Free Republic

228 years ago a similar debate was held. On one side seemed to be moderation and reason. On the other there seemed to be only fiery rhetoric and blind passion. One of those speakers said something better than I ever could so I will borrow his words here.

Mr. President: no man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.

This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country.
For my own part I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery;
and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate.
It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country.
Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly things.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts.
Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?
Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience.
I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House?


Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.
Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.

Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition compares with these warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land.
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?

Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?


Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort.

I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission?
Can gentlemen assign any other possible motives for it?
Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?

No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other.
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging.
And what have we to oppose them?

Shall we try argument?

Sir, we have been trying that for the past ten years.
Have we anything new to offer on the subject?
Nothing.
We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable;
but it has all been in vain.
Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication?
What terms shall we find which have not already been exhausted?


Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on.
We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated;
we have prostrated ourselves before the throne,
and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament.


Our petitions have been slighted;
our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult;
our supplications have been disregarded;
and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne.

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.
There is no longer any room for hope.
If we wish to be free --
if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending --
if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged,
and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight!

I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!


They tell us, sir, that we are weak -- unable to cope with so formidable an adversary.


But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week, or next year?
Will it be when we are totally disarmed and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?


Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?. . .

Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?


Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.
Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty and in such a country as that which we possess are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.


Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.


The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave . . .

Besides, sir, we have no election.
If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.
There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!
Our chains are forged!
Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!
The war is inevitable -- and let it come! I repeat, sir, let it come!


It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.
Gentlemen may cry peace, peace -- but there is no peace!
The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!

Our brethren are already in the field!

Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?


Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!


I know not what course others may take; but as for me,
give me liberty or give me death!!! Patrick Henry, 1775

You fine people counsel restraint and incremental improvement. Admittedly that counsel would appear to be the course of wisdom, but I ask you what has that approach achieved? The party that we support has betrayed us to political expedience. You say better the lesser of two evils and we can hope for a better position tomorrow. I say will you wait until the collar is around your throat and the shackles clanking at your limbs before you awaken to the danger?

If you admit the law is unjust and that those we support had a hand in its creation how can you still support them? This is no insignificant issue but the very bedrock of the republic! They have denied the existence of a right granted to us by Almighty God and defended by the blood and sacrifice of good men. What in your experience or study of history have you learned that would make you believe they will not do so again?

You are right in that I have no solution at this time. At least not one that my conscience finds acceptable. I know that on September 1997 I took on oath to support and defend the document which is now under blatant attack. As for now nonviolent recourses are still open to us and I intend to make use of them. I am a young man still in my twenties. I have worn a green uniform with pride and I hope to do the same with a blue uniform in the future. God willing I have a long and fruitful life ahead but if the choice is slow descent into slavery, rapid descent into tyranny, or death my choice is already made. I have lived free and refuse to live any other way.

As you can tell I am very passionate about the issue. I have tried to offer a serious and heart felt reply. I ask only for the same. If you see cause for hope in our current political servants please share it with me for I see none.

I reread my post and it sounds alittle too confrontational. My intention was to debate the merits of the stryker. Not for a crunchie to insult a treadhead. Under most conditions I have learned thats a bad idea.
It was my understanding that most tank crews didnt like the stryker. The ones assigned to our unit felt the stryker was to vulnerable.

I was talking about the marine lav hit by an RPG close to the start of the war. Took out most of the squad. Opened the lav up like an onion. Rear section hit. It was hit on a road not a bridge.

We trained to drive right up to the building and deploy in urban evironments. Mind you this is with supporting fire. In more open areas we would dismount and move to the objective on foot. As it is currently deployed, in a narrow pass it would not be difficult to wipe out a stryker platoon with a very small element. If you moved with dismounted flankers out it would greatly increase your chances but that negates the purpose of a rapid infantry transport.

I was in the unit doing some testing. 5/20. I know people still in the unit. It does not fit into airlift in combat configuration. Without the armor addition a 50cal. punches right through.Without the armor I would not trust getting hit by 7.62x54. As the Russians learned in Chechnya and our boys are learning now, the RPG is a very common weapon system on the battlefield. When the armor is on, S-3 officers have to plan routes to insure that vehicles can fit two abreast on the roads. Otherwise the vehicles sinks in soft ground when they drive around each other. I honestly pray you are right about the vehicle being one of the finest fighting vehicles ever. If you are wrong, men closer to me than my own brothers will be dead.
This is not intended to be a flame. I am sure you too are concerned about our boys over there. I am sure you are a sober and competent officer. The stryker is a good idea horribly implemented.

I was there for alot of the inetial testing. May I borrow your BS to reality filter? I could make a mint in the market.

The stryker is a lav 3 with out the 25mm cannon. I was in the 5/20 at Fort Lewis. With the extra armor it will not fit in the c-5. It is also not possible to fit 9 men in the back without severe yoga training. Frontline did a puff piece in I believe 2000. We demonstrated MOUT. What you dont see is how I was laying across the legs of everybody in the squad and that they TOSSED me out just before the door opened so you could not see our position. Does anybody have the picture of that marine LAV that got hit by the RPG?

Most of this stuff came from the armys big push for the styker, some hard earned knowledge from the rangers, and the delta boys at Bragg. I was in 5/20 at Lewis for the initial testing and doctrine development for the intermediate brigade. Mostly low intensity stuff like traffic check points and hasty ambushes. We also did mout, mout and more mout.
Just about everything here is spot on with our input. The only two suprises are the new 7.62 machinegun and the hands free sling. The hands free sling was nice but we found that you have to transition from shoulder to shoulder to much in urban terrain to keep from exposing to much of your body. The sling was a little to slow for the pace we wanted to keep. We found the best solution was a very short loop on the butt stock hooked to a d-ring on your LBV. The new machinegun suprised the hell out of me. I was a gunner for a 1 1/2 years and I found the 240B to be very reliable with live rounds but it was to long and the brass ejected from the bottom. The ejection port location was the worst it is impossible to shoulder fire unless you had a very tall gunner(It is actually pretty easy to handle from the shoulder if you can hoist it up there and you have arms long enough to grab the handguard) and the brass would bind the T&E and tripod. The other gunners and I wanted them to chamber a SAW in 7.62 but we never thought they would do it.(I could be wrong but the new machinegun looks like a saw with the old style butt stock and a 1913 rail mount on the top handguard). Good find btw

I was talking about slaves. Slave owners were subject to market forces to make their income. It wasn't a classless society until women had the right to vote.
On the subject of the 1% employment I think It would lead to either the complete destruction of individual freedom and no new tech or arts or the a new age of amazing individual freedom and innovation. No freedom because with no chance of starving and no need to work for shelter people will simply sit and indulge in pleasure. Their greatest fear would be death so they would outlaw any behavior that was unapproved by the 1%. Greater freedom because free of the need to work for food or shelter people could spend their time working on new innovations and the persuit of personal improvment. I'm inclined to think the first is more likely. With no pressure to improve people will simply atrophy. Cultures that are free from outside competition continue at the same level of development. I don't think a free market can survive without innovation. The 1% would continue to improve untill they no longer had to work and then nothing. The death of free market, initiative, and improvement.

Amen

People forget we had a class of people in this country who had free shelter, free food, and free health care. It took the civil war to stop all of those social services that the left is trying to bring back.

I think this is intentionally misleading (the report). That deputy hit the trauma plate on the vest three for three. The CNN crew did not pan back from the shooter to show impact like they did with the first rifle. If they did I think the impact on the dirt wall would have been visible. I think this is deliberate fraud. I was just pointing out that it could have been live rounds and not blanks that were fired.

It looked to me like the recoil on the deputy was real. If You notice the muzzle on each rifle the first one had the original model compensator. The original model was pretty much nothing at all or a slant to decrease muzzle climb. All the gas goes out the muzzle except the stuff used to cycle the weapon. The second rifle had the AK-74 stlye compensator. This is consider by many to be the best compensator in the world (maybe excluding the browning BOSS although that has more to do with tuning bullets to the rifle). Gas is channeled out the sides as well as the front. This could be an explanation why you can not see smoke from the muzzle. Mind you this is a muzzle compensator which is designed to make recoil push straight back instead of making the muzzle climb or come off target as opposed to a muzzle brake which catches some of the gas pulling the rifle forward somewhat to decrease recoil. That being said I think this deputy intentionally missed and CNN then intentionally showed the bricks to make it appear as though the bullets did no damage.

Jerry Miculek. I believe he holds three records, 6 shots in 1 sec., 2 targets four shots 1.06 secs. , and fastest 12 shots 2.99 secs.

Well as a former light infantryman in his early twentys I can tell you with confidence that there are plenty of wet nosed cherries who would be on the firing line. Lots of new soldiers tell the same old lie about joining for the college money but you can see the tear start to form when the flag goes up.
Thats the one dissagreement I have with Travis's book. The militazation of the police can be a good thing too. Usually the the LEOs who are so quick to trample somebody's rights are the ones who have worn blue but never green.

That sounds dirty. :)

FIST....GRIP Very interesting parallel.

I was in 5/20 and the interim brigade was a good idea with bad planning, bad implementation, and horrible support. The testing we did was dog and pony stuff designed to make the Stryker look good.
Frontline did a puff piece with us. What PBS didn't show was how I was laying across the legs of my squad so all nine of us could fit in with full battle rattle(thats why the 25mm gun was removed ). It also missed the fact that instead of some gomer getting lucky and maybe hitting one light fighter some 12 year old can now pop a whole squad on our fast approach to the city.
You are very accurate with your description of the rpg-7 but as the russians learned in their adventures in Chechnya the rpg-7 is used like we use bullets. Recon by fire was very common and other than AKs it was the most common weapon system used.
The thermal sights were very helpful and it was nice not walking everywhere ,but as a former light infantryman I would take leather personnel carriers over steel coffins anyday.