“All evil do I accredit to you: therefore do I desire of you the good. I have often laughed at the weaklings, who think themselves good because they have crippled paws!” (Friedrich Nietzsche, [1960]. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Modern Library.)

When it comes to the topics of self-defense, defense of others, or just of answering the question, “When is it okay to exercise some idea of force or violence?,” those who believe themselves to be Christians typically take one of two complete opposite positions. Between their prooftexts, historical license, and logical blind spots however, both camps seem to be evenly assured of their position. The non-resistant pacifists on one side tend to argue that there is never an acceptable time to exercise self-defense or defense of others, citing the ideas that doing so is “vengeance” which “belongs to God only,” or that Jesus mentions that his followers should not “resist an evil person.” On the other side of the debate are the Constitutionalists declaring that violence and force are warranted, not only for self-defense and the defense of others, but especially for political revolution against tyranny after it becomes a normative experience at some point for these proponents to have begun to “cry out” in complaint against their realized civil bondage. On a purely philosophical level, the two ideas are polarized, but when it comes to working out these positions practically, they might as well be the same.

Where the pacifists may decry all forms of violence in a self-righteous pietism, the comfort which allows them such opinions is protected by socialist institutions who are funded by the threat of violence through the redistribution of public funds. They are not in a position to need to defend themselves or their neighbors (or be defended by them) because they are already being defended by socialist institutions, because they have been slothfully and covetously living at their neighbors’ expense. They may profess to “love their enemy” so much that they are unwilling to do no direct violence to a tortfeasor even though they are already doing violence-by-proxy to their neighbor. On the flip-side of the coin, the person itching for revolution against their government in some assumed position of rightful self-defense against the tyrants of their own making, is already guilty of outsourcing his responsibility to keep the weightier matters of God’s Law to the socialist institutions of administrations that necessarily engage in violence through taxation and corrupt power. Their demand for revolution is a tantrum against the consequences for their own actions. They created a golem to do their bidding against their neighbor, and are now endeavoring to defend themselves against it since their neighbor has turned that civil monster around against them.

Unfortunately, voicing simple logic and exposing already obvious hypocrisy are not enough to exhaust all the necessary points on this subject matter. If it were, maybe the topic could be concluded this early in the endeavor. To attempt cover all the bases however, this article will venture to also address many of the scriptural prooftexts used to dismiss the responsibility for freemen to act in self-defense and defense of others when warranted, and to lay the groundwork for why we should be discussing self-defense as a responsibility before discussing it as a right or, in the case for subject citizens of idolatrous nations, as a privilege.

Beat Swords into Plowshares

“And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots: Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not. (Isaiah 2:3-9)

Sometimes taken out of context as a soundbite to favor a blanket condemnation of armaments, this phrase from Isaiah’s prophecy does not refer to self-defense, or the defense of others at all, but rather to a future where a peculiar people who have learned to obey God’s Law, take His Kingdom-model in a Great Commission to all of the people-groups in the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all the things God has commanded them. In response, these people-groups, formerly in competition that was institutionalized into covetous bureaucracy and imperialist warfare, will repent and seek cooperation by providing for each other with the fruits of their self-sacrificial labor through a system of charity. Plowshares and pruninghooks are a symbol of a freeman’s first capital: his labor. The purpose of relating such symbols to the context of a kingdom of peace represents a freeman’s first responsibility: the Dominion Mandate. Men who abandon God’s Law and injunction to work the land and enjoy its rewards will invariably, through some combination of sloth and covetousness, find themselves in civic flesh pots of collectivist societies built on mutual surety and debt, eventually requiring them to go to war with other collectivist societies to take their resources in order to stave off their own impending bankruptcy into weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The verses following this prophecy describe such societies, highlighting the wayward nation of Jacob as a contemporaneous example: they have committed to the twisting of scripture and preached the efficacy of tax-funded human institutions to secure society, and have bonded themselves to foreign governments for socialist provision, either by subject citizenship or by treaty, and have received such benefits at the expense of that nation’s children as social security collateral. Part of the appeal of binding their society in contracts, entitlements, and taxation is that they accumulated much wealth to fund a cavalry by which to outsource their national defense. They also formed central banks with their wealth, which invariably leads to peripheral political institutions that they have compelled each other to serve. As such, the people outsourced their responsibilities to perform the weightier matters to their civil institutions thereby “making the word of God to none effect.” Through covenanting with false gods, they compelled each other to pay for the forceful policies of authoritarian benefactors.

“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12) The force mentioned by Christ here echoes the swords of pagan nations who, like the Pharisees, institutionalize the weightier matters into ineffective bureaucracies and, like the Zealots, seek to commit to insurgency against existing power centers in bloody revolt to attempt regime change. Ever since the people of backsliding free Israel asked for a king in 1 Samuel 8, the “kingdom” has only known violence in contradiction to God’s plan. Each king was more oppressive than the one before it, until half of Israel seceded from the other before suffering more violence by going under the authority of rulers of other nations. This self-defeating desire for institutional force and violence eventually lead to the Pharisees requesting Pompey to come to Israel to end its civil war and decide for it another king. Naturally, this military occupation lead to the Zealots retaliating with their own force in insurgency.

In fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus says to these groups, and groups like them: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” (Matthew 21:43) The nation of the early Christians, in receiving this kingdom, idiomatically beat these institutional swords of bureaucratic force into adhocratic plowshares of charitable provision to remodel society entirely, where every man was his brother’s keeper and, through individual responsibility, exercised the weightier matters of the Law through faith, hope, and charity, never needing to covet the power centers at all, but diligently worked both the land and the community to provide a kingdom built on free-will service and self-sacrifice. To get to the point, they chose to protect themselves and each other directly, out of this brotherly love, with literal swords if necessary, rather than look to human civil government to provide protection by forcing their neighbor to pay for its provision. If the people of free Israel were willing and diligent to maintain society out of direct action and adhocratic congregation, like protect their neighbors lives and property as though they were their very own, then they never would have found themselves on this long, wide path leading them under oppressive institutions that inspire weak men to rebel against them in bloodshed.

Sermon on the Mount

Christ’s sermon at Eremos, containing many pithy aphorisms and injunctions, includes some statements commonly misunderstood to support the idea that Jesus forbade self-defense and the defense of others. While we have addressed many of its saying elsewhere, perhaps here is a worthwhile place to address these:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:38-49)

It seems to be a common tactic among professing pacifists to conflate vengeance with self-defense and to project that intellectual dishonesty onto Christ’s words here. The idiom regarding “an eye for an eye” is therefore often taken to refer to literal violence and direct retaliation even though it is actually describing a popular institutional philosophy of executive justice, extending even to the concept of the death penalty. Talion, from the Roman lex talionis, did sometimes include the concept of “bodily injury for bodily injury” in more ancient cultures, but the phrase is a synecdoche for any court-ordered redress of grievances against a defendant brought to court, covering the destruction of property and monetary compensation or some other loss of value, accidental or otherwise. Christ’s proscription against retaliation in this context is not a condemnation of self-defense, but of the “tit-for-tat” mentality resident to authoritarian courts where defendants and plaintiffs sue and counter-sue each other in state-sponsored vengeance. The initiation of this kind of culture happens with the self-justification that allows one to imagine that they can receive government benefits at their neighbor’s expense just because their neighbor has received government benefits at their own expense. But Jesus says that if you will not forgive your debtors, God will not forgive you. This same explanation about self-defense also applies to the idea of “turning the other cheek.” A slap to the face (at least among less emasculated men) cannot be said to be violence, but rather humiliation. A backhanded slap is the only way to strike someone on the right cheek with your right hand. Such a blow connotes an insult requiring a retaliatory taunt, not a fistfight, and has always been a common way to express contempt, or even a reprimand over someone in a lower social caste.

This lesson is further expounded upon in the injunction to “resist not evil” in refraining from civil retaliation when subject citizens of pagan nations take free men in God’s Kingdom to their pagan courts for whatever reason. To make these sentiments about self-defense is to misunderstand that Christ is speaking on a specific method of “resistance” which is retaliatory, referring to the same force, warfare, and institutionalism that are themselves evil. Voting or electing magistrates “in self-defense” is evil because outsourcing the concept of “self-defense” to socialist institutions only legitimizes the original use of them against you in pragmatism. However, direct “violence” against unwarranted aggression towards an innocent person cannot be said to be “evil,” but rather a righteous display of the weightier matters. The context of the rest of Christ’s sayings do not indicate that he is referring to bad men in the heat of direct violence amongst a free society, but rather political enemies who use institutions for their own greed and insatiable appetite. It is to this topic of pagan bureaucracies that scripture always explicitly speaks against vengeance.

“For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.” (Deuteronomy 32:32-35)

Sodom and Gomorrah, like all socialist societies, redistributed “intoxicating” socialist benefits, often including even literal wine. For these benefits to be associated with “gall,” and “bitter” “poison,” and “venom,” is to reveal them to be harvested at the expense of their consumer who likes the promise of welfare until he realizes that it is just bait on the hook of subject citizenship, making his unpaid labor the bait for another consumer’s hook. Self-destructive communities that redistribute benefits through the force of taxation incur the vengeance of God therefore, and usually through the eventual ouroboros of fiscal and moral bankruptcy that leads to the weeping and gnashing of teeth of social collapse.

“Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:14-21)

The early Christians, under the jurisdiction of Heaven and free from the civil jurisdictions and socialist practices of the idolatrous Romans, still lived among them as free inhabitants and unfortunately received their jealous persecutions for the sake of the Gospel. As such, they were often encouraged to bear each other’s emotional burdens in addition to their financial ones. It is to these institutional persecutions that Paul speaks of overcoming evil with good, and not with mimicked evil. The purpose of living among them is echoed in the purpose of not retaliating against their knee-jerk convictions: to preach a consistent message of reconciliation with the double-edged sword of truth as an agitating weapon to separate civil slaves from their socialist and institutional addictions. To do good to these political enemies, like the Good Samaritan did, even in spite of their own tenacious rebellion against God and your agitating message, is to beckon them to be baptized into the Kingdom of God. “Blessed are the peacemakers” who reconcile greedy, corrupt institutionalists with the perfect Law of Liberty, understood as the weightier matters, in a free society. It is this call to repentance on which the message of reconciliation rests that expands the Kingdom of God. If you only love those who love you and seek fellowship with only likeminded people, then you are not in the business of saving souls, and you do not belong to the Kingdom of God. If you do not forgive your political enemies, then you are still a lost sheep yourself, congregating with other lost sheep out in the wilderness, waiting for a shepherd to come call you home to his Kingdom. By “blessing those who persecute you,” you inspire them either to love you as you have loved them, or to inspire others to take their behavior as a lesson in what not to do against peaceful do-gooders who preach personal responsibility. Considering that self-defense is the right only of free men in free societies, and the early Christians in the context of these passages were still working towards that end, it is a subterfuge to read them as though they are condemning self-defense.

You Die by the Sword by Which You Live

“Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.” (Matthew 26:52)

“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.” (Romans 13:4-6)

In both of these contexts, the term used for “sword” is the same word. This alone indicates the grammatical function of freely interchanging literal meanings of Greek (and Hebrew) words with their figurative meanings. It is not as though rulers over human civil government bear a literal sword by which to personally “execute wrath” onto those who “doeth evil,” rather the usage of the term sword (Strong’s 3162. machaira) frequently indicates an executive judgment by bureaucratic institutions. This is revealed by its primary definition, and many of its contexts:

The context of the Gethsemanean encounter is not relevant to the prohibition of self-defense or the defense of others. The purpose of Christ’s ministry, as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Heaven, was to establish that literal kingdom by commanding mankind to repent of the slothful and covetous works of darkness that had brought them into bondage to the kingdoms of the world, and to perform the works that would seek and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. This included congregating together in adhocratic and gregarious communities to perform the weightier matters of God’s Law, in a renewed civil citizenship as free souls under God. This kingdom had its own exclusive laws, customs, government, system of welfare and historical continuity. Unlike Rome during the Hasmonean Civil War, it did not invade worldly nations through imperialist wars:

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is [among] you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

And unlike the Zealots at Masada or the frequent assassinations of the Sicarii, the citizens of God’s Kingdom did not commit to insurgency to slough off unwanted political occupation:

“Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” (John 18:36)

Rather, because Christ’s kingdom was not of the “apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, or and government” of Rome and kingdoms like Rome, it did not require institutionalized bloodshed or violent revolution to maintain its efficacy. It was not a top-down political society with militaries and authoritarian courts desiring the use of society’s power centers. It was a bottom-up legacy of freemen, all equally responsible for the weightier matters and national defense. It did not have to invade nations from without because it relied on moral suasion occurring from within other nations to increase its citizenry. Its members did not consider themselves victims of military occupation, rather they recognized political oppression as a judgment on those who do not want to be ruled by God, and therefore sought the repentance that would grant them salvation from such consequential realities. This secured them from any notion of violent retaliation against kingdoms who may oppress them due to the consequences for their sins. This interpretation is recognized by Tertullian:

“But now inquiry is made about this point, whether a believer may turn himself unto military service, and whether the military may be admitted unto the faith, even the rank and file, or each inferior grade, to whom there is no necessity for taking part in sacrifices or capital punishments. There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be due to two masters—God and Caesar. And yet Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a buckle, and John (Baptist) is girt with leather and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the People warred: if it pleases you to sport with the subject. But how will a Christian man war, nay, how will he serve even in peace, without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? For albeit soldiers had come unto John, and had received the formula of their rule; albeit, likewise, a centurion had believed; still the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier. No dress is lawful among us, if assigned to any unlawful action.” (Tertullian. “On Idolatry”, Chapter XIX)

This is the context for which Peter’s impetuous actions in Gethsemane were proscribed. Even though it was necessary, according to prophecy, for Christ and company to be wrongly “reckoned among the transgressing” Zealots for simply exercising their right to bear arms, it was just as necessary for he and his followers to not actually be like the Zealots and insurgents retaliating against Roman occupation with their own military might and political ambitions. As mentioned for another prooftext above, it is only the violent who attempt to take the Kingdom by force, but Christ came to show another way. As Peter was a member of God’s servant government, this injunction to sheathe the sword for political pursuit (but not get rid of it entirely for all occasions) is especially important considering that Heaven’s ministers received the brunt of the persecutions against the Christians in order to intimidate the people into going back under the subject citizenship of Rome to be surety and merchandise for its failing, socialist coffers.

To make Christ’s rebuke against Peter a general rebuke against self-defense and the defense of others in a free society is to undermine the actual context of Christ’s sacrifice and the persecution of his body politic which secured the right to have a free society in the first place. It is to make a mockery of Christ’s gambit to restore the imago Dei to mankind because it removes the conditions that make the image of God worthwhile: the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of property, and the personal responsibility of brotherly love that all make the Kingdom of Heaven a eutopia of prosperity. “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.” (Leviticus 25:10) The culmination of Christ’s ministry lead him to “the cup” which His Father had given him, referring to the capital punishment of worldly kingdoms against an innocent king in regicide so that his guilty followers would no longer be subject to their bondage, thereby removing the legitimacy of their institutional power. Peter’s actions to defend his King would not only undermine his sacrifice for his people, but would also represent a militaristic course of action in a politically-charged situation. This is what separates circumstances surrounding malfeasors met with self-defense and circumstances surrounding persecution met with martyrdom. Swords of authoritarian governments against their citizens are inevitably punishments for raising up authoritarian governments. Those who live by their institutions will find themselves caught in the ouroboros of their destructive natures. In this context, Peter was acting like the authoritarian governments of the world, bringing, not only reproach onto Christ’s Kingdom, but also potentially justified militaristic recompense against the entire troop as if they were Zealots.

For the Weapons of our Warfare Are Not Carnal

“But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” (2 Corinthians 10:2-6)

The conclusion that a carnal weapon is necessarily a physical one tends to stem from the faulty premise that the opposite of “walking in the flesh” is “walking in some ill-defined, hyper-spiritual sense of cherubic perfection where one’s weapons are the thinking of happy and ascetic thoughts all the time like some Buddhist monk.” To properly define the subject, a “fleshy” or “carnally minded” person is one who is motivated by creature comforts that lead him into the baited snares and traps of human civil government because they have been given over to a reprobate mind to become bestial servants of human institutions. Because they “live by bread alone,” and not by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” they will readily be led by their bellies to consume the free bread of socialist provision because they lack the self-control to wait on God’s Providence as prescribed by God’s wisdom.

The “strongholds” mentioned in 2 Corinthians 10 do refer to the human institutions with which the early Christians were notoriously in conflict, but that conflict was vindicated by the Providence of God which allowed them to completely abdicate from using their existing power centers or seeking to replace them with their own administrations. It is not as though a literal sword or weapon for self-defense debases its user to be carnally minded any more than a spoon does for eating or a car does for traveling. However, regime-change through both democracy and revolution do make men feral beasts kicking against the goads of their civil masters. The weapons of the early Christians with which they bested the New World Order of Rome consisted of the maintaining of their embryonic “republic in the heart of the Roman Empire” through keeping the weightier matters, and by the moral suasion with which they preached to the subject citizens of Rome to baptize them into the civil citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven instead. It did not consist of the carnal weapons of government institution through an attempt of minarchism, Dominionism, or electing lesser magistrates to protect them and provide for them.

We Wrestle Not Against Flesh and Blood

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints…” (Ephesians 6:10-18)

Identical to the images in 2 Corinthians 10, the principalities, powers, rulers of darkness in that age, and spiritual wickedness in high places refer to magistrates, jurisdictions, satanic arbiters of reprobate idolatry, and the worship of human institutions. Likewise, because Christians do not war against people themselves to advance God’s literal kingdom, but rather war against concepts of sin and wayward submission to human rulers in political infidelity, the method of their war-waging does not have to include a militaristic or bureaucratic arsenal of literal retaliation. Paul’s following description of the armor of God is not meant to be some sort of rigid check-list taken out of Kingdom-context to be hyper-spiritualized and removed from practical meaning. Rather, they are a simple, cohesive reminder to be “doers of the word of God,” but in a deliberately ironic image related to warfare. This passage of course is not an injunction against protecting your neighbor’s life against someone who wishes to literally shed his blood, because the “wrestling” of the early Christians is not descriptive of their day to day duties to love their neighbors and protect his life as though it were their own, but refers to their mission as Christian aliens unto a foreign kingdom as ambassadors.

Prima Facie

Without these prooftexts to justify their position, it should be self-evident that pacifists must only appeal to an argument from silence. Nowhere in Scripture do you see the prohibition of armaments, or the use of them in personal or mutual defense. God never tells His people to rid themselves of defensive tools, nor prohibits their use. To sheathe a sword for a time, as in the case of Peter in Gethsemane is not to condemn the sword altogether or to prevent its use universally. Men of first century Rome, Greece, and Judea readily carried swords for self-defense just like they do all throughout history.

“We grant to all persons the unrestricted power to defend themselves, so that it is proper to subject anyone, whether a private person or a soldier, who trespasses upon fields at night in search of plunder, or lays by busy roads plotting to assault passers-by, to immediate punishment in accordance with the authority granted to all. Let him suffer the death which he threatened and incur that which he intended… For it is better to meet the danger at the time, than to obtain legal redress (vindicare) after one’s death.” (Codex Justinianeus 3.27.1, 529 A.D.)

Despite being written in the sixth century AD and authorized by an Eastern Roman Emperor as a privilege for his subject citizens (instead of a right), the principles expressed in the above quote are universal to define self-defense and preservation of property in a way that has been taken for granted by free men of all eras. Bearing arms for this purpose is the assumed Natural Law responsibility of all men uncovered by human authority who obey the Dominion Mandate, providing for future generations through hard work, and the preservation of the fruits of their labor by defending their property from violent, greedy, and covetous men. There is just no reason to imagine that men in first century Judea like Jesus’ apostles did not carry swords or other weapons of self-defense.

“And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.” (Luke 22:35-38)

“Therefore will I divide him [a portion] with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:12)

When Jesus originally established his own Sanhedrin, he sent them out in pairs to preach the Gospel without any personal protection or provision, to “heal the sick and tread on serpents and scorpions,” by the exclusive power and authority of the Holy Spirit, to test their resolve and to magnify the efficacy of God’s Providence over unprotected extremists as a witnessing tool for lookers-on. Once that test was completed however, Jesus informs the Seventy that they should take with them their money, bread pouch, and tools of self-defense, and if they do not have such tools, to explicitly go out and arm themselves. While part of this reasoning does include the prophecy of Jesus seeming to be armed to be falsely counted among the violent Zealots or Sicarii, that prophecy would have to be fulfilled within only a few hours of this exchange, at Gethsemane. There was no need for them to suddenly take up their coin purse and provision satchel for Christ to be wrongly rumored of being a violent revolutionary, and so it is safe to assume that his instructions were not meant exclusively for the theater at his arrest, but a rescinding of their former gambit and a return to the carrying of their everyday items. Two swords may have been enough to fulfill prophecy, though this is unlikely considering the notorious “Sicarii” (literally meaning “dagger men,”) were an entire splinter group of Zealots that were, not only all armed, but violent assassins, committed to eliminating Roman occupiers and their sympathizers. Similarly, the Zealots all carried arms to wage open warfare against the Roman Empire to drive them from the Holy Land. Regardless, to be counted among these transgressors, two swords are not enough to arm all seventy men to whom Christ gives the instructions, implying either the presence of more swords in the troop, or that Jesus’ reply of “It is enough” was not specifically about the swords at all, but rather a conclusion to his long list of instructions to the seventy bulleted in the rest of the chapter.

If there is any doubt that the prophecy from Isaiah should refer to revolutionaries, and not merely to petty criminals and lawbreakers who “healed on the Sabbath” or did not “wash their hands before eating,” then it should be noted that the primary definition for the Hebrew word for “transgressors” means “rebel, revolt, of nations; to break away (from just authority), i.e. Trespass, apostatize, quarrel—offend, rebel, revolt, transgress…” To add to this notion, as we have expressed elsewhere, Barabbas was not a petty thief, but a violent revolutionary who marauded rural villages in order to fund guerilla operations. This same description is given to the two men crucified on either side of Christ, reserving the capital punishment for those involved in stirring up the people against the occupying world of Rome and its political sympathizers.

“It is possible that Barabbas was merely a robber or highwayman, but more likely, given the use of the term ληστής (lhsth”) in Josephus and other early sources, that he was a guerrilla warrior or revolutionary leader. See both R. E. Brown (John [AB], 2:857) and K. H. Rengstorf (TDNT 4:258) for more information. The word λῃστής was used a number of times by Josephus (J. W. 2.13.2-3 [2.253-254]) to describe the revolutionaries or guerrilla fighters who, from mixed motives of nationalism and greed, kept the rural districts of Judea in constant turmoil.” (Footnote to John 18. From NET Bible)

To reiterate, the existence of weapons and their amount amongst his troop were enough for his detractors to make a case to Roman authorities that Christ was a violent revolutionary, even if the swords would only ever be used in a righteous manner, like in self-defense, or the protection of the weak. Christ’s revolution was a nonviolent one (and the only one that succeeded), but self-defense cannot actually be said to be offensive violence in any case. The concept of “warrior-monks” is not at all uncommon throughout history referring to various groups of men who are peaceful, generous, and self-sacrificial, but are adept at protecting those within their care and willing to draw blood for them in relative circumstances. This notion was even prevalent at the time among an almost identical group to the early Christians, the Essenes.

Fifty-four years before this exchange, in 20 BC, a former member of the existing Judean Sanhedrin as its last second-highest-ranking member, Menahem the Essene, abandoned his role in the Tannaim and, along with eighty pairs of disciples, abdicated the ever-worsening Judean government to “serve the King” prophesied to come liberate its people. Practically unknown to most professing Christians until recently, the Essenes, or in Aramaic,“assaya, which means doctor or healer… are not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament, although their numbers were at least as great as the Sadducees and Pharisees.” (Kersten, Holger. Jesus Conspiracy. Element, 1995.) Though they may not have called themselves “Essenes,” they were the more prominent of the Jewish sects, even more popular at the time than the Pharisees and Sadducees. They read the same scriptures as these other two groups, but came to highly different interpretive conclusions that often coincided with Christ’s own teachings and life, like the absurdity of animal sacrifices, the importance of seclusion for preparing for ministry, or the habit of congregating together within the borders of existing municipalities of foreigners. In fact, Christ’s servant-model for government was already being practiced by many of the Essenes to serve the same people that the other two political parties endeavored to rule.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls community, who are probably Essenes, were led by a high priestly leadership, who are thought to be the descendants of the “legitimate” high priestly lineage, which the Hasmoneans ousted. The Dead Sea Scrolls bitterly opposed the current high priests of the Temple. Since Hasmoneans constituted a different priestly line, it was in their political interest to emphasize their family’s priestly pedigree that descended from their ancestor, the high priest Zadok, who had the authority to anoint the kingship of Solomon, son of David.” (“Sadducees – New World Encyclopedia”. 2022.)

“According to Josephus, the Essenes practiced collective ownership (War 2.122; Ant. 18.20), elected a leader whose orders they obeyed (War 2.123, 134), were forbidden from swearing oaths (War 2.135) and sacrificing animals (Philo, §75), controlled their temper, served as channels of peace (War 2.135), carried weapons only as protection against robbers (War 2.125), had no slaves but served each other (Ant. 18.21) and did not engage in trading (War 2.127). Both Josephus and Philo have lengthy accounts of their communal meetings, meals, and religious celebrations.” (“Essenes – New World Encyclopedia”. 2022.)

There is a lot of information to give on the Essenes, like how John the Baptist was very likely raised in an Essene community before taking up the mantel of prophet for the awaited Messiah, or the idea that he and Jesus both had taken the Nazirite vow (intimating the source of “Nazareth“), or that James was the leader of an Essene sect of Christians in Jerusalem, but the focus on them for the intent of this article is to describe the Essenes as pacifists, but pacifists with swords who recognized the difference between war and self-defense. Vestigial records of their way of life are still discernable in this context from history. The Sicarii, known for plundering villages, once attacked the Essene community at Ein Gedi (sometimes spelled “Jedi”) and drove out its defenders, necessitating the idea of an armed people willing to protect each other from outside aggressors. As already mentioned, the Christian Kingdom and Essene communities resembled each other because they were both modeled on the primordial concept of a free society as practiced by ancient Israel, but also echoed in the concept of the Greek polis:

“Though the notion of the free, or self-governed community, originated in ancient Greece, the Greek polis seems to pose a problem for the modern post-Hobbesian concept of sovereignty. For the latter presupposes that of the State, that is an agency which monopolizes the use of violence, as an instrument by which sovereignty is constituted. Yet, the polis was not a State but rather what the anthropologists call a stateless community. The latter is characterized by the absence of ‘government’, that is of an agency which has separated itself from the rest of social life and which monopolizes the use of violence. In stateless societies the ability to use force is more or less evenly distributed among armed or potentially armed members of the community. Being stateless, then, in what sense can we say that the polis was sovereign? On the practical level the Greek polis had a very limited ability to control and direct legislation. The decentralised nature of Greek society and the absence of coercive apparatuses meant that the laws had to be identical with the customs of the community or else that decisions had to be shared by a wide consensus, which imposed a severe limitation on the ability of the poleis to change their laws or initiate changes in the community.” (Polis: The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought, Volume 17, Numbers 1-2, 2000, pp. 2-34 (33) Berent M. Sovereignty: ancient and modern.)

The Defense of Others as a Weightier Matter

When free people are no longer in anticipation of the collapse of the pagan societies which surround them, are able to live without fear of molestation from their imperialist administrations, and are restored to the Eden growing from the rubble of fallen empires, they get to experience all the rights of primordial Man before he sold his birthright of liberty into the coffers of human civil government. While seeking liberty on the narrow path, he may have already been picking up many of his responsibilities that he had discarded on the broad path to bondage, and towards the end of his journey to the Kingdom of God, he may find the right to self-defense and defense of others restored to him. “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” (Matthew 25:21)

In ancient Israel, it was expected for every man to practice justice, removing the need for police forces and militaries in their communities, thereby preventing institutional corruption, bloodlust, and concentration of power by preventing the existence of institutions themselves through adhocratic self-reliance emanating in community ethics. To preserve their liberty, even after they began giving it up by the request for autocratic rulers, God still expected the people to preserve their responsibility to perform justice, citing political, social, and economic ruination if they failed.

“Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.” (Jeremiah 22:3-5)

As discussed elsewhere, the Weightier Matters necessitate direct, individual attention to your neighbor’s health, welfare, prosperity, and safety, and the integrity of his property. Free people are a peaceful people, but true peace necessarily includes the willingness to use force and defensive violence to safeguard your neighbor if necessary, because it is unequivocal violence to side with the violent in your cowardice by refusing to met out proportionate force against the violent. The command to do no violence to the stranger is the common sense command to prevent violence against him. The command to not shed innocent blood is also the common sense command to prevent innocent blood from being shed. The more you outsource to power-hungry institutions your injunction to safeguard against evil, violent, and rapacious men, the more those institutions begin to be filled with evil, violent, and rapacious men seeking power, and the more your society accelerates towards desolation. “Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection.” (Coke, Littl. 65)

All societies perform the weightier matters in principle, only most make the word of God to none effect in their attempt, as trees that bear no fruit, owed to the fact that the self-refuting means by which those weightier matters are attempted are socialized, compartmentalized, and therefore neutralized. The average wait time for law enforcement in the United States, for instance, is eleven minutes. The response time for fire departments is a little better, at just over five minutes. When your neighbors are next door, but your help is much further away, why have neighbors at all? No doubt pacifists would prescribe that neighbors who love each other in a free society should put out each others fires, recognizing the need for all men to practice the weightier matters, but they fail to admit that all men should be intentionally prepared to execute justice and defense as a necessary ingredient to preserve the liberty of an entire society and not make the word of God to none effect. Free people naturally scoff at this hypocrisy, knowing that failure to do defensive violence in the face of offensive violence is itself offensive violence. They know that a man who does not acquire the means to protect his neighbor against violence with violence is also guilty of that violence and is not a good man, for the same reason why the slothful, neglectful, and cowardly cannot said to be good because it is fundamental to do what you can to protect the innocent from unwarranted molestation. A man who is unwilling to aid his neighbor against violent attackers is a man undeserving of freedom and safety.

“Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.” (Ezekiel 33:3-7)

This passage speaks about a community of people who may be set upon by aggressors meant to pillage and slaughter them, and a system of warnings that free societies may have to alert the people of their presence. As will be discussed, the shofar for free Israel was an instrument to conduct the “hue and cry” principle intrinsic to common law. When a warning is given to the community and one of its members does not answer the call to arms, then that man is guilty of his own murder and the murder of those around him. When no warning is given to the community, the watchmen is guilty of the destruction of the whole community as if he took an active part in mass murder. As such, there is an intrinsic link between a danger made known and a danger proportionately redressed.

“Blowing the shofar was a well-known multi-purpose call in biblical times; the scholar Saadya Ga’on identified ten ancient occasions when the shofar was used. It announced the Creation, the Revelation at Mount Sinai, the exhortations of the prophets. It proclaimed a military advance; it called for a military retreat. It marked calendrical occasions such as the commencement of a new month. It announced the Word of God. One day it will proclaim the messianic redemption.

The shofar is commanded in the Torah (Numbers 29:1). It has two principal, seemingly contradictory, purposes — as a call to war (Numbers 10:1-10) and as a proclamation of freedom (Leviticus 25:9). Turned into personal spiritual terms: the first purpose sees the individual struggling with themselves, battling an inner enemy, feeling guilt for the year’s wrongdoing; the second purpose sees the human soul, cleansed of its transgressions, committing to a new regimen that is full of positive possibilities.

The medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides says:

‘Although the blowing of the shofar is a command of the Torah, it has this further meaning: “Awake, you slumberers, from your sleep, and rouse yourselves from your lethargy. Search your deeds, return in repentance. Remember your Creator, you who forget truth in the vanities of the moment, who go astray all your years after vain illusions which neither profit nor save. Look to your souls, mend your ways and actions, leave your evil path and unworthy purpose, seek the way of the Lord.”‘” (Rabbi Apple, R., 2021. The Two Meanings of the Blast of the Shofar. ABC Religion & Ethics.)

Though many of these descriptions have been hyper-spiritualized by a culture that has moved away from its more practical use, the original purpose of the shofar can be gleaned from their symbolism. As a call to arms by the Levitical minister of every congregation, or even by their Elders, the shofar rallied every able-bodied man and woman within ear-shot, repeated by every other possessor of a shofar across the countryside, and roused the people from sleep and invoked them to action, grabbing anything to serve as a weapon as they ran out of the safety of their homes and to the source of the sound so that they can quickly organize themselves for whatever task was needed of them, whether it was the apprehension of a criminal, the protection against bandits, or the confrontation of an invading army.

“By the Statute of Winchester of 1285, 13 Edw. I statute 2. capitulum 4, it was provided that anyone, either a constable or a private citizen, who witnessed a crime shall make hue and cry, and that the hue and cry must be kept up against the fleeing criminal from town to town and from county to county, until the felon is apprehended and delivered to the sheriff. All able-bodied men, upon hearing the shouts, were obliged to assist in the pursuit of the criminal, which makes it comparable to the posse comitatus. It was moreover provided that “the whole hundred … shall be answerable” for the theft or robbery committed, in effect a form of collective punishment. Those who raised a hue and cry falsely were themselves guilty of a crime.” (Adams, George Burton & Henry Morse Stephens, eds. [1901]. Statute of Winchester.)

In speaking of the “whole hundred,” free societies are organized into adhocratic congregations of ten families, each represented by an Elder, and each congregation served by one minister. This pattern for society is a historical norm, practiced by Israelites, the Essenes, the early Christians, and many other anarchist societies throughout posterity. It is from this principle that “tithe” and “tithingman” are derived. Even most pagan governments must recognize this universal principle of the hue and cry and enact Good Samaritan Laws for when their subjects have themselves forgotten the principle. Posse comitatus, Latin for “force of the country” is a formal, useful tool for institutions to justify the use of the “hue and cry” when their administrations are overwhelmed by malfeasors and highwaymen. It necessitates that a sheriff or some other institutionalist with a badge must call all able-bodied subject citizens to arms on his behalf. Its purpose is to give an air of civil legitimacy to the natural need for all men to be responsible for justice and protection, by deputizing the members of a posse under some arbitrary civil allowance for a time to engage in a “citizen’s arrest.” When this natural responsibility is exercised in spite of the institutional failure to request it, it is given euphemistic terms of disapproval, like “frontier justice,” “jungle law,” “mob rule,” “rough music,” “vigilantism,” or even a “witch-hunt.” All of these are popularly misrepresented in such a way to vilify the necessities of liberty to make it seem barbaric and grotesque, and to remedy them with the safety and comforts of institutionalism manned by corrupt authoritarians. However, free people are not actually prone to unnecessarily tar and feather bad guys based on rumor, mass-hysteria, and groupthink. They actually have a system of courts and juries made up of actual peers and family members, intent on doing justice but also showing mercy, and other facets of loving their neighbor as themselves.

“The roots of local responsibility for crime prevention seem to lie in Anglo-Saxon customs that placed prevention squarely on the local community through the tithing and the ‘Hue and Cry‘. Every male over the age of 12 had to belong to a group of nine others, called a tithing. These ten men were responsible for the behaviour of each other. If one of them broke the law, the others had to bring that person before the court. The sanction, to make the system work, was that if they did not, they would all be held responsible for the crime. This usually meant paying the victim of a crime for their loss. The community was also responsible for doing their best to chase after a criminal. Anyone wronged could call upon everyone else in a community to chase a criminal simply by calling on them to do so by “raising the hue and cry”—calling out for help. Everyone nearby was then supposed to join in the chase. If they did not make an effort then the whole community was held responsible for the crime and would face punishment themselves.” (Potts, Andy. “Enforcement Of Law“. Binghamheritage.Org.Uk.)

Even in ancient Israel, freemen established a system of appeals courts for those who professed to be wrongly accused, tried, and found guilty of wrongdoing and who claim to not have received a fair trial. These examples are meant to serve to rightly divide the need for justice in the immediate and direct execution of defensive violence between a tortfeasor and his prey, and the barbaric practice of vengeance through capital punishment which usurps God’s sole right to punish an evildoer after he is no longer a threat to his potential victim like he was “in the heat of the moment.” Self-defense and defense of others therefore cannot be equivocated with capital punishment or vengeance. It is not punishment at all, but a natural consequence for an unnatural affront to natural law, a reactive danger for those with dangerous intent, and an incentive for bad men to act good around good men. To intend to maliciously and willfully harm another and their property is to confess that you have already abdicated the imago Dei and the Dominion Mandate by seeking to exercise dominion over someone who does bear God’s image. It says that you have already spurned being “made upright” and have intimated the behavior of a feral beast, begging for recompense for your ferocity. Repentance may be opened to you, but any expectation of being forcefully stopped in the middle of your heinous act, even unto your own violent death, is a form of Divine justice that may very likely and judiciously come between you and that repentance. To set in course a series of violent events is to forfeit any right to complain when the domino falls on your head.

Forming a Militia as a Weightier Matter

Having discussed the shofar as a regular instrument in free Israel for rallying the people for the Hue and Cry, it is also noteworthy to express its extended use for mobilizing the people, not just for acts of individual justice, but as expressed above in Ezekiel 33, but also as an able-bodied militia against entire armies of invading aggressors.

“Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.” (Joshua 6:4)

“And it came to pass, when he was come, that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount, and he before them. And he said unto them, Follow after me: for the Lord hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand. And they went down after him, and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab, and suffered not a man to pass over. And they slew of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man.” (Judges 3:27-29)

“And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers. And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye do. When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place round about the camp; and all the host ran, and cried, and fled.” (Judges 7:16-21)

“Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?… (Amos 3:6)

Whether these accounts represent national defense, or acts of imperialism leading to results of either prescribed spiritual death or a pericope thereof in described physical death initiated by the dead party’s sin, one thing is clear: a free and righteous people engage the preservation and prosperity of their free society by forming a system of national corps.

“MILI’TIA, noun [Latin from miles, a soldier; Gr. war, to fight, combat, contention. The primary sense of fighting is to strive, struggle, drive, or to strike, to beat, Eng. moil, Latin molior; Heb. to labor or toil.] The body of soldiers in a state enrolled for discipline, but not engaged in actual service except in emergencies; as distinguished from regular troops, whose sole occupation is war or military service. The militia of a country are the able bodied men organized into companies, regiments and brigades, with officers of all grades, and required by law to attend military exercises on certain days only, but at other times left to pursue their usual occupations.” (“Webster’s Dictionary 1828 – Militia.” Websters Dictionary 1828.)

A “well-regulated militia” is one that is marked by system, regularity, or discipline, and controlled by a principle of law. In this case, that law is natural law that requires men to gregariously and adhocratically come together to practice community-wide and national defense. Along this vein, it should be expressed that there are two different kinds of militias, and that only one is prescribed for God’s people. To use the United States as an example:

To label a free man’s militia as “unorganized” is not to imply that it is disorganized, like a group of buddies who get together at the firing range over a case of beer twice a year and talk about deer season and the Superbowl. It simply means that it is a self-organized militia not subject to bureaucratic oversight through maritime law or other military laws, and is ineligible to partake in martial law. Simply put, “unorganized militias” are the prima facie “military force” of free societies who have not outsourced national defense to socialist institutions. Abraham and early Israel had unorganized militias, as did free Americans, the Teutons, and early Rome.

Just like there are adhocratic primacies usurped by bureaucratic perversions in all pagan nations regarding the weightier matters like justice, welfare, education, and so forth, the freeman’s injunction to form a militia is perverted into a subject slave’s compulsion to be drafted into a military. Simply put, if men will not love their neighbor enough to voluntarily seek to be a part of a well-regulated militia they will, in a natural consequence, find themselves subject to forced militaristic inclusion on the whims of autocrats. For the Israelites backsliding away from liberty, this punishment is described as “[Your ruler] will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.” (1 Samuel 8:11-12)

Even under the “best” rulers who were once considered men “after God’s own heart,” this power-hungry temptation to pressgang subject citizens into a standing military was too palpable to ignore. “And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people, that I may know the number of the people… And David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now, I beseech thee, O LORD, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.” (2 Samuel 24:1-10) The purpose of this census was for David to prepare a military draft, to have a sense of security in his imperialist conquests against Israel’s enemies. Rather than rely on the good faith associations of freemen in their voluntary militias, already ready to organize at a moment’s notice, David wanted to compartmentalize that responsibility into a centralized institution over the people. That is, until he repented and considered his pragmatism foolish. If it is foolish for David to have a standing army, then it is foolish for anyone to have a standing army.

Even as early as the formation of the Constitution of the United States, the rights of the American people were subject to the dangers complained about in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, it should be expressed that the average man was more free before the Declaration than they were after the ratification of the Constitution. True liberty did not come from a seven-year war over broken covenants that members of state governments had made with the administrations of the kings of England. The individual freeman was not a part of those covenants to begin with. True liberty came from decades and centuries of struggle to “dress and keep the earth” through fee-simple allodium, from forming strong bonds of love in freewill communities in welfare, protection, and justice, and by rejecting attempts of central authority to relieve them of such responsibilities and rights. This is why free Americans rejected the Constitution as a threat to the true liberty they had been enjoying and preserving for generations. Even incrementalists like the Anti-Federalists expressed the tyranny of Constitutionalism as a rejection of liberty, especially in regards to its proposed replacement of the minute-men in every community.

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. I am answered by gentlemen, that, though I might speak of terrors, yet the fact was, that we were surrounded by none of the dangers I apprehended. I conceive this new government to be one of those dangers: it has produced those horrors which distress many of our best citizens…

There are sufficient guards placed against sedition and licentiousness; for, when power is given to this government to suppress these, or for any other purpose, the language it assumes is clear, express, and unequivocal; but when this Constitution speaks of privileges, there is an ambiguity, sir, a fatal ambiguity — an ambiguity which is very astonishing…

My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by some gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength—an army, and the militia of the states. This is an idea extremely ridiculous: gentlemen cannot be earnest. This acquisition will trample on our fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe. Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?…

A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them?… You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies; their garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to Congress, also, in another part of this plan: they will therefore act as they think proper: all power will be in their own possession. You cannot force them to receive their punishment: of what service would militia be to you when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? for, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not furnish them….

This Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting; it squints towards monarchy; and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American?” (Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778)

While these lengthy warnings were important at the time, and proximately universal for education, they are now inapplicable for men in civil bondage to acknowledge as efficacious. This is because it is too late. The American people are no longer freemen because the Constitution has since applied to them, and no longer just to the people who signed it, through the application of benefits and slothfully going under its jurisdiction in subject citizenship. Covenants with false gods always make men civil slaves, and civil slaves do not have the right to bear arms because they prefer the comforts of a cage over the responsibilities of liberty. They make men tyrants over themselves by endeavoring to be tyrants themselves over their own neighbors, vicariously through the cannibalistic “one purse” of the administrations of the tyrants that they place into power. An implication of this arrangement is that the right to revolution is also removed because a tyrant cannot revolt against himself, he can only kick against the goads of his own tyranny. He may attempt to shift the blame of his tyranny onto his own institutions to no real avail, but the only solution capable of redeeming him from the self-destructive effects of his own tyranny begins by repenting of the actions that make him a tyrant. That is the only first step towards liberty that God acknowledges and promises to bless.

“But when a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence; and it is chiefly those of ample fortune who fall into this error. So when they begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence. For the people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his penury, institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch.” (Polybius: The Histories Fragments of Book VI, p289 See also Loeb Classical Library edition, 1922 thru 1927)

The people of the world groan under oppressive, legalistic bondage owed to their initial consent to its manmade administrations for their empty promises. Those promises led them to hate themselves as they hate their neighbor, to live at the expense of his forced sacrifices, and to outsource his education, protection, and care to authoritative “benefactors.” But the long, winding, and narrow road to liberty necessarily means turning around on each of these behaviors, to love your neighbor as yourself, to voluntarily commit to self-sacrifice in order to sustain your neighbor in the hopes that he will do the same for you, and to directly account for his education, protection, and care in order to bear his burdens and keep him free from depending on the socialist institutions that have hitherto enticed you both to sin and die in mutual self-destruction.

This solution can only be effectively performed in the context of Abolitionist Societies, as adhocratic congregations coming together for the redistribution of healthcare and welfare in a daily ministration, as juridical courts and juries to keep each other accountable to the Perfect Law of Liberty, and as militias engaged in interpersonal protection and sources of self-defense against malfeasors and threats against your (eventually) hard-earned lives, liberty, and pursuits of property.

Hormonal birth control is responsible for the murder of preborn children.

A single sperm and a single egg meet in the Fallopian tube. Conception occurs when the sperm enters the egg, the combination forming a single-celled human being called a zygote. The zygote immediately begins to divide and form a ball of cells called a blastocyst. This blastocyst is made up of an inner group of cells that will develop into the vital organs of a growing human being, and an outer group of cells that will become membranes which will nourish and protect this human. Once this young human reaches the uterus, it travels towards the endometrium on the uterine wall, but instead of implanting there and receiving nourishment from his mother’s blood, the endometrium gives way, flushed out, expelling the child and killing him in the process.

It does not help that culture wants to deceitfully muddy the definition of pregnancy. According to “leading medical authorities”— such as the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg (independent and unique offspring) implants in the lining of a woman’s uterus. Implantation begins five to seven days after sperm fertilizes the egg (when a human being is created), and the process is completed several days later. When the product inserts for hormonal birth control say that their substances, devices, and mechanisms prevent pregnancy, they are including the fact that they prevent human beings from ever implanting in the one place a young child at that stage of development goes to for survival- the uterine wall. Therefore, birth control kills children made in God’s image, of the flesh and blood of the mother who is administering birth control and of the father who fails to disallow its use. “Preventing pregnancy” in this case means abandoning the child downstream on a river of blood, starving him to death by preventing him from ever making the initial attachment to his mother’s womb. This reality applies to every form of hormonal birth control and chemical contraception.

The Pill

Depo Provera

“…inhibits the secretion of gonadotropins which, in turn, prevents follicular maturation and ovulation and results in endometrial thinning.” When the endometrium, the lining of the uterus, is thinned, it is rendered hostile to implantation. This means that Depo-Provera sometimes acts as an abortifacient, since it ends the life of a new human being after conception.

(Pfizer, “Highlights of Prescribing Information” and “Clinical Pharmacology: Mechanism of Action,” Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection (Depo-Provera CI) Full Prescribing Information, October 2010.)

Intrauterine Devices (IUDs)

“This IUD prevents fertilization by damaging or killing sperm and making the mucus in the cervix thick and sticky, so sperm can’t get through to the uterus. It also keeps the lining of the uterus (endometrium) from growing very thick.” This makes the lining a poor place for a fertilized egg to implant and grow.

(Grimes DA. 2007. Intrauterine devices. In RA Hatcher et al., eds., Contraceptive Technology, 19th ed., pp. 117-143. New York: Ardent Media.)

“Copper or progesterone-releasing IUDs may attenuate or accentuate the inflammatory response, disturb the physiology of the gametes in the female genital tract, or destroy the viability of the embryos or endometrial receptivity to implantation.“

(Ortiz ME, et al. “Mechanisms Of Action Of Intrauterine Devices. – Pubmed  -NCBI”. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. N.p., 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.)

NuvaRing

“Obtained by prescription only, the ring slowly releases synthetic estrogen and progestin hormones into the body. The walls of the vagina absorb the hormones and distribute them into the bloodstream. These hormones work by stopping ovulation, thickening cervical mucus as a barrier to sperm, and preventing implantation of the embryo if fertilization occurs.“

(“Vaginal Contraceptive Ring“. Contracept.org. N.p., 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.)

Patches

“The birth control patch prevents pregnancy in one of three ways: First, it prevents eggs from being released from the ovaries. Second, it thickens the cervical mucus preventing the sperm from reaching the egg. Third, it changes the lining of the uterus preventing implantation.”

(“Birth Control Patch: Side Effects, Effectiveness And Costs”. American Pregnancy Association. N.p., 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.)

Implanon and Nexplanon

“The implant steadily releases the hormone progestogen into a woman’s bloodstream. Progestogen is similar to the natural hormone progesterone, which is released by a woman’s ovaries during her period. The continuous release of progestogen stops a woman releasing an egg every month (ovulation), it thickens the mucus from the cervix (neck of the womb), making it difficult for sperm to pass through to the womb and reach an unfertilized egg, and it makes the lining of the womb thinner so that it is unable to support a fertilized egg.“

(“Myths And Facts About… Implants | IPPF”. IPPF. N.p., 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.)

The implication of murdering children through hormonal birth control.

Hormonal birth control is widely practiced and accepted by professing Christians and professing non-Christians alike. It is both largely ignored by the pro-life community and unashamedly unopposed by the “Christian Culture” in any widespread sense. It is practiced by well-meaning women marching at pro-life rallies, it is practiced by girls getting dropped off by their parents at public schools, it is practiced by women in church pews listening to Sanctity of Life sermons on Sunday morning. It is condoned and supported and facilitated by husbands, boyfriends, and even fathers or, in this case, grandfathers. Hormonal birth control is a subtle, silent, and popular means of killing children that is responsible for more prenatal infanticide every single day than even surgical abortion. It reveals a stark pro-choice position in the hearts and minds and lifestyles of people who profess themselves to be pro-life and makes murderers out of those who claim to be Christians. Hormonal birth control is murder. If you are taking hormonal birth control, imagine how many of your children you have frustrated out of God-given life and existence. Consider whether you can live with yourself after either ignorantly or knowingly making your body and relationships mass graves for your innocent children who never had loving parents to give them names. Consider whether you live at peace with child sacrifice that is happening all around you and within you. Consider what repentance looks like for you, in the face of God and Conscience.

It was Jesus the Christ, God’s only begotten Son, King of Judea, the firstborn of Creation, and redeemer of repentant murderers, who confined himself to the body of a single-celled zygote, seeking to implant on the uterine wall of his mother, entering into the one place where most human beings only know abandonment, death, and destruction. The Gospel of Jesus Christ that brings adoption, life, and redemption began in the place that is most prevalent for blasphemous violence against humans made in God’s image. The Servant-King of mankind placed himself in a miraculous gambit of the apparent folly and danger of human reproduction in order to save murderous mothers and apathetic fathers, not to mention their pre-born sons and daughters, from each other and from themselves; setting the oppressed free; teaching the oppressor to walk in repentance, faith, and obedience; securing the future of the orphan and giving his parents new life.

If you are guilty of likely dehumanizing, aborting, and murdering unknown children through hormonal birth control, only the God-Man Jesus Christ, can give you the forgiveness you need, and only if you cease the practice of pre-natal infanticide and seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

If you are guilty of allowing, ignoring, or being apathetic towards the mass-murder of unknown children through hormonal birth control, or any other method, only the God-Man Jesus Christ, can give you the forgiveness you need, and only if you learn to love your preborn neighbor as yourself and seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

We do understand that there are medical reasons that women might believe that they have for taking hormonal birth control. That topic is addressed here.

If you would like to learn more about abolitionist ideology, you may begin your journey here.

What follows is a Speech by Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in his hometown of Rochester, New York on July 5, 1852 to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. He was invited to give his thoughts on the 76th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His speech subverts the expectations of patriotism by condemning the institution of chattel slavery in the United States. While we disagree with his tacit approval of Constitutionalism and the necessity of the American war for “independence,” Douglass nevertheless makes salient points about American hypocrisy:

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable—and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here today is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say, I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your “sovereign people” (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men’s souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.

These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.

Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.

On the second of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it.

[We] solemnly publish and 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.

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history —the very ring—bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day—cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness.

The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.

The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!

Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.

Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interests nation’s jubilee.

Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence.

I remember also that as a people Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait—perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands.

I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine!

My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.

Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act, act in the living present, Heart within, and God overhead.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have “Abraham to our father,” when they had long lost Abraham’s faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham’s great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout —”We have Washington to our father.”—Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.

The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft’ interred with their bones.

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be fight and just. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, their will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) “the internal slave trade.” It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our doctors of divinity. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, where, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell’s Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woolfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills headed “Cash for Negroes.” These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.

In the deep, still darkness of midnight I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.

Is this the land your Fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the earth whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in?

But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason & Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman’s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles and ecclesiastics enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment’s warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, nor religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man’s liberty, to hear only his accusers!

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.

I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.

At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the “mint, anise and cummin” —abridge the fight to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem “the Fugitive Slave Law” as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as “scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.” But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, Welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything—in preference to the gospel, as preached by those divines. They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation—a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery.

The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.”

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared—men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land, have, in utter denial of the authority of Him, by whom the professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach “that we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God.”

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the “standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend [Rev. R. R. Raymond] on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave’s redemption from his chains.

One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable instead or a hostile position towards that movement.

Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation—a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped to palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart.

And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length – nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerrit Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a tract of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.

I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other.

The far-off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Light,” has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God.” In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it.

God speed the year of jubilee The wide world o’er When from their galling chains set free, Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee, And wear the yoke of tyranny Like brutes no more. That year will come, and freedom’s reign, To man his plundered fights again Restore.

God speed the day when human blood Shall cease to flow! In every clime be understood, The claims of human brotherhood, And each return for evil, good, Not blow for blow; That day will come all feuds to end. And change into a faithful friend Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour, When none on earth Shall exercise a lordly power, Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower; But all to manhood’s stature tower, By equal birth! That hour will com, to each, to all, And from his prison-house, the thrall Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive, With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive, To break the rod, and rend the gyve, The spoiler of his prey deprive- So witness Heaven! And never from my chosen post, Whate’er the peril or the cost, Be driven.

“The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.” (Franz Kafka)

Where does one begin? I assume this endeavor will be slow going and murky and even tedious. I do not have an office in which to shut myself to keep me from various disappointing distractions, and any effective amount of scotch may shed a hypocritical light on anything I have to say. On an embarkation like this one, an effort to express something greater than oneself, it seems to be ritualistic good form to invoke the muse. But this is not epic poetry like Homer or Milton or Shakespeare and I do not rightly know if the same rules apply to prose anyway, or even non-fiction. If there is a muse for the inspirations I would like to receive, she has not shown up yet (she has undoubtedly learned how to treat me by watching other women in my life), but like Ernest Hemingway says “The shortest answer is doing the thing.” And as Peter S. Beagle says, “If the Muse is late for work, you start without her.” I feel already as though what follows will contain a lot of quotes from various authors and other people of note. It may be important to say that I hope that what has attracted me to their expressions is similar to what may have attracted you to mine. As is articulated by Nietzsche, “Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood… Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read but to be learned by heart.” And Robert Louis Stevenson iterates, “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.” Maybe Mr. Stevenson would not mind if we borrowed a prayer of his to serve as our invocation to the muse:

“Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temparate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.”

If there is anything I could ever find praiseworthy in any human individual, it would be consistent sincerity. “There are honest people in the world, but only because the devil considers their asking prices ridiculous.” (Beagle) Sincerity is foundation, potential, greatness. We could learn a great deal from our domestic partnerships with our dogs. They wear their hearts on their fur, to make an idiom precise. And they are unfailing about it. It is naturally difficult for us to believe that any member of humanity that we have encountered, claiming to be sincere and forthcoming, lives up to the diagnosis. At least not without regular examples thereof. Periodic displays of generosity, counseling, leadership, and maybe even things miraculous go undervalued when we presume their bearers to be insincere. (Matthew 12:22-37, for example). Harmoniously, “All decent men must be hypocritical, if you assume that decency can’t exist.” (T.H. White)

We do not recognize sincerity in others because we have lost our enthusiasm to drum it up in ourselves. It is human nature to take things for granted, to submit to the distractions, to disremember where our passion should lie. “If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless.” (Moliere) Our forgetting of the importance of people is directly related to our unwillingness to fling ourselves straight into life. To partake in a little life-experience, to garner an education about the world or about ourselves. “I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.” (Henry David Thoreau) Instead, we accumulate things in our lives, we give our lives complication and attach to them accessories. Things unessential and cumbersome and distracting. We take our own souls for granted and the games we play take precedence over mental, emotional, and spiritual nourishment. “The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without.” (Hemingway) Life-experience leads to self-actualization which leads to the understanding of our fellow man. Essentially we become, for another individual, somewhere to lean when they are out of their depths. More and more members of each generation forget this, contented in their distractions, and the cumbrous concern and collective weight of the human condition falls on fewer and fewer shoulders. “The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.” (Robert Frost) We are comfortable in our unthreatening lifestyles, grasping at our diversions and showing all the efficacy of a lotus-eater. “Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts.” (Aldous Huxley) We call it a comfort-zone or a blind spot, but I think the Spanish, in the context of their most famous art-form, the bullfight, have a much keener word. Querencia. This is a safe-zone for the bull in the ring when facing down the matador. In us humans, it represents our bastions of complacency and selfishness. Our excuses for refusing to hit bottom and strip away all that is unnecessary and distracting in order to take up the mantle of our spiritual purpose. These places we feel the safest are the ones we will defend with the tenacity of denial, even if we have to bloody those we love the most when they desire the dismantling of these querencias. We will not give them up, this side of the grave, and will most likely take them there with us. For the drunk, it is the bottle. For the complacent, it is apathy. For the rebellious, it is pride. For the codependent (if you will excuse the term), it is placating in fear. Hemingway describes the Querencia perfectly well, and though the description is long, it may shed light on the tactics found in our human nature:

“Aside from the normal physical and mental stages the bull goes through in the ring each individual bull changes his mental state all through the fight. The most common, and to me the most interesting, thing that passes in the bull’s brain is the development of querencias. A querencia is a place the bull naturally wants to go to in the ring; a preferred locality. That is a natural querencia and such are well known and fixed, but an accidental querencia is more than that. It is a place which develops in the course of the fight where the bull makes his home. It does not usually show at once, but develops in his brain as the fight goes on. In this place he feels that he has his back against the wall and in his querencia he is inestimably more dangerous and almost impossible to kill. If a bullfighter goes in to kill a bull in his querencia rather than to bring him out of it he is almost certain to be gored. The reason for this is that the bull, when he is in querencia, is altogether on the defensive, his horn stroke is a riposte rather than an attack, a counter rather than a lead, and the speed of eye and stroke being equal the riposte will always beat the attack since it sees the attack coming and parries or beats it to the touch. The attacker must lay himself open and the counter is certain to arrive if it is as fast as the attack, since it has the opening before it while the attack must try to create that opening. In boxing Gene Tunney was an example of a counter-puncher; all those boxers who have lasted longest and taken least punishment have been counter-punchers too. The bull, when he is in querencia, counters the sword stroke with his horn when he sees it coming as the boxer counters a lead, and many men have paid with their lives, or with bad wounds, because they did not bring the bull out of his querencia before they went in to kill.”

Maybe what follows will be an easily avoidable dare. This is excusable in the bull, since the command is to die, albeit nobly. But the command for you is to live. To come out of your querencias and join the action. I know that all call-to-arms go largely unmet and most press-gangs are absconded from pretty easily, so I will not be colored surprised if it happens here en masse. Stevenson contradicts the assumption, however, “We must accept life for what it actually is – a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.” So maybe somebody will learn what life is for and may duck from under the weight of fear; whether it is fear of work, fear of failure, fear of responsibility, fear of sorrow, fear of magic, or fear of poetry. ‘“All lives are composed of two basic elements,” the squirrel said, “purpose and poetry. By being ourselves, squirrel and raven, we fulfill the first requirement, you in flight and I in my tree. But there is poetry in the meanest of lives, and if we leave it unsought we leave ourselves unrealized. A life without food, without shelter, without love, a life lived in the rain—this is nothing beside a life without poetry.”’ (Beagle) It is my opinion that anybody who still enjoys literature, like people who throw themselves into life with desperate sincerity, and takes it to heart (like all things bloody and aphoristic) already has a head start on becoming well-rounded, dependable human beings. Heroes, if you will. Mountain movers. Shakers of foundations. The benefits of this kind of education is best expressed by T.H. White: “Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.” He also conveys: ‘“The best thing for being sad…is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then-to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.”’ We all have purpose, and if nothing else will, fulfilling our purpose will bring us poetry. If we are to raise anchor and become people of purpose, naturally we have to learn a thing or two about moving upstream. We have to learn to develop character because little else will serve as a sufficient rudder.

So, if we must begin learning something, we might as well make good on our transaction and start now. It is not that I have anything new to offer the collective bank of human knowledge, nor is it that my savoir-faire has afforded me some special insight to the human condition. It is only because I consider myself sincere, that I say what I have to say. Sincere and sad, since fruits of wisdom (if you want to call these wisdom; I do not particularly find the term embedded in myself) are unfortunately coupled with sorrow, invariably. It has taken a long time and strenuous throes of reflection over personal life-experience to develop the following “rules”. They are more like observations about the nature (nurture?) of maturity and responsibility that grow from sincerity. Ideas to follow when we get unsure how to treat each other and ourselves. The fact that there are ten of them is no coincidence. They do not each correspond to one or more of the Commandments, I just get the impression that any advices for life, exceeding ten, would be overkill and tedious. Not that we will not reach that point anyway, I am sure. “When you’re good at something, there’s a demand for it.” I suppose it would be unwise (there is that word again) to impose a conscription on those of you who read this. I do not require obedience to any of the rules because I know how blissful commitment to ignorance can be. In any case, enslavement to ideals, no matter how beneficial, is best expressed by White: “There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.” And so, for the sake of expediency (and availability):

Rule number one. Never let go of a good thing.

I can hear you think that this sounds like common sense. To which I would reply something to the effect of, “So should all the other rules.” Maybe, then, “a good thing” needs a proper definition. The good things challenge you to better yourself; they are good for you. They are good whether or not you feel good about them, and that is where you have to look and what you have to assess. Good things are not necessarily based on how you feel because emotions change and are duplicitous. I would wager that all of the negativity of human history is accounted for in the unchecked acting on emotions. A good feeling about a good thing is a bonus, but the heart should not take the reins. Not in decision-making. “The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.” (Napoleon Bonaparte) The things that build you up, keep you in check, and keep you anchored are the good things. Good things, including people, are not the things that placate for you or walk on eggshells around you while you are acting childish. They do not avoid the truth to spare your feelings because you do not grow that way. C.S. Lewis says that “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” Never let go of the things that demand growth from you. The good things will be there to protect you and hold your hand, but they will also teach you to protect yourself and encourage you to learn how to walk and fight and provide protection and encouragement for others. The good things will implore your progression down the right path even when you do not want to go. The good things will not let your self-hatred and self-pity get in the way of your mental, emotional and spiritual maturity. Speaking of self-depreciation:

Rule number two. Do not deny yourself regret, but do not devote yourself to it either. Addendum: The same should be said for catharsis.

“The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.” (Lord Byron) It is part of human nature to hurt other people. And ourselves. We are always burning bridges and providing cases for our damnation. If you do not have room to regret your mistakes and atrocities then you do not plant the seeds to grow and learn from them. Ignoring your shame will only result in your repetition in the things that make you shameful. “After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.” (Henry David Thoreau) He also says “Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” Regret is healthy for you. Every action you commit yourself to has ripples and consequences so far-reaching and unpredictable that no amount of forethought will prevent your conscience to come out completely unscathed. “I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret, you just don’t know what they are. It’s when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done, and you wish that you had it do over, but you know you can’t, because it’s too late. So you pick that thing up, and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don’t matter in the end. Then you will gain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face.” (Roger Rueff) Regret is unavoidable, but we should use it in a healthy manner. Self-hatred is an easy and addictive trap to fall into. It feels good to beat ourselves up about the wrongs we have done. It makes us feel pious in a way, and it allows us to continue to feel bad without ever having to do any good. But as Aldous Huxley purports, “Classic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.” Another drug to which we commit ourselves is catharsis. It is healthy when used appropriately, though. It is good to rage every once in a while because it has a similar nourishment as sleep. For the body and the mind. Only after confrontation can we reach understanding. Only after a tussle can we reach catharsis. Sometimes we have to accumulate a few scars for people to take us seriously. Just make sure you do not hurt anybody who does not deserve it, and make sure anybody you chew out is aware that you love them. Be aware that moments of catharsis should not be frequent lest they become addictive. Constant liberation is a form of running away from our problems and duties. It is like hitting rubber with a hammer; an illusion of progress. A cathartic lifestyle makes us busy and sidetracked. As Hemingway says, “Never mistake motion for action.” And as Thoreau says, “It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” In order to avoid drowning ourselves in regret or in the over-exertion of catharsis, we ought to take a look at the next rule:

Rule number three. Accept the consequences for your actions before committing to your actions.

This is a lesson in being decisive and resolute. “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” (Frost) An indecisive character usually reflects one unmarked by courage. And, truth be told, courage comes with life-experience and knowledge of the world and it comes with trial and error. Any consequences that we may have witnessed can be catalogued in memory, and any future choice we have to make can be compared to these past consequences. Basically, learn from yourself and from other people. Every course of events in various circumstances follows the same pattern fairly consistently and that is part of the poetry of life. And so, with this knowledge, we must own our successes and mistakes before they happen. We are going to be held accountable for them after they come to pass, so we must show our resolution for accountability while planting the seeds. Maybe that means some of us should be less clumsy when it comes to decision-making. And especially when it comes to indecision-making. There is not so much grey in the world as people would like to believe, most of our crossroads will yield hues more black and white, and I have gathered that maybe some consequences are just hard to bear, which accounts for this desire to call them grey. It is acceptable, in my opinion, to complain about the difficulty of various responsibilities, but they should not dictate our deliberations to commit to them. Right is right, no matter how hard it is. And our fates, and our ideas about saving our own hides should not account in our heroism. It is true, as Albert Camus says, “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” At least not in this life, but whose opinion are you really going to care about? Taking responsibility for your actions is no easy task. Most of the things worth committing to may take years to come to fruition and your road may be ugly and dangerous and you may not get any sleep as you go. You may not even get your desired end. “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.” (Hemingway) Keep in mind that the ends do not justify the means. The ends do not even justify the ends. But the means always justify the means. Even if you do not succeed in your endeavors, it should be enough that you do not lose your strength of character in your attempts. Or else you have already lost your right to your desires. But, “If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.” (Thoreau) We should choose the right course of action, despite how aggressive their consequences might be to ourselves or to those close to us. Because how are we to lead by example and teach others to do the right thing, come what may? To best clarify this question, all I can say is, when coupled with the other rules, it is easier to tell which actions are right and which are wrong.

Rule number four. See all the angles. Or see enough for everybody else to not know any better. Rule number four and a half. Play only the good angles, even though this is infinitely more difficult. (If you are prescient, you never have to evacipate.)

To be a good strategian, it is proper to understand how your actions will play out. To live a poetic life you will have to learn to direct the consequences of your actions merely by predicting which actions are best to be committed to. If you can understand the potential and probable outcomes for the choices you must make (or avoid) in any given circumstance, then you can understand which actions (or inactions) are best to choose in those circumstances. But even your consequences have consequences and so forth. Now, I am well aware that only one being in existence can truly see all the angles, but hyperbole makes for a good cattle-prod. “Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.” (Bonaparte) In order to see all the angles, we must gather as much information and place ourselves in as many people’s perspectives as may be involved. And in order to see more angles than other people, well, Hemingway has the remedy, “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” It is best to keep our views of things fresh. Our first instincts incline us to view circumstances subjectively and selfishly. It is also beneficial, as heroes and dependable human beings, to also look at them from the shoes of others and also from an objective point of view, disregarding anybody’s stake in the circumstance. It seems like a lot of work, and not many were born with this gift, but there are tools in which to immerse yourself that provide development for such critical thinking. And with enough experience, you can see all the angles in any available circumstance simultaneously and almost instantly. Another way of describing the seeing of all the angles is looking at the whole picture. Yet another way to describe it is lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is a way of thinking that seeks a solution to an intractable problem through unorthodox methods or elements that would normally be ignored by logical thinking. This is a developmental tool that allows you to define the avenues your mind goes down while simultaneously discovering new avenues that may benefit its travels. It also helps to develop a superb memory. Deductive reasoning, when combined with sincerity is a basic contrivance of those successful in intrepidness. It will keep you pragmatic and resourceful and therefore dependable. “The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.” (Camus) For this reason, it is best to only play the good angles. Attempt to leave for posterity as small amount of evil as possible. Make your steps careful and precise and do not hurt anybody that does not deserve it. If you become proficient in seeing more and more angles, you can predict probable reactions from people. You can crawl around inside their heads and repair some the wires that have been disconnected by life, the world, and their own self-hatred. You can predict their thoughts and emotions and apprehensions and give them somewhere to lean. You can become a decent friend and a capable parent, and you can pass these traits along by your example. “There isn’t any formula or method. You learn to love by loving—by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.” (Huxley) Playing a good angle is about precision and accuracy. It will be a confident endeavor, and most importantly, it will be done with conviction. And maybe even consideration. “Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not by force.” (White) Playing a good angles also involve consistency, as will be shown in the next rule:

Rule number five. Never be unwilling to deal with a problem or right a wrong. Your negligence means the abandonment of your peers.

Fear of consequence is no excuse for negligence. Your fears and misunderstandings should never not be subject to confrontation. Without self-actualization, you are just like everyone else. And everyone else is banal. You may feel sorry for those around you who are struggling, but if this is all that is inspired in you, then you are useless to them. Maybe that is harsh and aggressive, but if you do not think that it is true then you do not love the ones around you who suffer. You have a level of control and capability in any encounter you find, whether or not you are in the middle of it. There is always a level of real help that you can commit to and pity does not stand on its own. Your friends and associates will perceive you as dead weight if all they can draw from you is negligent spectating while they are in the thick of their personal battles. I am sure you have careful denials and defense mechanisms if you are afraid to provide emotional and spiritual nourishment and comfort to your neighbor, but Leo Tolstoy sums them all up pretty nicely, “I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means —except by getting off his back.” There is a degree of self-sacrifice in contributing something worthwhile to the lives of the people around us. You have to be willing to give much, if not everything, in order to make some good in the world. “The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.” (Einstein) Nobody takes a leech or a mosquito seriously and only finds them an annoyance in their insincerity. So if you want to see real change and real progress and leave a real mark on the world before you die, you must lay your life down before it. The risk you run there contributes to your heroism. “Real magic can never be made by offering someone else’s liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.” (Beagle)

Rule number six. Some things are not difficult to see, they are just hard to look at. It is good to know the difference.

Denial is unbecoming on any human being in any circumstance. Veracity, in essence, is something obvious, although it can be difficult to accept. “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” (Tolstoy) We have a natural knack for taking things for granted. It gives us an excuse for not fleshing a thing out and instead we look at it with all its embellishments and misdirection. “Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” (Camus) We hinder our powers of observation and we drown out our curiosity in fear. We love a good ruse and we are very meticulous about the masks we wear. We express too much shame and are ever willing to conceal a part of ourselves, and over a long enough timeline, we become what we pretend to be. “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” (Camus) And as is expressed by Beagle, “…no cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them.” We commit to distractions to shelter us from the truths that we are unwilling to accept. We bury ourselves under them and make excuses for the covering of ourselves. It only takes a small degree of effort to see and understand the truth, and our determination to not be sincere in this effort is, at base, emotional. It is evidence of another querencia. “Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” (Huxley) Because knowing would require that we take up arms for it. And who wants that responsibility? So when things are hard to look at, it is best to muster up all the courage we have and face them head on. Consequences be damned. The truth must be got at, if nothing else. “The hardest thing to remember is that what we each really want is the truth of our lives, good or bad. Not rocking the boat is an illusion that can only be maintained by the unspoken agreement not to feel and in the long run it never really works. Let go of saving the boat and save the passengers instead.” (Kenny Loggins)

Rule number seven. The more things you know are true, the more responsibilities you have. A life marked by caprice reveals a tenacity for evasion.

If we do happen to lay down the masks and strip away the obscuration, then the truth that is left must be acted upon. It must be acted upon despite our emotional stake or the feelings of those around us. If we recognize truth, we must not let others be satisfied with skating by in ignorance of truth. In other words, putting everything on the table makes for healthy relationships. Caprice and coquetry are evidence of insincerity, particularly when a revelation and reckoning is involved or called for. “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” (Einstein) We ought not let such things slide from the people around us. And doing so, reveals a transparent lacking in desire for their good. It shows a lack of love, because disappointment is the sincerest form of affection. If we did not love someone then we would not care whether or not they hurt themselves or people around them. So if we are to not avoid the truth, then idly watching another living in denial is inexcusable hypocrisy. I am aware that a common response to calling somebody out on their self-degrading lifestyles yields a projection of, “do not judge me,” but silence is enablement and to condone a thing is also to pass judgment. Yet condemnation always gets a bad rap. Tolerance is the great virtue of postmodern thought. But condoning a thing is contributing to it, no matter how tired you are with dealing with it. “The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.” (White) Again, silence is enablement. If this were not so, only one third of the angels would have been damned instead of two. Sitting on the fence to avoid confrontation is irritable to everybody in a conflict and it decreases the chances for any soldier to trust those who do so, especially if the conflict ends in their favor. This is indicative of a fair-weather relationship.

I know most of these rules are about negligence and inattention and disregard and non-commitment, but with the internet, television, games-mania, smart phones, bar-scenes, and all our other querencias, are you really surprised? The people who commit to harming themselves and the rest of us are fighters. Granted, to persist in a metaphor, they are closely akin to bulls in china shops. The people who want to see them free of their self-hatred and selfishness and see the lotus-eaters free of their apathy are also fighters. Maybe even matadors. The negligent are not fighters. They are more analogous to the steers who are present at the unloading of the bulls before the bullfight. They are not aggressive like the bulls, they simply want to make friends with them, personifying conciliatory behavior, and lead them into the corrals. However, they often take the grunt of the bulls’ aggression and are often gored and physically pay for it with their lives. So maybe with one more rule addressing the steers, I can be satisfied with my attempts at being thorough.

Rule number eight. Just when doing a bad thing is merely your other option, is doing nothing acceptable. “Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

Now this is a different boat entirely than the boat that Mr. Loggins mentioned at the end of rule six. This boat is headed in the right direction, and this boat is what rescues the passengers when that other boat has been rocked. This boat has a precise purpose on a difficult course, and on which everybody on board is a member of the crew. Now nobody wants to do an inherently bad thing, but people will not complain much when given the option to do nothing to allay the causes or effects of a bad thing. But as Einstein posits, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” (And idle hands eventually become mutinous.) Spiritual non-violence is suicide when pitted against an intimidatingly strong will and the steers get gored all the same. “The middle of the road is where the white line is—and that’s the worst place to drive.” (Frost) Note that I am not describing survival here. I am not saying we should defend ourselves for the sake of ourselves because I believe martyrdom is the keenest way of leading by example. “Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.” (Kafka) Martyrdom, specifically, is neither doing a bad thing, nor is it doing nothing. So self-defense in these matters can be a form of retreat. It is pride in our self-importance and fear for our own hide. But neither are we to lay down and be consumed by the self-seeking and then cut our losses and lick our wounds. Placating for those who do wrong to or around us, as has been described, does not show love for them, but fear of them. We do not see them for what they are. When we first meet someone we love, we look over any of their imperfections in favor of how much we love them, and after they have disappointed us, we start to emphasize their flaws and forget about their good qualities. “We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love—first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.” (Camus) We find ourselves doing nothing in our disappointment and we give up and we forget about potential. We allow the disillusionment to make us dead weight and we forget about potential. We sabotage and complain and rock the boat and we forget about potential. We do nothing without realizing that doing nothing is doing a bad thing. “We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.” (Thoreau) Instead of refining an individual, instead of pruning them, and demanding growth from them, we sit and do nothing and hinder those who have not given up on potential. We get in the way of those who row because capitulation seems like a good idea. We buckle under the weight because we take it personally and we do not lean on the others who row alongside us. “By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.” (Kafka) And so we give up because we simply do not want to continue, reminiscent of the prodigal son’s older sibling.

Rule number nine. “So few people get what they want, and the ones that do aren’t really the lucky ones anyway… The lucky ones are the ones that do what they are meant to.” (Scott Spencer)

It is not enough to chase after your desires or follow through with your ambition. The people around us will always need our attention, faculties, and self-sacrifice. Anybody can live for themselves and chase their personal ambitions, and if they do not reach their goals, then they compromise their desires and spin their wheels for a few years and get complacent. They reach a dead end and berate themselves for it and do not pick up the pieces. If they succeed in their ambition, they will either find a new ambition to live vicariously through or they will sit themselves down and promptly say, “now what?” Lord Byron says, “Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.” Napoleon Bonaparte expresses the problem and implies an answer “The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.”; “Men take only their needs into consideration—never their abilities.” Meaning they focus more on their ability to receive and not their ability to give when they should be doing the opposite. Instead of giving what we can and doing what we are supposed to, we focus on what we can take, on what our self-entitlement will allow us. I suppose self-sacrifice is not a very agreeable idea which to commit oneself, and selfishness has come back into popular opinion as sort of an asset to have (though it never really left). Neither of these opinions will get us anywhere, at least not for long, and he who believes otherwise makes no effort to learn from natural history. Specifically, symbiosis and commensalism. Facility, everyone has, and facility naturally cannot exist without function. The natural function of any special ability that we may have is meant for the benefit of those around us, and as Einstein says, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” Our capability is something deeper than artificial charity. When we give or when we do, it ought to come from the heart and for the salient benefit of the intended. “To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” (Douglas Adams) To give altruistically, not expecting or demanding anything in return, is still to commit a transaction. You are not giving something for nothing, but are receiving foundation, a sort of reference point, as you build your relationships with your peers. You gain a favorable reputation and you are leading by example. It does not take much sincere service for you to not be surprised when miracles happen around you and through you, and once you are past this point, you do not want to give up committing to them. Once you sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the people around you, once you dedicate yourself to the growth and development and stimulation and inspiration to those in need of these things, then you can know what it is like to receive them in turn, and appreciate them when you do. And, as C.S. Lewis says, “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare” because “if you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”

Rule number ten. If you do not know what you want, you do not know who you are, and you end up with a lot you do not want. If you get your priorities straight, everything else will fall into place.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

This novel expresses resolve to benefit the people around us that we love. It involves prime examples of intense self-sacrifice and efficient thinking in solving heavy problems. It displays true courage and patience and even redemption.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

This is the most educational novel I have read about the intricacies of life and purpose and revelations found therein. There is much valor and heroism contained in this fiction, and it provides infinite refreshing angles at which to look at life. It expresses the human condition almost wholly, and demands many return journeys into it throughout your life.

The d’Artagnan Romances by Alexander Dumas

Once started on The Three Musketeers, the trilogy ought not to be put down. Dumas provides the importance of gallantry and spirit and courtesy when met with various enemies. He expresses the need for good nature in our thickest battles and how hope should be tempered with ability and persistence. Most importantly, he shows the benefits of surrounding ourselves with good things and not letting them go despite life’s attempts to disrupt your pairing. There is also much critical thinking and looking at all the angles, which makes it indispensable.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

It is a shorter book on the list, but its saliency is noteworthy. It provides an alternative lifestyle to that of placating steers. It shows the importance of bravery and creativity when your surroundings call for banality. Even in the face of the consequences. It shows how the world will try to break you when you stand against it and demands that you do it anyway and with applaudable good nature.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

I am under the opinion that anything by Beagle is amazing and useful. His literature is riddled with aphorisms and heroism and the poetry of purpose. The Last Unicorn shows resolve in our tasks despite not always having a clear path by which to see. It also shows the importance of not letting go of the good things and that sometimes they are all we have. It gives a clear picture of tenacious sincerity and of remarkable intrepidness despite the ugliness of the odds.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A story of redemption, regret, and a call to not commit to defeatism. It deserves many repeat readings because it provides great insight to the human condition, especially in despondent conditions. It shows the importance of fleshing out the motives of those around us and of strategy. It expresses the satisfaction to be found in selflessly acting towards those that need it, without regard to our own hides. It shows what acts of faith may have in store for us in regards to reward and lives worth living. It reveals the need for courage in unsure actions despite ourselves and our selfish desires.

Societies that devolve into internal competitions of class, sex, creed, or race, are societies that have already been conquered by their own sloth and covetousness, exposing themselves to be no longer ruled by God. If they ever were. In short, these competitions begin and end as political footballs for false gods and their sensationalist talking heads. The goal of which is to manipulate and radicalize their civil slaves against each other to distract them from their common enemy: Institutionalism. It is necessary, in this divide and conquer strategy, to raise up villains from the masses, creating scapegoats out of comrades, and then to propagandize all of the duller points of revolution and regime change repeatedly until the social smokescreen is thick enough for these forked-tongue oppressors to get away with enacting legal policies that further their Satanic agendas over society, irrespective of class, sex, creed, or race. The popular but hypocritical conflagrations between young socialists and corporate “capitalists,” between feminists and “the patriarchy,” and between those who believe in the validity of modern American Islam and those who believe in modern American “christianity” are all worthy topics, but let us take the current “race war” in America as our example.

It is absolutely necessary to twist an issue of institutionalism into an issue of racism because, while the whole world knows that racism is wrong, nobody is yet ready to admit that institutionalism is wrong. But, in their effort to suppress the inherent malignance of civil and social institutions in favor of crying racism, institutionalists will become racists themselves.

For instance, the term “black community” is an inherently racist one. It demands notions of segregation and compartmentalization, as if there is a special and separate culture comprising only of people with dark skin, or a shared heritage based on skin color. But how black does one’s skin have to be in order to be eligible to be a member of the black community? Do both of their parents need to look black? Only one? Neither, so long as enough of their grandparents were black? How dark does their skin need to be, regardless of their lineage? Are albinic black children tallied amongst the community? You must see how racism becomes the answer to social ills when one refuses to look at the actual problem for them. Even talking heads on both sides of the problem are thinking and talking this way, as they are constituents of the same Hegelian Dialectic. They are two sides of the same plug nickel. In essence, the “black community” is just another Indian Reservation, a self-imposed ghettoization of an entire people group, and racism is not the only similarity between the two.

To dismiss the inherently racist idiom of denoted by the phrase “black community” and address the actual complaints underneath its use, it is necessary to understand that the racism of bureaucratic organizations against the “black community” is a correlative reality and not a causative one. Simply put, the police do not target people who identify themselves as members of a certain race due to the idea that law enforcement institutions are inherently racist, but because the overwhelming majority of the “black race” also identify as perpetual victims as a fundamental part of their culture owed to a twisted view of history. This will be explained shortly.

While the racial statistics about police brutality do not lie, neither do they express any ultimate answers for how to interpret the statistics. They only reveal what is. They do not reveal why. Police states are not innocent, by definition. Policing agents are necessarily socialists who receive tax dollars in order to maintain an occupation, thrive in their personal lives, and oppress everyone with which they come into contact. The police are an entire profession that exists by coveting their neighbors goods in order to exercise authority over them. It should be maintained that this does not just “lend itself” to corruption, it is corruption. Power corrupts because it is the seed of corruption. Institutionalism does not need an excuse to be oppressive, savage, cannibalistic, divisive, entitled, prejudiced, and demonic. It is those things inherently. But because men are not ready to admit that, they allow institutions to focus their destruction and damnation through various excuses. Sometimes it is through the pretext of “religion.” Sometimes it is through the pretext of nationalism. Sometimes it is through the pretext of political party. As we read in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, sometimes it is through the pretext of witchcraft that men in power oppress their fellow men. As we learn from the McCarthy trials, sometimes it is through the pretext of creed. And sometimes it is through the pretext of racism. But, invariably, these pretexts are always excuses and catalysts for the cause of barbarity intrinsic to authoritarian societies. They are curtains behind which the nature of Institutionalism hides. An oversimplified scapegoat makes for an easily distracted frontline of pawns. The pawns will raise up the institutions over themselves and then those institutions will eventually either provide for them scapegoats to oppress or incidentally become scapegoats themselves.

The idea that there is a systematized racism in the United states begins with its twisted history, most notably that it coincides with its myopic history of slavery. Despite the fact that slavery in America was not partial to race (130,000 white slaves were sold to the New World under the reigns of King James and Oliver Cromwell, black Africans were invariably sold to the old and new world by other black Africans, and 3,700 black Americans possessed 12,700 black slaves at the height of American Antebellum), racism was preached from every lectern in every American university (another institution) as a natural extension of Darwinism, which is now the driving presupposition of every institution in the United States including welfare, healthcare, military, and police.

But, as expressed, twisted history demands that one look at slavery through a racist lens, suggesting that oppression was the fruit of racism rather than a generic fruit of institutionalism. This narrative is especially popular within the “black community” who ascribe to their “black culture” and sense of “black identity,” a collective comraderie predicated on victimization, as if institutional oppression against some black people in ancient history demands the perpetual helplessness of all black people in the present day. This same cultural mentality is also present amongst the modern Native American community, resulting in ever-increasingly high statistics of poverty, drug addiction, crime, broken families, and dependency on socialism through familiar institutional snares. A victim mentality and the faux-martyrdom that comes with it lends itself to notions of entitlement and demands for reparation, for the exact same reason why tax slaves beg for social security benefits, or feel entitled to their tax returns or any other boon transacted against their “paying into the system.”

The thing about those who would be perpetual victims, complainers, lifelong martyrs, and anybody else who gives up on hard work, social virtues, personal responsibility, and community ethics in favor of the slothful whingeing about their own inability owed to some past trauma or oppression, is that which they believe about themselves comes true in self-fulfilling prophecy. The perpetual victim creates a power vacuum to be filled by oppression. They cry out to be made victims by holding onto a victim mentality. When they put themselves onto their crosses, they are praying to be nailed to them. And people in power, invariably bullies, are attracted like flies to those who cry out as though they were already bleeding. Those who have no respect for their fellow man will always oppress those demographics of society who have no respect for themselves. If you want the worst people of society, the institutionalists (in this case the American Brownshirts), to be prejudiced towards you, to profile you, and to basically hunt you, then act like their prey: identify yourself with being oppressed, or always struggling to make ends meet, or keep your neighborhoods at peace, while you also rely on the covetousness of institutionalized welfare through housing projects, or dependence on the socialist system designed to make you an oppressor of your neighbor through receiving benefits paid for by his taxes.

If you want to invite oppression into your communities, prey upon each other through theft, murder, and gangland organizations. If you want to show tyrants that you are easily conquered, do so by murdering your own children through abortion and birth control, or selling them into slavery through social security and public education for tax write-offs. Promote fatherlessness and broken homes. Strengthen the institutions by weakening the families. Be divided and conquered through competition for materialism. Forsake your abilities to provide for and take care of one another, and replace them with consumerism through sex, drugs, cheap alcohol, and self-destructive music and celebrity culture.

The root of oppression isn’t racism. It’s institutionalism. Institutionalism is just the monster of recompense that fills the vacuum created by a slothful and covetous culture that abrogates personal responsibility and replaces it with collectivist misery, and necessarily, dependency on institutions.

The solution has not changed since the creation of mankind: a people who love God also love their neighbors as themselves. They seek to serve their neighbors in adhocracy, in the weightier matters of justice, mercy, through faith, hope and charity. They promote strong families. They protect each other’s property. They keep each other free from civil citizenship under men who are in positions of power. They prefer to serve than to be served. They forgive their enemies because they know hatred and defeatism breeds self-hatred, and atrophy of virtue. They make their neighbors self-sufficient and economically independent, knowing that their neighbor will do the same to them in return. They do not compromise with or tolerate the sin of outsourcing these virtues to socialist institutions through public schooling, food stamps, police forces, or any other civil snare that allows tyrants to rule over them as soon as they take the bait. They certainly do not organize and divide themselves by race, because they know that all men are created by God and all men fall short of His glory. They repent and do hard things, including forgive and forget, and join together with the repentant, regardless of race, to enter into a righteous kingdom as a free society, making obsolete both oppression and the identity of victimhood that demands oppression.