Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty Launched the Revolution
Without Sam Adams' acts of insurrection and sedition, liberty was just a theory. Adams put it into practice.
Dinesh D’Souza asked recently on Twitter which of the founders was the greatest.
I replied:
I fear, now, that my advocacy for Samual Adams was too limp. Throughout the 1760s, Samual Adams worked to build a popular revolt among Boston’s shopkeepers, fishermen, publicans, and politicians. He was the first prominent American to call for independence. He organized successful boycotts of English goods and roused the people of Massachusetts to rebuke, reject, hamper, and harass British soldiers.
Samual Adams was such a thorn in the side of the British that they started what became the Revolutionary War in order to capture him at Lexington.
Let’s not take anything away from Washington and Jefferson. They, too, were crucial figures, and Jefferson’s philosophical writings became the foundation of the nation we love. But, without Samual Adams’ willingness to take those philosophies to the street, their ideas what have remained just that: ideas. Adams breathed life into the American Ideal.
The beauty of the recent Tea Party movement is that it embodied the spirit of Samual Adams, which is why I always resisted the tendency of some in the movement to make it intellectual. America has more conservative intellectual think tanks than it needs. What the right has long lacked is action. We know the philosophy—we just don’t do anything about it. I have walls of books in my home. I cherish reading. Reading is, by far, my number one hobby. Maybe my only hobby.
But those books serve only two purposes. They inform the intellect on what should be done and how one might go about doing them. The books cannot make anyone the right thing. They cannot make anyone do anything at all.
Our form of government is somewhat to blame for this sloth-like approach to government. We assume that by electing people who’v read the same books we have, government will behave as it should. Then, we’re shocked when government doesn’t behave as it should, we turn against the people we just elected, and we demand a new set of representatives who’ve read all the right books. We’ve lathered, rinsed, and repeated this failed process for decades, always losing ground in each cycle.
We rely too much on representative government and too little on making life for the elites a living hell.
Sam Adams made life for the British elites a living hell. He destroyed their property, boycotted their products, and drove their troops out of Boston. Yes, people died in the process, but Adams considered the measure of life in terms beyond years. He believed in liberty and believed it was worth dying for.
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.
Over in Holland, farmers are flooding the streets with manure, closing borders to Germany, and shutting down entire cities while fisherman are blockading the country’s ports. The farmers are doing real economic damage to Dutch elitists and embarrassing their “betters.” Like Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty.
Our representatives cannot dethrone the elites because the elites own the institutions of government. We will never again enjoy the blessings of liberty expressed in the philosophies of Jefferson until we, the people, make life unbearable for the elites. This is a war, and one side will prevail.
Read, yes, but act. Do not concern yourself with whether your action will do any good or whether there will be consequences. Your action will do no good and you will pay a price. Just accept that. Or, as Lt. Ronald Speirs advised the men of Easy Company in Band of Brothers
“The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.”
That’s not to say we suspend mercy and compassion for people, nor remorse for our own sins. Rather, we must destroy the fetid institutions mercilessly and ruthlessly. We must be willing to destroy the department of government and even the union itself. Institutions are man-made, not God-made. They have no rights, no souls, no reason to exist except but to serve man’s purposes. And, to paraphrase Jefferson, when institutions become destructive of man’s purpose, it is our right and ourduty to altar or abolish them.
This, then, is the second abolitionist movement. The first abolitionist movement was was fought to destroy the institution of slavery. This one is no different. We are fighting to abolish slavery to the elites, to the theorists who manipulate our fellow man into committing grotesque acts of inhumanity, all so the elites can increase their power and control over the rest of us. The FBI recruits wounded men, feeds them plans for acts of terrorism, allows the terrorism to happen, then assists Congress or state legislatures in usurping freedom from the innocent. Institutions like the FBI must destroyed and barriers erected to their reintroduction.
What happens to the people of the FBI? I pray they repent. If they don’t, I don’t care. It’s not my concern, and I have no control over them. I am only concerned that no institution exists to empower the evil men who currently populate the FBI. They can starve or flourish so long as they do it on their own and without necessary assistance of a government.
(As I write this, someone is shooting at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. In the hours and days ahead, we will likely learn that the FBI had been in contact with the shooter for months or years. What we won’t be told (but know from experience) is that the shooter’s FBI handlers fomented the shooter’s attitude and encouraged his murderous action. As the FBI did in Uvalde and Buffalo.)
Samual Adams studied and read and discussed philosophy. But he knew when to take action and which actions to take. He first damaged his enemies economically, denying them a return on their investments. He protected the commercial interests of allies and thwarted commercial activity to the enemy. Boycott your enemies.
Adams then organized a band of over 100 young men to destroy approximately $2 million worth of tea in protest of the crown’s granting of monopoly over tea. The Boston Tea Party was the catalyst that moved men like Washington and Jefferson from theory to practice. It moved Jefferson’s pen across the parchment three years later.
We are at war, and we are losing because we think we’re still alive. Or we think the Constitutional government founded in 1789 is still alive. It isn’t. It’s dead. And, the sooner realize it’s already dead, the sooner we’ll be able to function as a nation of free men is supposed to function when occupied by an alien power: without mercy, without, compassion, without remorse.