This article originally ran as the inaugural post when AFNN first went live on 3 May, 2021. It is reprinted here in celebration of that day.
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls,” words penned by Thomas Paine on December 23, 1776, six months after a tumultuous Continental Congress voted to:
declare That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
How did those thirteen colonies, clinging precariously to the edge of a continent barely explored, as British Subjects, heretofore bound under British Law, Customs and Traditions, to absolute loyalty to King George, come to the conclusion that they should declare themselves, Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved? How did they get to that place?
Paine alludes to what must have been a deep-seated moral struggle these great men were undergoing, with those words, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” However, it was the Continental Congress and its front man, Thomas Jefferson who put the detail into Paine’s words, even before he wrote them, six months after those exciting days in July. In what has been referred to in modern prose as “one of the best Breakup Letters ever,” Jefferson, “assisted” and ratified by the Continental Congress, made a detailed case for the divorce. As part of his Opening Argument, so to speak, he wrote:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Jefferson went on to enumerate a long list of egregious acts that King George and his Parliament had committed; acts that had denied subjects of the Crown their basic rights as Britons, merely because they resided in the Colonies. In a particularly insulting decision, King George determined that trials of certain subjects be conducted in Great Britain, rather under the authority of his colonial governors and colonial courts. This portends the “Lawfare” being conducted today by the Leftists. In fact, many of Jefferson’s charges could be taken right out of today’s news reports.
Below is just a short compendium of the relationship between the Government and the People it allegedly serves. As we walk through this, please note that when I associate a current event with one of Jefferson’s charges, “He” (meaning King George) is being compared to our current Federal Government, along with certain State and local jurisdictions. On occasion, some of this might even apply to private corporations.
We should look at a few of these issues and determine if we are today, as close to a divorce as Jefferson and Paine believed they were back in 1776. Here are two related charges that can easily be seen today:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent
He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
As if Federal taxes levied by the Federal government via congressional legislation weren’t enough, unelected Federal bureaucrats have their own de facto ability to tax through fines and fees, harass(ing) our people and eat(ing) out their substance. A farmer being fined $10,000.00 per instance per day for violating a Federal decree that a catch pond he constructed to conserve rainwater, somehow constitutes, “navigable waters of the United States.”
And a third charge
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury
That not only happens via the bureaucrats mentioned above, but also via an alliance between the Federal government and the States severally. That unholy alliance is known as “Civil Asset Forfeiture.” Under Federal Statute, Law Enforcement agencies may confiscate property believed to be either fruits of a crime or being used to commit crimes…without an indictment, much less a conviction. That’s right, no indictment or conviction required. The owner then has to spend his own money attempting to jump through bureaucratic hoops to recover his own property. When the citizens in some states became outraged by this and other legal and political atrocities, they attempted to use the legal tools at hand to rectify the situation through the legislatures. That brings us to:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them
Today’s version is called “lawfare.” That’s where the Leftists in control of key components of State and Federal Governments, use a series of civil court cases to tie up the effective enforcement of state laws meant to overturn such governmental overreach as Asset Forfeiture. When states decided to clean up their voting systems to ensure the integrity of the vote, the left used Lawfare to prevent enforcement of those laws. Net result? A Presidential election and two Senate elections stolen in plain sight.
Essentially, the leftists have coopted the court system and turned it into a supra-legislature. When outraged citizens, the segment of the population that when it comes right down to it, pays most of the taxes and fights most of the wars, deign to express their opinions about such an open and notorious assault upon our Representative, Constitutional Republic, the leftists bent on destroying all who oppose them, bring out another item from their arsenal.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation
Most would jump right to the belief that I was calling out the corrupt World body called, “The United Nations.” Not this time. Today, I am referring to a jurisdiction that has its nascence back before the first British colony was formed in the New World in 1607. Seven years before that, in 1600, a private organization, later to become known as the East India Trading Company, was formed. It functioned under license/authority of the British Crown in India and parts of China. Eventually, it would operate worldwide. At one time, it controlled somewhere near half of the World’s total commerce…One. Single. Company. In some countries, the company was the de facto government, with its own military and bureaucrats controlling the population.
Today, even the most insular among us should have absolutely no difficulty drawing parallels with 1776. Control half the world’s commerce? I don’t know about half, but I do know that there is a man named Bezos who is so powerful, that his Web Service subsidiary was able to evict Parler, a direct competitor of Twitter, off of servers that Parler had contracted with Amazon to host. Mr. Bezos’ influence is so prolific, that it took several weeks before Parler could find a web hosting service to serve them.
Parler isn’t the only one to suffer at the hands of today’s version of the East India Trading Company. Conservative authors have been the victims of other Big Tech coercion, censorship and flat out, financial extortion. The left has come fully out in the open in this country. It has decided that it will brook no dissent from real Americans…the ones who pay taxes, coach little league and have real jobs that actually produce important goods and services, not government sinecures or legislatively enacted rent seeking.
When the left cannot get its way via the ballot box, the court , or is contradicted in public discourse it excites:
domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
That is just what is happening today. The left knows full well that the only real form of systemic racial oppression is that which has been continuously practiced by the Democrat party since its founding and continues to this day. To deflect from decades of Democrat governance…and societal failure in Democrat enclaves, the Leftists are now using violence as their primary means of communication. It now uses coercive education system, backed up by street violence, to enforce their doctrine.
Throughout the past 2 year2…or so, mobs have roamed the streets in American cities, burning, looting and assassinating Americans in the street. These mobs have attacked police precincts, throwing Molotov cocktails at the building, attempting to burn alive the officers inside…and it has all been based on a lie. It has devolved to a point that in a blatant attempt to promote that lie, a U.S. Congresswoman publicly encouraged street violence if a certain jury verdict in an ongoing trial, didn’t go the way she thought it should, rule of law be damned.
This is the keynote offering from this newly created media outlet. With apologies to Thomas Jefferson, I have attempted to compare a few of Jefferson’s charges against King George, with some of today’s activities that could and well should, result in an indictment of the Democrat Party and its fellow travelers on the Left. This site is dedicated to educating Americans on the founding principles of our great experiment in self-government–the first and longest surviving example in modern history, where the people are sovereign, rather than some far off despot.
Ronald Reagan once said, “It’s a time for choosing.” I agree. The choices we make going forward should be evaluated in the context of Mr. Paine’s words:
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.
Thomas Paine
December 23, 1776
It is time for all of us to choose. I have made my choice to support this effort to push back against Big Tech financial coercion and censorship. I sincerely hope you will come along with us as we attempt to bring light instead of darkness and servitude.
Adam Selene
Editor Emeritus
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This article is timeless, and should be be re-published as much as possible, so maybe someone will get it stuck in their heads what is going on, and what to do.