How easily people give up liberty, that they would turn on those challenging tyrants and thugs who steal it from us daily with impunity.
The opposition to the rifle-
bearing (does that word ring a bell?) young man displayed with angst, mocking and vitriol is certainly not unique to this gun forum. It is a ubiquitous schism amongst "factions" of so-called gun rights "advocates" that plays itself out on gun forums every day of every week of every year for the last 20+ years of my being online. Perhaps a reminder from "Candidus" from 1771 as our Great Revolution was bubbling up from the hearts of Patriots of Liberty will inspire introspection to find our better "advocacy," but I can't say I'm particularly confident that it will. Still a good read though, if one can stand a mirror being held up to their face:
The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. —
Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance.
Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom." It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.
Essay, written under the pseudonym "Candidus," in The Boston Gazette (14 October 1771), later published in The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams (1865) by William Vincent Wells, p. 425
Samuel Adams is known best for another salient quotation, which also applies:
Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say "what should be the reward of such sacrifices?" Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
Some on this forum apparently believe that both Samuel Adams' words, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights he advocated for with every fiber of his being, are obsolete, irrelevant in modern society. The truth is, we are regressing. As a country, we more-closely resemble the majority of pre-Revolution British Loyalists of Colonial days that Adams was speaking to when he urged they go home in peace with their chains resting lightly upon them. The majority of replies in this thread stands as my evidence substantiating that claim.
Blues
