Rally ‘Round The Flag: We Have No Alternative [Updated below]

An occasional feature designed to buck-up the Wolverines as they battle to defeat the forces of Absurdistan…–

This edition is an all-Sam Adams one.  He was a master at lifting up the spirits of his fellow rebels in the days before and during the War Of Independence.  Sam Adams understood the importance of morale to achieving victory, especially against great odds and when the air was filled with the miasma of desperation. 

Here we are 234 years after the founding of The United States, faced with many of the same trials and tribulations encountered by The Founding Fathers.  Our freedoms and liberties are under vicious and vindictive assault.  We are constantly harassed by our representatives and the bureaucrats of a distant national government that, for all intents and purposes, exists on an isolated island.  This same and removed government is plundering our hard-earned wealth, and intentionally demolishing our sacred traditions and institutions, and ripping from our hands those freedoms given to us scared trust by our Creator.  The fury of the whirlwind of Leftist activity has only been increasing since 20 January 2009 and shows no sign of abating.  If anything, our enemies have grown more confident in their cretinous arrogance.  They seek nothing less than the destruction of all we hold dear and nothing less than our total enslavement to the state.  Make no mistake and be under no illusions: that is the end sought by every Leftist.

The odds are against us.  For too long we have allowed the Progressives and their anti-human ideas to infiltrate and infect, with their insidious cancer, every nook and cranny of our lives.  Both have deep roots that will require a great deal of chemotherapy to eliminate and, like all such treatments, there will be much damage that will ensue.  Our lives may be disrupted from the tranquility we have known and not recover that serene condition until many of us have gone the way of all flesh and our progeny are old and gray.  But, if the American Republic is to survive and be restored, then the side effects are worth every discomfort and pang.

Considering our current afflictions, I think it a good time to bring Sam Adams back for a bit.  I think we could use his common sense in these dark times…

On 01 August 1776, he spoke at the State House in Philadelphia.  Many parts of the speech referred to the specifics of the conflict with Great Britain, but a good part of the speech dealt with timeless matters.  Here are some excerpts:

Courage…my countrymen; our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty….

…There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing providence in our favor; our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels; so we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us.

…He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he let him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails.

…The calamities were at our door. The rod of oppression was raised over us. We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity! This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded–millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defense and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney, will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty, which you were happy when on earth in delineating and recommending to mankind?

Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are indebted for a constitution to the suffering of their ancestors through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social compact. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face of the sun.

We have no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude….

…You are now the guardians of your own liberties. We may justly address you as the decemviri did the Romans, and say: “Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.”

You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to Heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision…. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise with gratitude to Heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and Montgomery, it is that these American States may never cease to be free and independent.

Big tip of the fedora to Smitty who used a quote from this speech in a posting of his own that I have not used here.  Please do take the time to click here and read his choice.

UPDATE at 1845…

In the Comments Section, Rob De Witt wrote something that is a fitting addition to what was written above:

…I remain confident that they [the Left] have, however, finally overplayed their hand, and that generations yet unborn will look to this time as the beginning of “the end sought by every Leftist” – which is demonstrably death. Now is to be seen the greatest opportunity to date of providing that end, and of ridding the Earth of this cancer forever.

We won’t see it, our children may not see it, but the darkness of nihilism has come out of the shadows and stands naked before the world. And now we’ll see.

I will believe that God abides.

Well put.