Tyranny By Any Other Name

What would Samuel Adams say to us today?

In a letter to the Town of Plymouth, March 24, 1766, I commented that those in the central government were imposing on us what we saw initially as a form of subtle tyranny and expansion in oppression: I wrote: “In the Times in which we live, even these very Times, (they) may furnish some future Historian with a Catalogue of those (events), who look upon our rising Greatness with an envious eye; and while we and our Sister Colonies, have been exerting our growing Strength in the most substantial services to the Mother Country (the central government), (national politicians) by Art (strategy) and Intrigue (secret plans) have wickedly attempted to deceive her (Parliament) into Measures to enslave us…”  Yet your modern historians have No or little regard to all that was endeavored by our early founders and How our Charters, being the same as your state constitutions, were maligned by those who hated our Christian faith as Puritans to the degree that our Original Charters were annulled in in 1684; and then the central government even turned our merchants into “smugglers” by virtue of the Navigation Acts.  This tyranny, or unreasonable and arbitrary use of power, was an assault on our Religious Liberty, our Commerce, our Manufacturing and on our secured Liberties under the Magna Charta.

My question to you must be: What is Liberty to you moderns?  Do you have any real heart-felt sense of what we viewed Liberty to be?  I am convinced that your view of Liberty is nothing like that which we fought for – humanists have perverted your ideas – whereas we clearly defined our perspective of Liberty based on Covenant ideas as set forth by our Puritan Fathers.  With that foundational idea of Liberty in mind, I continued in the letter to Plymouth, “If then Gentlemen, the Inhabitants of this Metropolis, have discovered an invariable Attachment to the Principles of Liberty, when it has been invaded:  If they have made the most vigorous Exertions for our Country when she has been threatened with the Loss of every Thing that has been dear: If they have used their utmost Endeavors that she may be relieved from those Difficulties, with which She is at this Time embarrassed; If they have taken the Legal and warrantable Measures to prevent that Misfortune of all others the most to be dreaded, the Execution of the Stamp Act; and as a necessary Means of preventing it, have made any Spirited Applications for opening the Custom House and Courts of Justice; If at the same Time they have bore their Testimony against outrageous Tumults and illegal proceedings, and given any Example of the Love of Peace & good order next to the consciousness of having done their Duty is the Satisfaction of meeting with the Approbation of any of their Fellow Countrymen – “

When a central government acts with the form of law to impose the will of a few over the Rights of the Citizenry – This is called Tyranny.  “Where Law ends, (says Mr. Locke) Tyranny begins, if the Law be transgress’d to anothers harm”: During these times of trouble pressed on us by the national government, we had to make decisions as individual communities and as colonies, now states, to not allow the national government to restrict our Rights as citizens and impose fees and taxes that restricted our abilities to commerce, manufacture, print news papers, engage in legal proceedings, educate and suspend virtually every act of living – with out government requiring oversight and payment.  It is obvious that you moderns are facing almost the entire same conundrum from your central government by it wanting to consolidate power and obviate the state charters – state constitutions.

We acted with request for redress and relief from the acts of usurpation and tyrannical impositions.  The use of law to over-regulate and tax is a means of enslavement.  Even more so, when it came to the keeping of the peace in the communities we were for the most part self-policing.  We had no law enforcement other than administratively with the Sheriff.  And, when the law enforcers are militarized, this is a tyranny we lived through as well as central government troops sent to “keep the peace” with the quartering of armed troops in our city.  I noted “No man can pretend to say that the peace and good order of the community is so secure with soldiers quartered in the body of a city as without them. Besides, where military power is introduced, military maxims are propagated and adopted, which are inconsistent with and must soon eradicate every idea of civil government – Do we not already find some persons weak enough to believe, that an officer is obliged to obey the orders of his superior, tho it be even AGAINST the law!”

Militarization of your modern law moderators, law enforcement, is akin to quartering troops within your towns and cities.  This we would have abhorred now as we did in Boston in 1768 and again in 1774.  With this I added in my Article in the Boston Gazette, “And let any one consider whether this doctrine does not directly lead even to the setting up that superior officer, whoever he may be, as a tyrant.  It is morever to be observ’d that military government and civil, are so different from each other, if not opposite, that they cannot long subsist together.  Soldiers (federal agencies like your Department of Homeland Security) are not govern’d properly by the laws of their country (or your State), but by a law made for them only:  This may in time make them look upon themselves as a body of men different from the rest of the people; and as they and they only have the sword (in your day, fully select-fire arms and ammunition) in their hands, they may sooner or later begin to look upon themselves as the LORDS and not the SERVANTS of the people: Instead of enforcing the execution of law, which by the way is far from being the original intent of soldiers (and militarized local law enforcement or federal agents), they may refuse to obey it themselves:  Nay, they may even make laws for themselves and enforce them by the power of the sword (or modern arms)!  Such instances are not uncommon in history, and they always will happen when troops (or militarized police and agents) are put under the direction of an ambitious or a covetous governor (or an appointed government official)!”  You saw and accepted this militarized action in Boston in April 2013! You did not act as a citizenry that understands self-governance but allowed your Liberty to be trampled on for the sake of momentary security.  Mr. Franklin would have retorted that you “deserve neither security or Liberty”!

“…Whenever it becomes a question in prudence, whether we shall make use of legal and constitutional methods to prevent the incroachments of ANY KIND OF POWER, what will it be but to depart from the straight line, to give up the LAW and the CONSTITUTION, which is fixed and stable, and is the collected and long digested sentiment OF THE WHOLE, and to substitute in its room the opinion of individuals, than which nothing can be more uncertain: The sentiments of men in such a case would in all likelihood be as various as their sentiments in religion or anything else; and as there would then be no settled ride for the publick to advert to, the safety of the people would probably be at an end.”  So then your president, who is know to have and stated that he will obviate Congress, in 2013 tells university graduates to fully trust the government and not listen to those that talk about Tyranny.  What a Tory usurper you have elected!  When I presented my Masters thesis in 1743 it was entitled: “Whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved.”  This challenge was in Respect to all that my Founding Fathers had endured, what I learned from studying Reformation History and leaders such as Knox, Winthrop, Rutherford and others that understood good governance based on Godly principles.  But you reject those principles of this Nations Foundation for the likes of humanist and vain philosophies of Darwin, Marx, Alinsky and their ilk.

Oh my Fellow Citizens, My desire is “That the Spirit of our venerable Forefathers, may revive and be defused through every Community in this Land: That Liberty Civil and Religeous, the grand Object of their View, may still be felt enjoyd & vindicated by the present Generation, and the fair Inheritance, transmitted to our latest Posterity, is the fervent wish of the Metropolis (and this modern nation as a whole).” That you clearly understand, as de Tocqueville described “the softer form of Tyranny” – That hides itself in the words of “elected guardians” encouraging the citizenry to search for false hopes, security and economy – without understanding their Foundational History – becomes known to you if a manner of real oppression such that you will take heart to rise up and demand the Liberty of your Forefathers.  That you will desire this Liberty with such passion that you will Act in your local communities – Restoring true Foundational Principles for yourselves and your posterity. ~ Samuel Adams

**Parens and Italics added for modernization and emphasis.

Shared from https://samueladamsreturns.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/tyranny-by-any-other-name/

I APPOVE OF THIS MESSAGE!