This sentiment that freedom is worth more than safety was very important to Americans.

Patrick Henry’s March 28, 1775 speech at the Second Virginia Convention urged others to choose between safety or liberty. “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased by the price of chains and slavery?… I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me liberty or give me death

Ben Franklin knew that we would become complacent. He also had a warning for us today about a choice between liberty or safety. (Quoted Later)

“Vigilance, activity, and patience are necessary at this time; but the mistress we court is liberty; and it is better to die than not to obtain her. “
Joseph Warren, letter to Samuel Adams, June 15, 1774

In 1776 only 3% of the British subjects living in British Colonies and subject to British laws decided to rebel against their government. They wrote the Declaration of Independence to proclaim that they were free from their own government. THEN they had to prove it with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

In 1777 almost 2,000 men died at Valley Forge under George Washington. They froze or starved to death in order to reject the protections of government. Yet today’s self-proclaimed Americans put no value on liberty.* You surrender your rights because you are afraid to get sick.

Your over-regulated life is the same as the 1776 insufferable evils mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence states these reasons for overthrowing their government and killing their law enforcement officers.

  • “Mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable”,
  • “userpations”,
  • “absolute Tyranny”,
  • “swarms of officers to harass our people”,
  • “pretended legislation”,
  • “abolishing our most valuable Laws”,
  • “declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever”,
  • “unwarranted jurisdiction over us”.

Do you see any difference between the 1776 reasons to institute among men a new government, and today’s reasons for instituting a new Government?

When will you secure the blessings of liberty to your posterity and insure domestic tranquility?

Washington at Carlisle, 1794

Unlike the American Revolution, your new government will not begin with violence against ignorant officers. Your new government will begin just like the early Christians evaded the brutal Roman army occupation. Obey God’s commands and you will be protected by the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God.

Let’s face the facts. Get real. Your government’s legitimacy is founded on violence and threats of violence. But when you seek to associate with others to provide for your own infrastructure, you will be building a network (just like the early Christians) to provide the needs of your society with a system of faith, hope and charity. Not with threats of force, fear and violence.

Here are a few Presidential statements that reinforce the violent nature of your government.

The Declaration of Independence says that governments derive “their just power 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…

This principle was still valid when Abraham Lincoln made his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861:

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

Thomas Jefferson on November 13, 1787 letter to future Congressman William S. Smith:

“… And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”

— These were not the words of an angry young radical fighting in the Revolutionary War. This was the former Governor of Virginia, and Ambassador to France, the man who proposed the Bill of Rights.

President Kennedy in his address to the diplomatic corps on March 13, 1962:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Complacency to government overreach

Just twenty-one years after Patrick Henry announced his decision “give me liberty or give me death” Thomas Jefferson was warning about complacency to government. Thomas Jefferson, April 24, 1796: “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Benjamin Franklin, November 11, 1755; Reply to the Governor. This is inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the Statute of Liberty.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

— Patrick Henry, June 5, 1788 quoted in Elliot’s Debates Vol 3, page 45

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people. …
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

— JOHN ADAMS, A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, No. 3, printed in Boston Gazette, 30 Sept. 1765

None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe that they are free.

~ Goethe

Footnote

* 2150 years ago Polybius wrote The Histories Of the Roman Republic 220-146 BC, Book 6, section 9: link: http://www.uvm.edu/~bsaylor/classics/polybius6.html

But when a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence; and it is chiefly those of ample fortune who fall into this error. So when they begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.”

 Recommended Books

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Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Your rights will continue to disappear if you do nothing.

If you don’t learn how to stand up to the beast, you will soon need a mark to buy or sell. (This was mentioned by Bill Gates: “So eventually there will be this digital immunity proof that will help facilitate the global reopening up”.  This sentence was edited out of the TED Talk YouTube video, but the audio recording from audience members is available online.

Learn to stand up to the beast before it is too late. 

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Steven D. Miller is a freelance writer producing informative blog posts, white papers, eBooks and high-density documentaries. He is available to offer hope to any audience that yearns to breathe free. Contact him at Steven.Miller@LibertyContentWriter.com
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