What about Earth’s threatened and endangered PEOPLE?

 

Another Earth Day has come and gone – number 57, like Heinz steak sauce. Once again, the media, activists and international agencies fed us pablum, exaggeration and alarmism.
Our public lands, the Endangered Species Act, biodiversity and environmental justice are under threat, they raged. Oceans are filling with plastic waste. Big polluting corporations are getting away with “climate homicide” and “planetary ecocide.” The Arctic is melting, and polar bear cubs are drowning.
 The United Nations took a short break from bashing Israel over “Palestinian genocide” and western nations for the “gravest crime” ever committed against humanity (trans-Atlantic slavery), to proclaim April 22 “International Mother Earth Day” and call for an end to “crimes” that “disrupt biodiversity.”
Activists held the “first multilateral conference” on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. Their “Our Power, Our Planet” theme says further progress will require that communities and individuals pressure governments to accelerate the “clean” energy transition from “dirty” fossil fuels.
Forgive my skepticism. But I was a college organizer for very first Earth Day (1970), back when we had real, highly visible environmental problems: air pollution and toxic smog over cities, industrial water pollution that made it unsafe to swim, leaded gasoline, and more. We largely solved those problems.
 Since then, greens have grown in domestic and foreign financing, power and influence, and the ability to conduct ideological campaigns and lawfare on issues of irrelevance to the vast majority of Americans, let alone families in the most energy-deprived, destitute, diseased and malnourished nations on our planet.
Any yet, for days leading up to Earth Day and afterward, virtually nothing was said by the UN, WHO, eco-activists, media screed-meisters or I-care-deeply politicians about these people … or even about people in their own developed countries who bear the brunt of climate-centric, anti-growth, net-zero, de-industrialization, lower-living-standards policies.
It’s as if people don’t exist, and don’t belong, on our planet. The herd must be culled.
 In the developed world, most climate-focused countries and states have the most pseudo-clean energy mandates and subsidies … the highest electricity prices … the highest prices for goods and services. They’re destroying entire industries, leaving thousands unemployed. They have the technologies to utilize their abundant carbon and nuclear energy, but ruling elites don’t want citizens to enjoy jobs and living standards based on that energy. Each year thousands die needlessly during frigid winters and summer heatwaves because families cannot afford or obtain proper heating and air conditioning.
 The “climate crisis” is s Hollywood special effects disaster movie. The foundation for any “clean” energy transition is imaginary. Utopian energy is simply not clean, green, renewable or sustainable.
When wind turbines, solar panels, transformers, transmission lines and backup batteries or power plants are included, wind and solar energy require dozens of times more raw materials (and thus mining and pollution) and hundreds of times more land than just building a few nuclear or combined-cycle gas plants close to where electricity is needed – and forgetting about any pseudo-renewable systems.
 For families in poor nations, the price tag is infinitely higher.
Worldwide, 730 million people still have no access to electricity. Billions more have minimal, sporadic access. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million have no electricity; hundreds of millions more have minimal, unpredictable electricity from small wind turbines and solar panels here and there. The situation in much of rural Asia and Latin America is little better. Ditto for vehicles and gasoline.
The result is entirely predictable. Almost no wage-earning jobs or mechanized farming, but abundant backbreaking work for parents and children in fields – and plenty of malnutrition, disease and death.
 Over half the world’s people (more than four billion) still subsist on $10 a day.
More than 260 million suffer from critical food insecurity and malnutrition, and 35 million children are acutely malnourished, including 10 million with childhood wasting disease – leaving them with weak immune systems and vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death
Malaria still infects 280,000,000 people annually and kills 610,000. Indoor air pollution from wood, dung, coal and kerosene cooking and heating fires kills nearly 3,000,000 people globally every year. Up to 3.5 million – mostly children – die annually due to inadequate safe water, sanitation and hygiene. Diseases modern western societies never even hear about sicken, disable or kill still more millions.
 Do you think any of their grieving families gives a spotted owl hoot that your local temperature climbed a degree since the Little Ice Age ended, or a polar bear cub drowned halfway around the world?
 A major reason is rampant corruption. The World Bank found that at least 7.5% (and as much as 15% or more) of total assistance to the most aid-dependent nations ends up in ruling elites’ foreign bank accounts. And yet the WB’s International Development Association received $94 billion for the 2022-2025 period. Multilateral development bank financing to top humanitarian recipients was $12 billion in 2020. Total worldwide Official Development Assistance reached a record $161.2 billion in 2020. Do the math.
Far worse, these banks, US and European foundations, and climate, agricultural and other activist groups work tirelessly to prevent these countries from acquiring or developing the electricity and other energy they need to emerge from squalor, starvation and disease. For decades these virtue-signaling banks have provided loans only for wind and solar projects – almost never for coal or gas power plants.
 The result? Expensive, limited, unreliable electricity. No modern hospitals, schools, water purification, factories or shops. Continued pollution from wood and dung fuels. No jobs, improved living standards or reductions in killer diseases.
The same institutions – along with UN and other government agencies – oppose pesticides for eradicating locusts and malarial mosquitoes. They wage campaigns against biotech corn, soybeans, canola, and even hybrid seeds and life-saving Golden Rice. They pressure African governments to ban non-organic fertilizers and crop-saving pesticides that have been approved as safe in wealthy countries. Many even oppose tractors and other mechanized equipment.
 To them, the only acceptable farming method is “agro-ecology” – la Via Campesina: the Peasant Way – aka, “traditional,” “organic,” backbreaking subsistence farming.
This, corruption, wars and food-deprivation as a weapon of war is why we still have malnutrition, starvation, disease and astronomical death tolls in African and other impoverished countries.
These global zealots want power over poor countries – not power for the countries’ destitute and desperate people. Their morally depraved policies and practices bring death to millions every year.
Developing countries should avoid doing what rich nations are doing now that they are rich. Instead, they should do what rich nations did to become rich. They should remember that wealthy industrialized countries did not have MDBs to help them; they created institutions to finance the power generation and factories that created jobs, middle classes, health, prosperity, new industries … and taxes to pay for more.
They must chart their own destiny – and take their rightful places among Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. Decent, moral Westerners must help them end the corruption and make this happen.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Today Marks the 4th Anniversary of Our 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court Victory “Shurtleff v Boston”

Today, May 2, 2026 marks the 4th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 9-0 “Shurtleff v Boston” decision which was a victory for religious liberty and free speech.  Since the decision, dozens if not hundreds of towns and cities were forced to change or adopt a flag policy.  Many towns and cities decided to end flying anything but the U.S. and state flags while others allowed flying the Christian flag.  But more importantly, it helped repeal   the 1971  “Lemon v. Kurtzman” decision.

The U.S. Supreme Court Rules 9-0 in Camp Constitution’s Christian Flag Lawsuit


I received a call today at 10:30 AM from Roger Gannam, one of the attorneys at Liberty Counsel who has been involved with our lawsuit from the very beginning.  He informed me that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in our favor 9-0.  Since then, I have conducted a batch of media interviews.  First, I want to give God the Glory.  His Hand was in this case from the beginning.  I want to thank the folks at Liberty Counsel that did an incredible job, and all of the people who support and make Camp Constitution possible.  The main mission of Camp Constitution is to teach people the U.S. Constitution.  I think that this issue has given the nation a good lesson on the 1st Amendment.  Below is the news release from Liberty Counsel announcing the decision.
SUPREME COURT HEARD RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINT CASE

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the City of Boston violated the Constitution by censoring a private flag in a public forum open to “all applicants” merely because the application referred to it as a “Christian flag.” The High Court stated that it is not government speech, and because the government admitted it censored the flag because it was referred to as a Christian flag on the application, the censorship was viewpoint discrimination, and there is no Establishment Clause defense.

Justice Breyer wrote the opinion in which Chief Justice Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion. Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion in the judgment, in which Thomas and Gorsuch joined. Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion in the judgment, in which Thomas joined.

In Shurtleff v. City of Boston, Liberty Counsel represents Boston resident Hal Shurtleff and his Christian civic organization, Camp Constitution. Shurtleff and Camp Constitution first asked the city in 2017 for a permit to raise the Christian flag on Boston City Hall flagpoles to commemorate Constitution Day and Citizenship Day (September 17) and the civic and cultural contributions of the Christian community to the City of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, religious tolerance, the Rule of Law and the U.S. Constitution.

 

 

The High Court wrote that “Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech. That means, in turn, that Boston’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution raise their flag based on its religious viewpoint ‘abridg[ed]’ their ‘freedom of speech.’”

“We do not settle this dispute by counting noses—or, rather, counting flags. That is so for several reasons. For one thing, Boston told the public that it sought ‘to accommodate all applicants’ who wished to hold events at Boston’s ‘public forums,’ including on City Hall Plaza. App. to Pet. for Cert. 137a. The application form asked only for contact information and a brief description of the event, with proposed dates and times. The city employee who handled applications testified by deposition that he had previously ‘never requested to review a flag or requested changes to a flag in connection with approval’; nor did he even see flags before the events. Id., at 150a. The city’s practice was to approve flag raisings, without exception. It has no record of denying a request until Shurtleff’s. Boston acknowledges it ‘hadn’t spent a lot of time really thinking about’ its flag-raising practices until this case. App. in No. 20–1158 (CA1), at 140 (Rooney deposition). True to its word, the city had nothing—no written policies or clear in[1]ternal guidance—about what flags groups could fly and what those flags would communicate,’” the Court wrote.

In addition, the Court wrote, “Here, Boston concedes that it denied Shurtleff ’s request solely because the Christian flag he asked to raise “promot[ed] a specific religion.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 155a (quoting Rooney deposition). Under our precedents, and in view of our government-speech holding here, that refusal discriminated based on religious viewpoint and violated the Free Speech Clause” (emphasis added).

There are three flagpoles outside City Hall that fly the U.S., Massachusetts and Boston flags, plus a fourth flag on Congress Street, which runs parallel to City Hall. For 12 years from 2005-2017, Boston approved 284 flag-raisings by private organizations with no denials on the flagpoles that it designated as a “public forum.” Had the flag been referred to as anything but Christian, the city would have approved it. The flag itself was not the problem; it was the word “Christian” describing it in the application that was the issue. The year before Camp Constitution’s application (2016-2017), Boston approved 39 private flag-raising events, which averaged three per month. In 2018, Boston approved 50 private flag raising events, averaging nearly one per week. One included a flag of a private credit union.

The Justices commented on the longstanding test known as the “Lemon Test” which has been used to determine if a law violates the First Amendment. Its name comes from Lemon v. Kurtzman, in which the Court ruled that a Rhode Island law that paid some of the salary of some parochial school teachers was unconstitutional. This test has proven to be unworkable and has led to inconsistent and contradictory decisions on the constitutionality of 10 Commandment monuments and cross monuments like the “Peace Cross.”

Justice Gorsuch, joined in a concurrence with Justice Thomas, stated, “It’s time to let Lemon lie in its grave.”

Justice Gorsuch continued, “How did the city get it so wrong? To be fair, at least some of the blame belongs here and traces back to Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971). Issued during a “‘bygone era’” when this Court took a more freewheeling approach to interpreting legal texts, Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 8), Lemon sought to devise a one-size-fits-all test for resolving Establishment Clause disputes. That project bypassed any inquiry into the Clause’s original meaning. It ignored longstanding precedents. And instead of bringing clarity to the area, Lemon produced only chaos. In time, this Court came to recognize these problems, abandoned Lemon, and returned to a more humble jurisprudence centered on the Constitution’s original meaning. Yet in this case, the city chose to follow Lemon anyway. It proved a costly decision, and Boston’s travails supply a cautionary tale for other localities and lower courts. The only sure thing Lemon yielded was new business for lawyers and judges.”

“Ultimately, Lemon devolved into a kind of children’s game. Start with a Christmas scene, a menorah, or a flag. Then pick your own “reasonable observer” avatar. In this game, the avatar’s default settings are lazy, uninformed about history, and not particularly inclined to legal research. His default mood is irritable. To play, expose your avatar to the display and ask for his reaction. How does he feel about it? Mind you: Don’t ask him whether the proposed display actually amounts to an establishment of religion. Just ask him if he feels it “endorses” religion. If so, game over,” wrote Gorsuch.

In his concurrence, Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “A government violates the Constitution when (as here) it excludes religious persons, organizations, or speech because of religion from public programs, benefits, facilities, and the like.”

In his concurrence, Justice Alito wrote, “I agree with the Court’s conclusion that Boston (hereafter City) violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech when it rejected Camp Constitution’s application to fly what it characterized as a “Christian flag.” But I cannot go along with the Court’s decision to analyze this case in terms of the triad of factors—history, the public’s perception of who is speaking, and the extent to which the government has exercised control over speech—that our decision in Walker v. Texas Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 576 U. S. 200 (2015), derived from Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460 (2009). See ante, at 6–12. As the Court now recognizes, those cases did not set forth a test that always and everywhere applies when the government claims that its actions are immune to First Amendment challenge under the government-speech doctrine. And treating those factors as a test obscures the real question in government-speech cases: whether the government is speaking instead of regulating private expression.”

Justice Alito continued, “But courts must be very careful when a government claims that speech by one or more private speakers is actually government speech. When that occurs, it can be difficult to tell whether the government is using the doctrine “as a subterfuge for favoring certain private speakers over others based on viewpoint,” id., at 473, and the government-speech doctrine becomes “susceptible to dangerous misuse….To prevent the government-speech doctrine from being used as a cover for censorship, courts must focus on the identity of the speaker. The ultimate question is whether the government is actually expressing its own views or the real speaker is a private party and the government is surreptitiously engaged in the “regulation of private speech.” Summum, 555 U. S., at 467…. Consider first “the extent to which the government has actively shaped or controlled the expression.” Ante, at 6. Government control over speech is relevant to speaker identity in that speech by a private individual or group cannot constitute government speech if the government does not attempt to control the message. But control is also an essential element of censorship.”

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “This 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court strikes a victory for private speech in a public forum. This case is so much more significant than a flag. Boston openly discriminated against viewpoints it disfavored when it opened the flagpoles to all applicants and then excluded Christian viewpoints. Government cannot censor religious viewpoints under the guise of government speech.”

 

 

TIMELINE

  • SEPT 2017 Liberty Counsel sends Boston demand letter following flag application denial.
  • JULY 2018 Original suit filed in district court.
  • AUG 2018 Court denies preliminary injunction.
  • JUNE 2019 First Circuit affirms the denial.
  • JULY 2019 LC files motion for summary judgment in district court.
  • FEB 2020 District court denies LC summary judgment and grants city’s summary judgment.
  • JAN 2021 First Circuit affirms summary judgment for city.
  • JUNE 2021 LC files writ of certiorari at SCOTUS.
  • SEPT 2021 SCOTUS takes the case.
  • JAN 18, 2022 Oral argument set at SCOTUS.

 

BRIEFS OF LIBERTY COUNSEL AND CITY OF BOSTON

Reply Brief For The Petitioners

Petition for Certiorari

Opposition to Petition for Certiorari

Reply Brief in Support of Petition for Certiorari

Brief for Petitioners Camp Constitution

Brief for Respondent City of Boston

Reply Brief of Petitioners Camp Constitution

 

AMICUS BRIEFS:

In Support of Liberty Counsel

Brief-Amicus-(ACLU and ACLU of Massachusetts).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Advancing-American-Freedom-et al).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(American-Cornerstone-Institute).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(American-Legion).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Becket Fund for Religious Liberty).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Bronx-Household-of-Faith).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Catholicvote-org).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(CPCF, et al.).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Foundation-for-Moral-Law).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Multi-States).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(National Legal Foundation, et al.).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Notre Dame L. Sch. Rel. Lib. Initiative).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Pacific Legal Foundation).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Protect-the-First-Foundation).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Rutherford-Institute).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Thomas-More).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(United States).pdf

In Support of City of Boston

Brief-Amicus-(Anti-Defamation League).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(FFRF).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Jewish Alliance for Law, et al).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Local Governments).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(Multi States).pdf

Brief-Amicus-(National Council of Churches, et al.).pdf

 

READ MORE:

SCOTUS Rules 9-0 in Favor of Christian Flag Case

U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Religious Viewpoint Discrimination

Supreme Court Heard Religious Viewpoint Case Today

Religious Viewpoint Case Goes to SCOTUS Tomorrow

Events Surrounding Shurtleff v. City of Boston SCOTUS Oral Argument

Religious Viewpoint Case Will Affect Everyone

LC Files Reply Brief at SCOTUS in Religious Viewpoint Case

Religious Viewpoint Case at SCOTUS Will Set National Precedent

USA and 12 States Support LC in Free Speech Case

Boston’s Christian Flag Debate Heading to US Supreme Court

Liberty Counsel Files Opening Brief at SCOTUS in Religious Viewpoint Case


U.S. Supreme Court Takes Christian Flag Case

Next Step for Christian Flag: U.S. Supreme Court

Christian Flag in Boston Before Court of Appeals

Boston Censorship Continues

Christian Flag Goes Back to Court

Boston Should Fly Christian Flag

Boston Discriminates Against Christian Flag

Stop Censorship of Christian Flag

Boston Sued for Censoring Christian Flag

Group sues Boston for banning Christian flag, approving 284 others

Boston Sued For Booting Christian Flag, While Allowing Islamic Symbols

Boston Sued for Banning Christian Flag, Allowing 284 Others

284 flags including China’s OK in Boston, but not Christian banner

Boston Sued for Banning Christian Flag, Allowing 284 Others

Banned in Boston — the Christian Flag

Stop Censorship of Christian Flag

Fly the ‘Christian’ flag? Sorry, no can do

Group Denied Request to Fly Christian Flag During Event Recognizing Boston’s Christian Heritage Refiles Suit

The Point: Boston Bars the Christian Flag

 


Boston’s Censorship of the Christian Flag – Mat Staver – Episode 31

 


 

Explore the truth behind the blatant government censorship of the Christian faith, and learn what you can do to protect your religious freedom! – Originally premiered Feb 27, 2022 on GoodLife45 – visit https://www.tv45.org

 

 


 

 

Standing Up for Judeo-Christian Values – Hal Shurtleff – Episode 29

 


 

As Liberty Counsel prepares to defend a religious viewpoint censorship case before the U.S. Supreme Court, it all started with the Christian flag. Hal Shurtleff of Camp Constitution joins Mat Staver to explain more on this episode of Freedom Alive.™  – Originally premiered Dec 12, 2021 on GoodLife45 – visit https://www.tv45.org

The Weekly Sam: From Rhodes Scholars to Alinsky Disciples By Samuel L. Blumenfeld

In the past it seemed that the best way to become President was through several
well-established routes: by climbing the power ladder in either of the two political
parties, by having gone to Harvard or Yale, by having had a Rhodes Scholarship to
Oxford, or by belonging to the secret Skull & Bones Society at Yale.
Nixon clawed his way up the ladder of the Republican Party. Born in California in
1913, he got his law degree from Duke University School of Law in 1937. In 1946 he
was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican. He gained fame among
Republicans by putting Soviet agent Alger Hiss in jail. After many ups and downs he
finally became the 37th President in 1968.

Jimmy Carter, our 39th President, was born in Plains, Georgia in 1924. He graduated from
Plains High School and then attended Georgia Southwestern College. He served as a
Georgia State Senator and then Governor. As a liberal statist he created two new
departments when he became President, the Department of Education and the Department
of Energy. He seems to have been chosen by the powers that be in the Democrat Party
to run for President. In 1976 he won the race against Gerald Ford. His Presidency is
considered a disaster by conservatives. Yet, he remains something of a fluke in the
annals of American presidential politics.

John F. Kennedy was born in Massachusetts in 1917, attended private prep schools,
studied at the Fabian Society’s London School of Economics in 1935, then entered
Harvard in 1936. He graduated cum laude in 1940. After the war, he got into politics and
was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1946. In 1952 he became a
Senator. His father had always wanted one of his sons to become President. The eldest
was killed in the war, but John, No. 2, was available. With the help of the family
fortune, Jack finally became the 35th President in 1960 in a very close race against
Richard Nixon. After Kennedy, came Lyndon Johnson, who also clawed his way up the
political ladder of the Democrat Party, and became President after JFK’s assassination.

George H. W. Bush, born in Massachusetts in 1924, came from a family of Wall Street
investment bankers. His father was not only a Yale Bonesman, but also became a U.S.
Senator. George followed his father’s footsteps to Yale and the Skull and Bones Society.
After graduation he got into the oil business in Texas. There, as a “moderate” Republican
he was urged to run against a candidate in the primary who also happened to be a
member of the “extremist” John Birch Society. He won the primary, but lost the election
to a Democrat.

In 1966 he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although generally
considered a Rockefeller Republican, he tended to vote conservative. In an effort to
become a Senator, he ran against a conservative in the primary. He won that battle but
in 1970 lost the election to a Democrat. When Gerald Ford became President after
Nixon’s resignation, he appointed Bush to be Liaison Officer with Communist China
where he spent 14 months. In 1976, Ford appointed Bush head of the CIA.
In 1979, Bush decided to run for the Presidency. He vied with Ronald Reagan for the
nomination but lost. Reagan then asked Bush to become his running mate. In 1989, after
serving two terms as Vice President, Bush finally made it to the White House. He was
expected to continue Reagan’s conservative policies, especially on taxes. But when he
reneged on his pledge not to raise taxes, he went down to defeat in1992 against Bill
Clinton.

Ronald Reagan, our 40th President, was born in Illinois in 1911. He graduated from
Eureka College in 1932. He became a famous movie star and then a spokesman for the
free enterprise system. He entered elective politics in the 1960s, becoming Governor of
California in 1967. A conservative Republican, he turned out to be one of the most
popular Presidents in our history. He combined charisma and a vision of America that
thrilled the hearts of most conservatives. To Reagan, America was “the city on the hill.“
His strong anti-communism also endeared him to conservatives.

Clinton, born in 1946 of lower middle class folk in Arkansas, decided as a teenager to get
into elective politics. He graduated from Hot Springs High School. Then, with the aid of
scholarships, was able to attend the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
in Washington. His professor, Carroll Quigley, who had access to the private papers of
the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rhodes Round Table, helped him get a Rhodes
Scholarship at Oxford. After Oxford, he entered Yale Law School, got his degree in
1973, met Hillary, a fellow student and Saul Alinsky disciple, whom he later married.
From there Clinton returned to Arkansas where he worked his way up the Democratic
Party, became Governor in 1978, and finally made it to the White House in 1992. As a
Rhodie, he met many other ambitious politicos at Oxford, who later became members of
his team during his Presidency.

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, was born in Connecticut in1946. He
followed his father and grandfather’s footsteps to Yale, where he became a member of
the Skull and Bones Society. After graduation in 1968, he attended Harvard Business
School and got his MBA degree in 1975. He then worked in the Texas oil business, and
finally entered elective politics in 1977. He ran for the House of Representatives, but lost.
In 1994 he became Governor of Texas. He was elected President in 2000 after a hotly
contested race against Al Gore.

So far we have seen how individuals can rise to the Presidency via traditional channels of
Republican and Democratic political activity. But now we have a new source of potential
candidates for the White House: Saul Alinsky’s Chicago school for Marxist
Revolutionaries. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are Alinsky disciples, and
they have tried to impose Marxism over the American people. Hillary first tried to do it
when her husband was elected President, giving her the opportunity to organize an effort
to impose socialized medicine on the nation. Thanks to Republican opposition, that
effort failed.

But it was Barack Obama, on being elected President, who went to work immediately to
impose socialism on the American people. Of course, he had the help of Nancy Pelosi,
the most leftist Speaker of the House to hold that position, and Senator Harry Reid of
Nevada, whose leftism seems to have been adopted as a means of gaining support of the
leftist unions.

Pelosi is a San Francisco liberal who really doesn’t know the difference between
socialism and capitalism. She is not a thinker. She came from an Italian Catholic
family that was very active in Baltimore Democrat politics. She attended Catholic
schools and probably absorbed enough Liberation Theology to solidify her liberal beliefs,
which became the basis of her left-wing politics. She is the least philosophical woman
ever to be elected to Congress. When she was asked if the National Healthcare Bill was
constitutional, her answer was: “Are you serious?” Which means that she has no
conception of what a Constitutional Republic is and probably doesn’t want to know.

Harry Reid was born to a very poor family in Searchlight, Nevada. After graduating
high school he attended Southern Utah University and graduated from Utah State
University. From there he went to George Washington University Law School.
He returned to Nevada with a law degree and first served as Henderson city attorney. He
was then elected to the Nevada Assembly in 1968. He then ran for Lieutenant Governor
of Nevada, but lost. He also lost a bid to become mayor of Las Vegas. But due to his
very strong political connections he was able to become chairman of the Nevada Gaming
Commission in 1977. When a gambling entrepreneur tried to bribe Reid, he turned the
individual in to the FBI. That helped improve his political qualifications. The result is
that he was elected to Congress in 1982. In 1986 he ran for the Senate and won.

In reviewing Reid’s political career, which consisted of party loyalty above all else, one
can see why he was able to beat his opponent in the last election. His connections in
Nevada guaranteed his reelection. He is clearly not a Marxist. He’s a Democrat, and
the Democratic Party has become the chosen vehicle for the Marxists’ to gain political
power in Washington. He is a party loyalist above all else. For him the political game
has nothing to do with the Constitution or the principles of the Founding Fathers. So he
can loyally serve a Marxist President without any qualms.

And so neither Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid are conscious Marxists. They probably
know very little if anything about Saul Alinsky. And since many of the precepts of Karl
Marx’s Communist Manifesto have already been adopted by the United States under the
guise of liberalism, how can anyone call it socialism?

One good thing the Tea Party movement has done is bring to the new Congress men and
women who actually believe in the Constitution and the principles of the Founding
Fathers. They are not Marxists. They are not socialists. They are Constitutionalists or
Americanists. And they know that Marxists and Socialists move about Washington under
the label of liberalism. So the Tea Partiers are more aware of the semantic trickery of
the left and will not be fooled by it any longer. They are also the harbingers of the
conservative counter-revolution that is so badly needed in Washington. That is why
2011 will prove to be one of the most decisive years in American history.

(This article is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archives:

http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm

The Blumenfeld Archives

Happy Birthday Illuminati Founded May 1, 1776 Bavaria, Germany

There have been several books published in the early days of the Illuminati’s existence including Proofs of a Conspiracy, Memoirs of Jacobinism and Proof of the Illuminati.   Rev. G.W. Snyder sent a copy of Proofs of a Conspiracy to George Washington who replied:

“It was not my intention to doubt that the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more fully satisfied of this fact than I am.”

Several years ago, while our annual family camp was in session, we took a field trip to the Rindge, NH Historical Society where I found copies of Proof of the Illuminati for sale.  When I asked  Karla MacLeod, the  museum’s president, why this book was at the museum, she informed me that the author Rev. Seth Payson was the pastor of the Congregational Church.  He wrote the book in 1802, and it was the basis for his successful campaign for  state senate.  Camp Constitution Press reprinted the book.  A free PDF version is available here:  https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Proof-of-the-Illuminati-by-Rev-Seth-Payson.pdf

A paperback version is available from our on-line shop:  https://campconstitution.net/shop/

  Meeting the Needs of the Self-Loathing Community

 

 

 

In a free market, needs and wants (demands) are met by those willing to take a risk.  In some cases, risk takers create needs or wants.  There are numerous examples of creating a want and then supplying it.   Two come to mind.  Back in 1975, Gary Dahl invented the Pet Rock. The fad lasted long to make Mr. Dahl a millionaire.  In the 1970s, Martha Nelson Thomas hand made what she called “Baby Dolls” complete with birth certificates and adoption papers.  Xavier Roberts acquitted the rights, and in 1982, rebranded them “Cabbage Patch Kids” and for a few years, people would stand in long lines at stores awaiting the opportunity to purchase these ugly dolls with hard heads and soft bodies in toy stores around the country. In some cases, fights broke out over these hideous things.

 

Well, after learning of Billie Eilish’s statement at the recent Grammy Awards where she said that there are no illegals on stolen land and constantly being reminded by Black History Month celebrants that enslaved blacks built our nation, I see a need and will meet a need.  I will start a clearing house for self-loathing whites who have an urgent need to transfer their real estate and possessions to “Indigenous” people and Black Americans.   I have a few names in mind for this unique business model:   White Assuagement Transfers -WAT-and Self-Loathing Acquisition Redistribution- SLAR.  For my services, the company will charge a meager ten percent of the value of the things given away by my self-loathing white clients. This would include payroll and overhead.

My new business will lead to the creation of several cottage industries including selling prefabricated cardboard mini homes, and virtual signaling yard signs that read:  “Hate Has No Home Here And Neither Do I.”

I have to find worthy recipients of the real estate and other items, but I couldn’t distribute these things to organizations that do not share my worldview.  So, here is a list of organizations and individuals that would be the beneficiaries of the ill-gotten gains from my self-loathing clients.

Native American Guardians Association  (NAGA)  https://www.nagaeducation.org/

This worthy non-profit would receive all of the “stolen land”  from my self-loathing clients.  NAGA works to educate people about the history of American Indians and strongly oppose changing the names of sports teams that are named in honor of Indians.  From their Website:

 

NAGA utilizes various media channels, especially social media, to educate the public about the positive ways educational institutions and sports teams can and are using their platforms to educate about Native Americans. Many Americans do not even realize that American Indians are still around. NAGA is committed to keeping Native identity at the forefront of mainstream America. Educational institutions and sports teams play an important role in the preservation and promotion of American Indian legacy.

 

And to the descendants of slaves:

 

National Black Home Educators    https://www.nbhe.net/

 

  Government schools have miserably failed our nations’ children, especially those in the Black community.  National Black Home Educators offers Black parents viable alternatives to those failing schools.

 

From their website:

 

The goal of this organization is ultimately to see strong families with healthy parent relationships.  We believe that every child deserves a world class education.  This organization believes that these goals can be achieved through parent directed education. We are bringing the rich heritage of the Black experience to the homeschooling community worldwide.

 

 

Historia Revelata   https://www.patreon.com/cw/chadojackson

 

This organization was founded by Chad O. Jackson, a native Texan, master plumber with a successful business, and homeschooler.  From their website:

 

As an independent documentarian, founder of Historia Revelata and Executive Director of the Historia Revelata Foundation, Chad O. Jackson is a subject matter expert when it comes to showing his audiences how America’s social constructs sausage is made… and he’s not afraid of slaughtering a few sacred cows in the process. His film work isn’t just about looking back at history and stating the obvious. It’s about exposing the little-known connective tissue between yesterday’s ill-gotten lessons and today’s sobering realities, chronicling how the past’s echoes either sound the alarms to course correct or beckon a harkening back to this country’s long forgotten (or never discovered) buried treasure.

A Chad O. Jackson film is a critical thought call-to-action for his audiences to question absolutely everything – especially what is universally accepted –  and to consider that, for any question to be answered truthfully, it must be filtered through the inerrant truth: The Bible.

 

(Rev. Steve Craft and Vince Ellison)

 

Vince Ellison  https://www.vincespeakstruth.com/

 

Vince is the author of several books including  25 Lies: Exposing Democrat’s Most Dangerous, Seductive, Damnable, Destructive Lies and How to Refute Them and  The Iron Triangle:  Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them. He is the producer of the documentary Will You Go to Hell for Me and hosts  “The Vince Ellison Show” on YouTube.

 

 

 

 

 

I reject the Marxist narrative that we live on stolen land and,  while Black Americans made  contributions to the building of our nation, they didn’t do it alone.  So, prior to accepting the real estate and possessions from my self-loathing clients,  I would encourage them to view  the documentaries  The Real History of the American Indians and The Real History of Slavery by Matt Walsh  Maybe,  these two documentaries can undo years of government and private prep school indoctrination that has been churning out people who both hate themselves and the greatest nation in the world and my business will be as short lived as the Pet Rock and Cabbage Patch Kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Reminder for Camp Constitution’s “Early Bird” Registration Which Ends This Friday May 1

 

Just a reminder that our “Early Bird” registration deadline is May 1.  Attendees save $50. per person.  A link to the application is below.   While we do take applications up to a few days before camp, sign up before this Friday-a $100. deposit is all that is needed, and save $50. off for each attendee.

                                              Camp Constitution Announces Its 18th Annual Family CampCamp Constitution will hold its 18th Annual Family Camp at the Singing Hills Christian Camp https://www.singinghills.net/ Plainfield, NH. from Sunday July 12 to Friday July 17, 2026

Returning instructors include Pastor David Whitney of the Institute on the Constitution, Catherine White of The Constitution Decoded, Alex Newman, author and host of the Sentinel Report, Kurt Hyde, retired U.S. Air Force Lt, Col, and Rev. Steve Craft, Camp Constitution’s chaplain.


   Guest instructors include Mr. Rich Howell, historian and Revolutionary War reenactor. In addition to the classes, the camp will offer marksmanship courses, martial arts, hiking, basketball, volleyball, wiffleball, and optional field trip and swimming, chess, gaga and corn hole tournaments.  Campers and staff end the day with an evening campfire. 

Our theme:  Celebrating our nation’s 250th Birthday

Camp Constitution’s annual camp is a family camp open to entire families, unaccompanied minors, and adults. The cost for the week which includes lodging, meals and class handouts is $300 for those 13 and over. $200. For campers 12 and under, and three and under with parents are free.  The camp offers an “Early Bird” discount of $50, per person by registering by May 1.   A link to the camp registration:  https://campconstitution.net/camp-registration/

Don’t plan on attending but would like to help a worthy youngster or family attend?  Please consider a donation earmarked for the camp fee.
For more information contact Hal Shurtleff (857) 498-1309  campconstitution1@gmail.com

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Camp Constitution

146 Powder Mill Rd.

AltonNH 03809

The Weekly Sam: How to Dumb Down a Nation By Samuel L. Blumenfeld

It’s easy. Destroy its literacy, and you’ve dumbed it down. And once dumbed down, it
becomes the potential victim of any power that wants to dominate it.
If you look at the most illiterate nations on the planet, you find that they are ruled by
despots, their people live in abject poverty and have no hope for a better future. That
doesn’t mean that literate nations, like Germany, can’t produce monsters. But when they
do, we know that satanic influences are behind it.

America, from its beginning, was the most literate nation on earth, and the result was
positive in every respect. Why was it so literate? Because the people and their leaders
were governed by the precepts of the Bible, and biblical literacy was paramount in the
education of the country’s children.

But once we got a government schooling system, which was taken over by atheist
progressive educators, the God of the Bible was removed from the schools. It then
became possible to introduce a new socialist curriculum with teaching methods
calculated to reduce American literacy. The Bible was now relegated to an hour of study
in church on Sundays. And because it was no longer part of the curriculum, children no
longer considered it important to life.

A blatant, anti-biblical morality was introduced in the schools through such programs as
values clarification, sensitivity training, transcendental meditation, sex education, death
education, drug education, multiculturalism, psychotherapy, evolution, secular
humanism, and other such programs. Moral degeneration has been the inevitable result.
The result is that America has been greatly dumbed-down.

(The above was written by my late friend and mentor Sam Blumenfeld about twenty-five years ago.  Sam offered

a solution and that was his “Alpha-Phonics.”  We have his “Alpha-Phonics” with all 128 lessons in audio or video free or charge

here:  http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm or a hardcopy available from our on-line shop:

 

https://campconstitution.net/product/alpha-phonics-by-sam-blumenfeld/

 

Van Fund Raising Update

 

So far, we have raised $22,185  Many thanks to those who have already donated.  We purchased a 2026 Sienna Hybrid Mini Van that cost us $41,000.  It csn hold seven passenges and gets about 550 miles on a full tank of gas.

We still hope to raise more funds towards the cost of the van. Those who are able to help may donation via our PayPal accounted accessed from our website’s homepage:  https://campconstitution.net/ or via check payable to Camp Constitution and mail to us at 146 Powder Mill Rd. Alton, NH  03809. Those who own a business or manage non-profits can become official Camp Constitution sponsors and be listed as a Camp Sponsor for donations of $100. or more:  Camp Sponsors | campconstitution.net

Two of our new sponsors:

 

Like our old van, we plan to have it stenciled

Blessings,

Hal Shurtleff, Director

Camp Constitution

Alton, NH

(A picture of our van in 2019 after having Brice Socha did the signage.    And our new van.)

April 19, 2026 Marks the 251st Anniversary of the Battle of Concord and Lexington-The Shot Heard Around the World

Today, April 19, 2026 is the anniversary of the Battle of Concord and Lexington.

This video begins with a narration of the event, and then we see the Lexington Militia, led by Captain John Parker, mustering on the green, taking roll call.   Shortly thereafter, the British, led by Major James Pitcairn, demanded that the “rebels’ lay down their arms, and then the “shot that was heard about the world “rings out.  The brief battle ends with the loss of eight militiamen including Jonathan Harrington who crawled across the road and died in his wife’s arms, and ten wounded including Prince Estabrook, a slave who eventually got his freedom.  Only one British soldier wounded during the short battle.  The British went on to Concord where they met stiff resistance and were driven back to Boston.

Camp Constitution provides tours of Concord and Lexington.  To schedule a tour, please call Hal Shurtleff 857-498-1309 or E-mail him at campconstitution1@gmail.com

 

 

 

American Minute with Bill Federer Patriots’ Day: Lexington & Concord, and Ri “To Disarm the People is the Best Way to Enslave Them” George Mason Right to Bear Arms –

 

Read American Minute

The sun never set on the British Empire.

It was the largest empire in world history … continue reading …

Download as PDF …

Miracles in American History-Vol. TWO: Amazing Faith that Shaped the Nation

Out of nearly 200 countries in the world, only 22 were never controlled, invaded or attacked by Britain.
In April of 1775, the British Royal Military Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, sent 800 British Army Regulars, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, on a preemptive raid to seize guns from American patriots at Lexington and Concord.
George Mason of Virginia stated:

“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

A warning was sent from Boston’s Old North Church that the British were coming, as recounted in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”:

“Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the 18th of April, in 75;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

… He said to his friend, ‘If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light …

One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

 

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country folk to be up and to arm …

Through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight.”

Paul Revere was captured along the way, but William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott continued the midnight ride.

Revere wrote:

“About 10 o’clock, Dr. Warren sent in great haste for me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock & Adams were …

I got a horse of Deacon Larkin … (and) set off … It was then about 11 o’clock … After I had passed Charlestown Neck … I saw two men on horseback … When I got near them, I discovered they were British officers.

One tried to get a head of me, and the other to take me. I turned my horse very quick, and galloped … to Medford Road.

The one who chased me, endeavoring to cut me off, got into a clay pond, near where the new tavern is now built. I got clear of him …

I went through Medford, over the bridge, and up to Menotomy … I alarmed almost every house, till I got to Lexington …”

Revere continued:

“I … mentioned, that we had better alarm all the inhabitants till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it …

We had got nearly half way.

Mr. Dawes and the Doctor stopped to alarm the people of a house: I was about one hundred rods a head, when I saw two men … in an instant I was surrounded by four …

The Doctor being foremost, he came up; and we tried to get past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us in to the pasture; -the Doctor jumped his horse over a low stone wall, and got to Concord …

Six officers, on horseback … ordered me to dismount … He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the affirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston …

Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, clapped his pistol to my head … and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out.”

In a related story, four months earlier, on December 13, 1774, two British warships set sail for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to seize gunpowder and weapons patriots had taken from Fort William and Mary.

Riding all night to warn the citizens of Portsmouth that the British were coming were Paul Revere and 29-year-old African American Wentworth Cheswell.

Cheswell was constable of Newmarket, New Hampshire, being considered the first African American elected to public office in U.S. history.

Paul Revere also described a spy, Dr. Benjamin Church, who leaked patriot plans to British General Gates before the Battle of Lexington:

“Dr. Church … appeared to be a high son of Liberty. He frequented all the places where they met …

I came across Deacon Caleb Davis. … He told me, that the morning Dr. Church went into Boston … General Gage and Dr. Church came out of a room, discoursing together, like persons who had been long acquainted.

He appeared to be quite surprised at seeing Deacon Davis there …

I was told by another person … that he saw Church go in to General Gage’s House … that he got out of the carriage and went up the steps more like a man that was acquainted …

He did not doubt that Church was in the interest of the British; and that it was he who informed Gen. Gage … that a short time before the Battle of Lexington … Church had no money … (and) all at once, he had several hundred New British Guineas.”

A “guinea” was a British coin containing one quarter ounce of gold.

On April 19th, “Patriots’ Day,” the British continued their march to Lexington and Concord intent on seizing arms and arresting Tea Party leader Samuel Adams and Massachusetts Provincial Congress president John Hancock.
On the way, the British passed through Arlington, Massachusetts.

They stormed the inn where lodged the patriots Elbridge Gerry, Azor Orne and Jeremiah Lee, who was America’s largest colonial ship owner and the wealthiest man in Massachusetts.

Jeremiah Lee was using his ships to smuggle in supplies to the patriots.

When the British stormed the inn, Gerry, Orne and Lee fled wearing only their night clothes and hid, laying on the cold ground in a wet cornfield for hours.

Jeremiah Lee caught a pneumonia and died a few weeks later.

John Hancock had previously experienced British tax collectors confiscating his merchant ship Liberty in 1768

Hancock had declared to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, April 15, 1775:

“In circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the impending judgments …

(a day) … be set apart as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer … to confess their sins … to implore the Forgiveness of all our Transgression.”

Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull, whom Washington called ‘the first of the patriots’, was the only colonial governor at the start of the Revolution to support the patriot cause.

Trumbull proclaimed a Day of Fasting, April 19, 1775, that:

“God would graciously pour out His Holy Spirit on us to bring us to a thorough repentance and effectual reformation that our iniquities may not be our ruin;

that He would restore, preserve and secure the liberties of this and all the other British American colonies, and make the land a mountain of Holiness, and habitation of righteousness forever.”

As the sun rose, April 19, 1775, there were 800 British regulars approaching Lexington’s town green.

To their surprise, they were met by Lexington’s militia, comprised of 77 men who were mostly members of the Church of Christ, pastored by Rev. Jonas Clark, whose wife was a cousin of John Hancock.

Patriot captain John Parker told the militia:

“Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have War, let it begin here!”

It is disputed who fired first, but the British opened fire and killed or wounded eighteen of Captain Parker’s men.

In his sermon preached a year later, April 19, 1776, Pastor Jonas Clark described:

“Under cover of the darkness, a brigade of these instruments of violence and tyranny, made their approach …

They enter this town … like murders and cut-throats … without provocation, without warning, when no war was proclaimed, they draw the sword of violence, upon the inhabitants of this town,

and with a cruelty and barbarity, which would have made the most hardened savage blush, they shed INNOCENT BLOOD! …”

Pastor Clark continued:

“And the names of Munroe, Parker, and others, that fell victims to the rage of blood-thirsty oppressors, on that gloomy morning …

And from the nineteenth of April, 1775, we may venture to predict, will be dated, in future history, THE LIBERTY or SLAVERY of the AMERICAN WORLD, according as a sovereign God shall see fit to smile, or frown upon the interesting cause, in which we are engaged.”

The American militia retreated, growing to number 400, and took a stand at Concord’s Old North Bridge.

The British fired first, wounding four and killing two.

Militia commander John Buttrick yelled:

“Fire, for God’s sake, fellow soldiers, fire!”

Taking many casualties, the British began a hasty retreat 20 miles back to Boston, being ambushed along the way by John Parker’s militia in “Parker’s Revenge.”

Tragically, in the anger of their retreat, the British shot or bayoneted almost everyone in the town of Menotomy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow continued his poem:

“You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the British Regulars fired and fled,—

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farmyard wall,

Chasing the redcoats down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again

Under the trees at the turn of the road,

And only pausing to fire and load.”

Longfellow ended:

“So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,—

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo for evermore!

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

Through all our history, to the last,

… In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”

Though it took eight long years, Americans won their independence.

A century later, on April 19, 1875, at that same Old North Bridge, patriots were honored by the dedication of the “Minute Man Statue” designed by Daniel Chester French.

On the statue’s base is a stanza of the poem The Concord Hymn, written Ralph Waldo Emerson, April 19, 1860:

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;

Here once the embattled farmers stood;

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,

And time the ruined bridge has swept,

Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

… On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We place with joy a votive stone,

That memory may their deeds redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare,

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid time and nature gently spare,

The shaft we raised to them and Thee.”

Two months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress, under President John Hancock, declared, June 12, 1775:

“Congress … considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state … do earnestly recommend … a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer,

that we may with united hearts … confess and deplore our many sins and offer up our joint supplications to the All-wise, Omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all Events, humbly beseeching Him to forgive our iniquities …

It is recommended to Christians of all denominations to assemble for public worship and to abstain from servile labor and recreations of said day.”

The Revolutionary War began with an attempt by government officials to seize citizens’ guns.

Patriots had prepared for this with the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, October 26, 1774, organizing their defenses with one-third of their regiments being “Minutemen,” men who were ready to fight at a minute’s notice.

This idea came from the Bible, where in Ancient Israel every man was armed and ready to defend his family and community:

David B. Kopel wrote in “Ancient Hebrew Militia Law” (Denver University Law Review, July 15, 2013):

“New Englanders intensely self-identified with ancient Israel … Thus, ancient Hebrew militia law is part of the intellectual background of the American militia system, and of the Second Amendment …

Every male ‘from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms’ … were obliged to fight, to go forth ‘armed to battle.’

Men who failed this duty ‘sinned against the Lord.'”

E.C. Wines wrote in Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews (NY: Geo. P. Putnam & Co., 1853):

“Moses’ constitution made no provision for a standing army …

The whole body of citizens … formed a national guard.”

  • “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side” (Exodus 32:27);
  • “They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh” (Song of Solomon 3:8);
  • “Every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side (Nehemiah 4:17-18).
James Madison wrote (Letters & Writings of James Madison, 1865, p. 406):

“The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprise of ambition …

Kingdoms of Europe … are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Noah Webster wrote in An Examination into the leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787:

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.

The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword because the whole body of the people are armed.”

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2nd Edition, 1833, p. 125):

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium (safeguard) of the liberties of a Republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers.”

Machiavelli wrote in The Prince (trans. L. Ricci, 1952, p. 73, 81):

“An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens.”

Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Cooley wrote in The General Principles of Constitutional Law (2nd Ed., 1891, p. 282):

“The Second Amendment … was meant to be a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers …

The people … shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose.”

Patrick Henry wrote (Elliott, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions, 1836, 1941, p. 378):

“Let him candidly tell me, where and when did freedom exist when the sword and the purse were given up from the people?

No nation ever retained its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse …

The great object is, that every man be armed … Everyone who is able may have a gun.”

Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul to Algiers and France, wrote in Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe, Resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government (1792, 1956, p. 46):

“The foundation of everything is … that the people will form an equal representative government … that the people will be universally armed …

A people that legislate for themselves ought to be in the habit of protecting themselves.”

Jeffrey R. Snyder, esq., wrote in “A Nation of Cowards” (The Public Interest, 1993, no. 113):

“Classical republican philosophy has long recognized the critical relationship between personal liberty and the possession of arms by a people ready and willing to use them.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote (Cicero, Selected Political Speeches, trans. M. Grant, 1969, p. 222):

“There exists a law … inborn in our hearts … that if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.”

Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws (trans. T. Nugent, 1899, p. 64):

“It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.”

Machiavelli wrote in The Prince (trans. L. Ricci, 1952, p. 73, 81):

“It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willing one who is unarmed.”

Cesare Beccaria wrote in On Crimes and Punishment (trans. H. Paolucci, 1963, p. 87-88):

“False is the idea … that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it …

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature.

They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most scared laws of humanity, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity …

Such laws … serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Thomas Paine wrote (Writings of Thomas Paine, Conway, ed., 1894, p. 56):

“The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self defense.

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order.”

Aristotle wrote in Parts of Animals (trans. A. Peck, 1961, p. 373):

“Animals have just one method of defense and cannot change it for another …

For man, on the other hand, many means of defense are available, and he can change them at any time …

Take the hand: this is as good as a talon, or a claw, or a horn, or again, a spear, or a sword, or any other weapon or tool it can be all of these.”

Aristotle wrote in Politics (trans. T. Sinclair, 1962, p. 274):

“Those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not.”

Thomas More wrote in Utopia (trans. R.M. Adams, 1975, p. 71):

“Men and women alike … assiduously exercise themselves in military training … to protect their own territory or to drive an invading enemy out of their friends’ land or, in pity for a people oppressed by tyranny, to deliver them by force of arms from the yoke and slavery of the tyrant.”

Roman historian Livy wrote (trans. B. Foster, 1919, p. 148):

“Formerly (in the reign of Rome’s 6th king, Servius Tullius, 578-535 BC) the right to bear arms had belonged solely to the patricians (ruling class).

Now plebeians (common citizens) were given a place in the army …

All the citizens capable of bearing arms were required to provide their own swords, spears, and other armor.”

Machiavelli wrote in On the Art of War (trans. E. Farnsworth, 1965, p. 30):

“Citizens, when legally armed … did the least mischief to any state …

Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time, but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberty in less than forty years.”

Machiavelli wrote in Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (trans. L. Walker, 1965, p. 492):

“If any city be armed … as Rome was … all its citizens, alike in their private and official capacity … it will be found they will be of the same mind …

But, when they are not familiar with arms and merely trust to the whim of fortune … they will change with the changes of fortune.”

Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (ed., Cannan, p. 309):

“Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army as dangerous of liberty …

The standing army of Caesar destroyed the Roman Republic.

The standing army of Cromwell turned the Long Parliament out of doors.”

Earl Warren wrote in The Bill of Rights and the Military (37N.Y.U. L. Rev. 181, 1962):

“Our War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies …

Thus we find in the Bill of Rights, Amendment 2 … specifically authorizing a decentralized militia, guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Jeffrey R. Snyder, esq., wrote in “A Nation of Cowards” (The Public Interest, 1993, no. 113):

“Political theorists as dissimilar as Niccolo Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau all shared the view that the possession of arms is vital for resisting tyranny, and that to be disarmed by one’s government is tantamount to being enslaved by it.”

The Texas Declaration of Independence, March 2, 1836, stated:

“The late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers, as the cruel alternative, either abandon our homes acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny …

It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense – the rightful property of freemen — and formidable only to tyrannical governments.”

Theodore Brantner Wilson described in The Black Codes of the South (Univ,. of Alabama Press, 1965, p. 56) laws passed by Democrat Legislators:

“Mississippi quickly passed one law … outlawing possession of weapons by Negroes. The militia proceeded to disarm the Negroes in such a brutal fashion as to cause much criticism.

Alabama Negroes were disarmed by similar methods with like results.”

Frederick Douglass, the African-American advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, stated:

“A man’s rights rest in three boxes: The ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box.”

Mahatma Gandhi wrote in An Autobiography of the Story of My Experiments with the Truth (trans. M. Desai, 1927):

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

Islamic sharia law forbids non-Muslims from possessing arms, swords or weapons of any kind.
Adolph Hitler acted similarly with his Edict of March 18, 1938:

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms;

history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own fall.”

German Firearm Act of 1937 stated:

“Firearm licenses will not be granted to Jews.”

Richard Munday reported in “The Monopoly of Power,” presented to the American Society of Criminology, 1991, the Nazi order regarding arms, SA Ober Führer of Bad Tolz:

“SA (Storm Troopers), SS (para-military Gestapo), and Stahlhelm … Anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organizations and who unjustifiably keeps his weapon … must be regarded as an enemy of the national government and will be brought to account without compunction and with the utmost severity.”

Democrat Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was quoted by David T. Hardy in The Second Amendment as a Restraint on State and Federal Firearms Restrictions (Kates, ed., Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, 1979):

“The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”

Jefferson wrote to George Washington, 1796 (The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, John P. Foley, ed., New York & London, Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1900, No. 2138, iv, 143; Paul Leicester Ford, ed., vii. 84):

“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”

Similar to the midnight ride of Paul Revere, when Jefferson was Governor of Virginia, British Colonel Tarleton led his cavalry to Charlottesville to capture him.

Jefferson barely escaped, June 3, 1781, thanks to 27-year-old Jack Jouett, Jr., the “Paul Revere of the South,” who rode all night to warn to warn him.

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 1775:

“We … most solemnly, before God and the world declare

that … the arms we have been compelled to assume we will use with perseverance, exerting to their utmost energies all those powers which our Creator hath given us, to preserve that liberty which He committed to us in sacred deposit.”

Downlaod as PDF … Lexington & Concord, and the Right to Keep & Bear Arms “To Disarm the People is the Best Way to Enslave Them”-George Mason

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