The picture I included in the newspaper edition of this column is a drawing of the famed "Liberty Tree". Unfortunately I don't know how to get it posted here!
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The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
The eagle-eyed reader will probably notice that there’s been a slight change in the heading of this column. In the course of my soapbox rants I’m generally heard to be decrying the demise of liberty in this nation, and in the course of mumbling to myself on the subject I suddenly got the bright idea of adding the “Tree of Liberty” to the heading. And once again I’ve included Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote about refreshing that tree.
Wikiapedia, the on-line encyclopedia, explains that “The Liberty Tree (1646–1775) was a famous elm tree that stood near the commons of Boston, Massachusetts Colony, in the days before the American Revolution. The tree was a rallying point for the growing resistance to the rule of England... On August 14, 1765, a group of men calling themselves the Sons of Liberty gathered in Boston under a large elm tree at the corner of Essex Street and Orange Street near Hanover Square to protest the hated Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty concluded their protest by hanging two tax collectors in effigy from the tree. From that day forward, the tree became known as the "Liberty Tree." When the news of the Liberty Tree spread throughout the colonies, local patriots in each of the 13 colonies formed a Sons of Liberty group and identified a large tree to be used as a meeting place… flags bearing a representation of the Liberty Tree were flown to symbolize the unwavering spirit of liberty. ”
So… now you know the story of the Liberty Tree.
Another quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson that should be considered prophetic is; “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” While we remain the world’s freest nation today, our precious freedoms are disappearing one by one, and their rate of disappearance is rapidly accelerating. Our ever-expanding government has been collecting information about Americans as a group since our nation’s inception. They’ve been collecting information on us as individuals for nearly a hundred years now. And information is, believe it or not, the key to controlling any people. In the name of public welfare and “trust busting” the government effectively assumed overall control of our nations business, industry, and transportation, a hundred years ago. Our National Parks and National Forests supposedly gives our people multi-use lands for recreation, logging, mining, and ranching, public lands that the government retains control over, and we now find they can bar our use of those lands whenever they please.
Taxes, both the obvious ones and hidden taxes, give all levels of government seemingly unending access to our not so deep pockets, and a means of controlling our personal finances. Now the government is forcing a national identification card on us, which will soon become a legal necessity if we wish to do much of anything within our own country, and which the government can rescind at will. You might also have noticed that cash, the once well known “greenback dollar” is giving way to plastic cards and the electronic transfer of funds. Funding transfers that can be instantly halted at the stroke of a government controlled key. We’re being disarmed, in violation of the Second Amendment, in the name of crime control (which never seems to get controlled). Now we have Homeland Security who, in the name of public safety, is happily spying on us, searching us if we want to travel anywhere, spending huge amounts of our tax dollars, and generally limiting what’s left of our freedoms. To “improve” the education of our children, the federal government has assumed control of our schools, teaching our kids what “they” want, and not necessarily what we want. It’s no wonder that so many Americans see all this as a “vast government conspiracy”!
Returning to Wikipedia; “Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential founding fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States… He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government.”
Despite all the derogatory press and rewritten history in recent years, Tom Jefferson sounds like the kind of guy I could get to like! Reading the many quotes attributed to him gives one a good look into his political philosophy, and I think I can safely say he wouldn’t like what he’d see in this country today. On that line, a third Jefferson quote is; “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Humm… Perhaps it’s time Americans reinstituted the Sons of Liberty, and found themselves another Liberty Tree?
Who...?
Howdy! I'm Robert "Bob" Fogarty, your friendly Central Idaho backwoods redneck rabble rouser. On the personal front, I'm well over 60 years old, an ex-soldier (Cold War and Vietnam), and a recently retired career firefighter. I'm married, stand 5'10" and tip the scales at about 160 when in fighting trim. I smoke cigars, prefer Irish whiskey when I can afford it, and drive a thirty year old pick-up truck whenever I can coax it into running. A few of my "pet peeves" are hard core environuts (with the emphasis on the "nuts" part), left wing bleeding heart liberals, opinionated people (unless they agree with me), politically minded lawyers, and government bureaucracy. Generally I get along fine with individuals, but I also think that humanity as a group is probably the dumbest bunch of sheeple ever to come down the pike.
With my political interests, I suspect that everybody in the alphabet soup of government agencies considers me to be a threat of some sort or other, and they've probably got me on all kinds of watch lists. That's OK, I don't particularly like them either, and I really do think the government has gone totally nuts. Most of my writing is published in a local paper as a Op-Ed column. Our publisher lets me write about whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, then she's brave enough to print it.
If you don't particularly care for my opinion, ignore me and I'll happily ignore you. If 'ya like my stuff however, that's wonderful, and compliments are always accepted with gentlemanly grace.
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