Do Not Tread On Me

by James A. Bridge



The assault upon our American Liberty by the 111th Congress and the President of the United States has brought an outpouring of Americans everywhere of reaction and warning to our Federal Government.

The message is this: You have not the right to undo our way of life because of an elective majority. You have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. To break your word is to invalidate your power.

Don't Tread On Me was the Colonist's answer 230 years ago and more. They followed up their sentiments with musket ball and bayonet.

We've reached a time to define the expression “Don't Tread On Me”. Let me be clear, though. I speak for myself, and not in the name of any group, nor for any other person. I speak to all who endorse the assault upon our freedom, who work to destroy the founding document of our nation, that which all of our elected officials and military swear to uphold above all things: the Constitution of the United States of America.

My message to you and query is this: Are you prepared to give your lives to expand the national government into our homes, into our living room, into our bedrooms and kitchens?

For, friends and family, if this assault upon the very fabric our nation continues, this nation will erupt into civil war. If this occurs, I swear to you that I will side with the Founders of our country, who plainly laid out in writings and correspondence that this day might come. These great men thought they had every angle covered.

But they miscalculated in one place: They thought that the sworn commitment of our elected officials would never be perfidiously offered; they believed that one would rather die than break an oath.

Our founders didn't see into our time, when so many people give their word lightly.

So many of our elected officials have broken their word to uphold our Constitution. They have lied to us. They continue to lie to us. What James Madison, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams Cotton Mather and the rest of them set out to protect us from—pervasive and autocratic government—is about to set upon us like the darkest night this great nation has ever seen.

So, I swear, in their name, and with hand on heart, I swear I will put my life on the line to defend our Liberty. I will fight against the enemies of our nation, within and without its borders, and I swear that I will put my life on the line for the Constitution of the United States of America.

I own no guns or other weapons. But I promise you, if that battlefield unfolds around me, I'll be at the front of the forces of Liberty. Though I might recognize some of you across the way as family and friends, I swear to you, in the name of Liberty and the Constitution of the United States of America, I will put my life between you and that which I hold dearer than life, and strike at you with every weapon I have, without remorse,






IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY!


semper porro, numquam cedere!

Sea of Grass

by James A. Bridge
I am a blade of grass.

We unite today, yesterday, and tomorrow, across a broad expanse of the United States of America. We have joined hands out of necessity, this time; not that we wouldn't gladly take one another's hand at any time.

We are Americans, New Jerseyans, New Yorkers, Ohioans, Floridians, Arizonans, Californians, Alaskans, Montanans, white and black, of European, African, or Asian descent. We have found one another in common cause to fight what has befallen us. We must fight a cynical group of politicians, and news media reporters, and directors of reporters, fight them with every extra moment of each day, with purpose, relentlessly pushing our cause forward.

Our cause is liberty. Our cause is federalism. Our cause is fiscal responsibility. Our cause is secure borders for our country, and the removal from amongst us who are in our country illegally. Our cause is for a strong America, a military that is second to none, and a foreign policy that shines with the promise of liberty that is imbued in our most sacred of documents—our Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution.

I greet you all, out there, everywhere, and I stand with you, as I am, a lone American.

I am a blade of grass.

But I stand not alone from sea to sea. I stand shoulder to shoulder with you. When the wind disturbs us, we rustle, and when the wind is fierce, we wave and roar. We are heard, and here, as we stand across thousands of miles, we are seen, today, as we stood yesterday and as we will stand tomorrow.

We Americans embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of our nation. Here we came from Europe, from Asia, from everywhere, to escape the socialist and Marxists experiments of totalitarian societies. Here we came with our long knives and our flintlocks and carved out of a wilderness the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Here we came, and God gave us the good fortune to have angels amongst us, agents of the greatest good, a George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Adams, these legendary figures who are more than just worth of historical moment. These great men shook off the totalitarian chains of a British King, a king who did not cherish liberty, a king who wanted the scepter and arms of the crown to intrude into every domicile of his American possessions.

For we then, as today, and tomorrow; we stood first, singly, as individual blades of grass, then as a mass of blades of grass that rustled with the wind, and finally we were a sea that chafed and cried out with answers to every royal rebuke. We were soon heard at Lexington, and at Concord, as our musket balls harried the Redcoats back to Boston harbor, and ultimately back to Britain in defeat.

These American angels looked to their faith in God, and to what man had wrought in search of good government in ancient times, and then, too, examined the American experiment of colonial governments, parliaments, and in the loose federation called the United States of American under the Articles of Confederation. They created in our Constitution a more perfect union. But, they erred, and the like of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson reminded them that some rights must be averred, openly stated, even though manifest and obvious in their time.

They had the foresight to enumerate these rights, however obvious they were, and so staunchly did they adhere to the need for them, that only with the pre-condition of these enumerated rights would this perfect union gel and breathe.

Those rights, that seemed so unnecessary to be stated, are today under fire from forces of tyranny, totalitarianism, and collectivism. They are not a foreign enemy. We, the American people, have chosen them to serve us, and we have been asleep. While we slept, we allowed them to undo what had been done for us.

Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of a religion—have not our time-honored traditions of Christmas and Hanukkah, Easter and Rosh Hashanah been stilled from our government halls, banished from open celebration, as if none of us who serve in government should have a faith or want to celebrate. We should not make that joyful noise, say the self-proclaimed Progressives, who in every thing they do reveal a deep loathing for what our Founders wrought, and for who our Founders were. This most obvious of all rights has been quashed, and we have slept through it.

But now, we awake.

The people have the right to petition the government with grievances—has not our own President demanded that we be still? We rub our eyes, is it possibly true? Has this happened?

Yes it has.

Freedom of speech—has not our President used his authority to collect a list of dissenting voices? We sit up in disbelief. Yes, he has. You might find your information logged at flag-at-whitehouse-dot-gov.

The right of the people to bear arms—the second of these rights that our Founding Fathers knew must be enshrined in stated word—is this right now under attack? Has our President not said that many of us cling to our guns and religions out of bigotry and ignorance? We stand as one and say, Mr. President, do you not know the history of this country, whose reigns we have handed you, and whose Constitution you have sworn to uphold and protect? Do you not know of the murder of nine patriots at Lexington in 1775? Do you not remember, sir, the five murdered by the Redcoats in Boston in 1770, including a man who loved liberty more than you, a man of color, Crispus Attucks? Whether you want to hear it or not, we have the right to bear those arms to protect us from tyranny. We have the right to protect our liberty with our weapons, friends; why else would the forces of big government and tyranny want to strip that right from us?

The right to a speedy trial—when in recent memory has there been a speedy trial? We have allowed our legal system to frustrate the demand for justice in allowing trials to continue over years, needlessly. But, this basic right has, too, all but disappeared.

The most important of all rights, given to us in the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution, have been abused by our court system, and have been circumvented by Congress after Congress, and by Presidents, until now, the boldest threat to our Constitutional authority is at our door. President Barack Hussein Obama in the White House, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, will undo with finality our last claims upon liberty and federalism. Our individual liberty and the protection of our state government authority from the usurpation of a power-mad national government is upon us. This is usurpation, for the national government is refused any power that is not enumerated, and that which is not is reserved first to the people, and then to the state.

However with the passage of two pieces of legislation, Waxman-Markey, and the infamous Presidential lie of health care “reform”, our 9th and 10th amendments will be destroyed.

If this most disgraceful 111th Congress passes, and this most anti-American President ever, sign into law both bills, our legislators will give our last shred of liberty away.

If the federal government can reach into my house and control my thermostat, I have no freedom left. This is what Waxman-Markey, a.k.a. Cap and Trade, will do. If the federal government will tell me if I may or may not receive treatment for what ails me, and if that federal government will punish me for seeking such treatment outside of this law, then I am no longer free.

If these measures are enacted, our legislators and President will have willfully violated their oaths of office. They will, with these measures, make slaves of us all. They will have made our state governments mere handmaidens to the national tyranny. We will have nowhere to go to celebrate liberty, other than to our history books.

These assaults upon our liberty are real, current. They loom before us, a monstrous evil that besets us from many quarters. Reporters, and directors of reporters, have become our enemies. They denounce our struggle for truth, and shield it from us. They have sided with the forces who plan to handcuff us to a new world order, who would chain us to our national government as they would oxen to the yoke, and they would lash us into quiet servitude. Whether by accident or design, the press has been co-opted by forces of tyranny and will not work to save or protect us, as they may have once done.

Theses are mighty enemies: Congress, President, and Press. The enormity of their combined power might break the spirit of a more timid people, of a people who are easily cowed. Americans, though are not these.

I am a blade of grass. I chafe and rustle with each affront to my liberty. I, today, as yesterday, and tomorrow, am not alone, for a I hear a loud noise of chafing and rustling times a thousand, times a hundred million.

I am a blade of grass and I am not alone.

Americans who cherish liberty will not allow this final insult to the American way of life occur and stand. We will attack it with our voices. We will attack it with our votes. If these anti-American forces refuse to yield and continue to take from us our God-given liberty, we will fight you wherever we need to, with whatever tools or weapons. If this Congress and this President make these steps, we will in a subsequent Congress and under a different President undo them.

We will not tolerate it, and we will fight for liberty.

I am a blade of grass and I am not a lone. I stand shoulder to shoulder in a sea of roaring grass, and we shout with one voice, “LIBERTY! AMERICA! JOIN US!”