Tag: John Hancock

The Hole That is In the SS United States – Why It Seems We Are Always Bailing Water

Simple thinkers see water coming into a ship, and they start bailing and KEEP bailing saying the water is the problem. But some may be aware that the root issue is actually the hole in the hull in the ship, the water in the ship is actually the symptom of the problem.

The United States of America has a huge hole in it. Now some may claim that it is (one or more of the below):

  • Liberal Democrats
  • Muslims
  • Russia
  • Iran
  • China
  • Racism
  • BLM/Antifa
  • Trumpsters
  • (fill in the blank)

Nope, all of these are symptoms of the problem according to Chuck Baldwin’s August 2018 message, and I agree!

Today in 2020 we have a whole generation of truth-avoiders and no one, especially a business or a corporation wants to tell them the truth. The media and even churches take part in spreading some of the latest propaganda and manipulations that the evil elites have given light to .. to distract the masses like Marxist Democrats, Anti-Constitutionalists (anti-Electoral College, etc) and the belief that global wars and interventions are essential for the USA’s safety. Feelings are the rule of the day.

Back in 1775 there was a spark from what was the compass of this country, an entity that would help to set this country’s course from Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the Articles of Confederation adopted in 1781 during a pandemic while fighting the most powerful empire on the earth.

The spark of independence came from men like Jonas Clark, a pastor in Lexington, Massachusetts colony of the British Empire. He and almost 100 of the men from his congregation did an amazing thing that day, 19APR in 1775 as told by Chuck Baldwin in a Renew America article in 2015:

.. Being warned of approaching British troops by Dr. Joseph Warren (who dispatched Paul Revere to Lexington and Concord with the news), Pastor Jonas Clark alerted his male congregants at the Church of Lexington that the British army was on its way to seize the colonists’ weapons and to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock. Both men had taken refuge in Pastor Clark’s home with about a dozen of the pastor’s men guarding the house. Other men from the congregation (around 75-80 in number) stood with their muskets on Lexington Green when over 800 British troops appeared before them at barely the break of day.

According to eyewitnesses, British soldiers opened fire on the militiamen without warning (the British command to disperse and the British opening salvo of gunfire were simultaneous), immediately killing eight of Pastor Clark’s parishioners. In self defense, the Minutemen took cover and returned fire. These were the first shots of the Revolutionary War. Again, this took place on Lexington Green, which was located in the shadow of the church-house where those men worshipped each Sunday. The men that were guarding Adams and Hancock escorted them out of harm’s way shortly before the troops arrived. Without a doubt, the heroic efforts of Pastor Clark and his brave Minutemen at the Church of Lexington saved the lives of Sam Adams and John Hancock. And eight of those brave men gave their lives protecting two men who became two of America’s greatest Founding Fathers. But, mind you, Jonas Clark and his men are as important to the story of America’s independence as any of our Founding Fathers.

Can you see this happening today? Is there any church out there in the US that would go gun-to-gun with Redcoats (local/state police, DHS agents, etc) to physically protect the cause of liberty?

.. two elements of American history are lost to the vast majority of historians today: 1) it was attempted gun confiscation by the British troops that ignited America’s War for Independence, and 2) it was a pastor and his flock that mostly comprised the “Minutemen” who fired the shots that started our great Revolution.

Let’s hear some more about the caliber of pastors we had in the 1770s:

James Caldwell:

James Caldwell was called “The Rebel High Priest” or “The Fighting Chaplain.” Caldwell is most famous for the “Give ’em Watts!” story.

During the Springfield (New Jersey) engagement, the colonial militia ran out of wadding for their muskets. Quickly, Caldwell galloped to the Presbyterian church, and returning with an armload of hymnals, threw them to the ground, and hollered, “Now, boys, give ’em Watts!” He was referring to the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, of course.

The British hated Caldwell so much, they murdered his wife, Hannah, in her own home, as she sat with her children on her bed. Later, a fellow American was bribed by the British to assassinate Pastor Caldwell – which is exactly what he did. Americans loyal to the Crown burned both his house and church. No less than three cities and two public schools in the State of New Jersey bear his name today.

John Peter Muhlenberg:

John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, when hostilities erupted between Great Britain and the American colonies. When news of Bunker Hill reached Virginia, Muhlenberg preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes chapter three to his congregation. He reminded his parishioners that there was a time to preach and a time to fight. He said that, for him, the time to preach was past and it was time to fight. He then threw off his vestments and stood before his congregants in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.

Muhlenberg was later promoted to brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and later, major general. He participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He went on to serve in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Joab Houghton:

Joab Houghton was in the Hopewell (New Jersey) Baptist Meeting House at worship when he received the first information regarding the battles at Lexington and Concord. His great-grandson gives the following eloquent description of the way he treated the tidings:

“[M]ounting the great stone block in front of the meeting-house, he beckoned the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear, curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean. At the first, words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston; then pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly, ‘Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me to Boston?’ And every man in that audience stepped out of line, and answered, ‘I!’ There was not a coward or a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist Meeting-House that day.” (Cathcart, William. Baptists and the American Revolution. Philadelphia: S.A. George, 1876, rev. 1976. Print.)

Back to Jonas Clark:

On the one-year anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Clark preached a sermon based upon his eyewitness testimony of the event. He called his sermon, “The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.” His sermon has been republished by Nordskog Publishing under the title, “The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington.”

In summary, although not every pastor was able to actively participate in our fight for independence, so many pastors throughout Colonial America preached the principles of liberty and independence from their pulpits that the Crown created a moniker for them: The “Black Regiment” (referring to the long, black robes that so many colonial clergymen wore in the pulpit). Without question, the courageous preaching and example of Colonial America’s patriot-pastors provided the colonists with the inspiration and resolve to resist the tyranny of the Crown and win America’s freedom and independence.

When I look around today, I don’t even see 1% of US churches prepared to withstand tyranny like the churches in colonial America had back in the 1700s. Yet, truth be told, the churches today have the capability to influence the American citizens more than the mainstream media, more than the US Congress and even more than the US President! However, what we have today in churches is a leadership vacuum, no resolve, but mainly an attention to the feelings of the people while avoiding truth, the truth of the Bible, the truth of liberty (and the freedom it beings in Christ) and the truth of natural law.

The hole, the root issue in the USS United States, is the church and pastors!

The truth that needs to be told but is withheld, because of feelings is, you can’t elect us out of our current problems in the USA. No country has ever been made more free using politics! Vote all you want, get petitions out there signed as such, and you are really just bailing water.

There are six things that Chuck Baldwin attributes to the impotence of the church in the United States of America:

  1. The church in general willingly cowers behind the 501C3 (1954 law) tax-exempt status (the corporate church). The IRS employs lawyers to approach most churches on a regular basis with brochures and visits to ensure they are aware of their “license” requirements, what they can say and what they can’t say, what they can do and what they can’t do. Jesus must be so ashamed of the church that the Gates of Hell could not prevail from.
  2. The church in general is teaching an enslaving version of Romans 13 that has turned men into sniveling subjects instead of having no king but Jesus. What most preachers do not understand that in a republic, the PEOPLE are king .. so render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s is not about giving resources and allegiance to a president, congress or federal government.
  3. The church in general has abandoned “blessed are the peacemakers” and have cheered and encouraged the warfare state in everything it says and does to the detriment of many oppressed people groups around the globe. The number of Christians in two countries the US brought “democracy” to in the last 20 years have very few Christians left as they have either been killed or became refugees.
  4. The church in general has glorified the GOP and GOP presidents allowing them to violate the US Constitution the same way the previous Democratic president did (when they were “constitutionalists”). Principles DON’T CHANGE!
  5. The church in general has traded unpopular truth that might hurt feelings for success, whether that be more members, bigger staff, bigger buildings and more programs.
  6. The church in general, especially in evangelical circles, allow believers to be blinded by the Zionist Israeli program that has been used to prop up a secular state enabled by the US Empire to be exempt from following international laws while funding them with foreign aid while the US’s deficit spending causes us to go broke and our kids to become tax slaves or worse in the next 20+ years.

In summary, at a minimum, especially after it was shown how impotent the churches were when the lock-down orders were given this spring and summer, there should be a movement to uncouple the churches from the government, sacrifice the 501C3 tax-exempt status and become the compass of each state in this federal republic. After this the following five items need to be addressed by each gathering/spiritual family. Maybe it is time again for the church to go underground like they did in the 1st century when persecution came to Jerusalem and Jesus-followers were scattered all over Asia, Africa and Europe!

Get back to basics!!! This republic needs a spiritual reset to plug that hole!

Peace out

-SF1

 

When Innovative Projects Get Hijacked (Part 2 of 2)

As a follow-up to my previous post about innovation hijacking, the above photo shows President George Washington leading 13,000 troops to put down a tax rebellion that was totally just according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

Alexander Hamilton’s plan to pay for the combined war debts of all the colonies with a heavy Whiskey Tax (in today’s terms, $2.50/gallon), in the Distilled Spirits Tax of 1791 act.

How very British of Alexander right? Apparently, the Amerexit (secession of the thirteen colonies from the British empire) was all in vain as the names and flags have changed but power instead of liberty reigns yet again. Hijacked!

So in my last post I had shown how George Washington, as a young British officer, sparked a war between two superpowers in the Ohio country, called the French Indian War (1754-1763), this conflict had a distinct fallout in the American colonies after its conclusion.  My effort today is where:

… I hope to bring both the ramp-up to revolution over the next 25 years (1750-1775) as well as the end result of the quest for independence into focus, and how the dreams of the 20% of the people that were for independence, liberty and freedom were hijacked resulting in a culture in 1790 that involved the very things they were fighting against:

… tyranny, new or higher taxes, monopolies, and restrictions …

By the end of the war the British Empire was the undisputed superpower in both North America and Europe and was all too eager to foist upon their hapless colonial subjects the previously unenforced Navigation Acts along with new taxes. Thanks George!

The liberty experienced for the past 140+ years started losing ground to increased power that the state brings with coercion and violence. To be sure, this shift was gradual, but within a generation it was clear that the British empire failed to understand each of the American colonies to the extent that they should never had intervened from thousands of miles away. As any parent knows, once you have a child on the way to their own independent life, attempting to control that child for the parent’s own well-being is an effort in futility UNLESS you make slaves of everyone.

In England itself, with the liberal Whigs out of power and the warmongering Tories in control, there was fresh support for the new King George III who would station its troops in the colonies during peacetime, enforce the Navigation Acts, restrict western settlement to stunt growth, and institute new Parliamentary taxation. Statist power came like a pendulum to each of the colonies. So with the Proclamation Line of 1763 that restricted western settlement, the 1764 American Revenue Act that enacted taxes on sugar and increased customs enforcement, and the 1765 Stamp Act that raised new taxes on paper products, it was finally The Stamp Act that was especially hated and produced a storm of protest.

Why was there no general revolt in 1763, or 1764? Murray Rothbard has a thought from his fifth volume of Conceived in Liberty:

Ultimately, revolutions are mass phenomena, and cannot succeed without the support—indeed the active and enthusiastic support—of the great majority of the population. . . . Otherwise it will not even make a respectable showing, much less take and keep the reins of government. But the masses will not move, will not erupt, if they lack aggressive leaders to articulate their grievances and to point the path for them to follow. The leaders supply the necessary theoretical justification and analysis of the revolution’s short- and long-term goals. Unaided by leaders, the masses tend to accept each act of tyranny, not out of willing agreement, but from failure to realize that successful opposition can be mounted against the status quo. The articulation by the leaders is the final necessary spark that ignites the tinderbox of revolution.

Leaders are not appointed, they rise to the occasion when this kind of statist tyranny happens. These leaders risk all, as during the American Revolution demonstrated in just the lives of those that signed the Declaration of Independence.

In 1765, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, who respectively wrote the Virginia Resolves and Massachusetts Resolves stepped up their game. Sam Adams also established a resistance group known as the Loyal Nine, which soon expanded into the colony-wide Sons of Liberty. The result was that by 1766 The Stamp Act was repealed.

However, in Massachusetts after the passage of the tax-increasing Townshend Acts in 1767, British troops occupied Boston and colonial assemblies were forced to be dissolved. The colonies responded to this increasing coercion with mass non-importation protests that severely hurt British commerce. This BOYCOTT sent a message to the British that eventually, three YEARS later resulted in that the Townshend Acts were partially repealed in 1770.

Yet again, the British Empire pushed buttons yet again as they are now dealing with a teenager, and enacted the Tea Act of 1773 that extended the British East India Company’s tea monopoly to American shores.

This was epic BS as ANY nation that picks and chooses where their people can purchase products THEY want (i.e. free trade) is not a friend of the consumer and is a fried of both economic warfare and eventual physical warfare. Here is looking at you President Trump with all your sanctions and trade deals. But I digress …

Those in Boston promptly responded accordingly with the famous Boston Tea Party of December 1773. Great Britain responded with the Coercive, or “Intolerable” Acts of 1774, which provoked the assembly of the First Continental Congress in late 1774.

It was at this point that the radicals (I am pretty sure in 2019 USA that these people would have been targeted, marginalized and most likely suicided), led by Massachusetts’ Sam and John Adams and Virginia’s Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, battled the conservatives and decided upon a colony-wide boycott of all British products.

In the spring of 1775, the British redcoats responded by trying to arrest Massachusetts radicals John Hancock and Sam Adams, who were currently near military supplies in Concord. Paul Revere traveled to nearby Lexington to warn of the impending British, and colonial minutemen confronted the approaching British troops. The showdown led to the famous “Shot Heard Round the World,” and the American Revolution began.

At this point, with open warfare on the people, which is what the confiscation of firearms is, how does liberty respond to power? Philosophically, it was with managing the war that the forces of liberty faced their most difficult challenge, since war is naturally a coercive event that leads to death and destruction.

The war itself split the liberty lovers that probably included less than 20% of the general population. Many would align with power within this renegade government and use British tactics and statism against the British. How absurd. Bringing war to a larger power in the same way that larger power does war is a study in insanity. This was accomplished both during the American Revolution as well in the Second American Revolution, the War Against Southern Independence that most people refer to as the American Civil War.

Murray Rothbard, in Conceived in Liberty Volume I-IV, yet again points to what method actually saved the American Revolution, which was the use of guerilla warfare where he is paraphrased as saying:

… the Patriots’ greatest military strength lay in their guerrilla warfare tactics (ambushing armies, sneaking behind enemy lines, disrupting supply chains, etc.) and he argued that the only libertarian method of fighting a war is through such guerrilla warfare. This is because it is relatively inexpensive since there is no standing army, soldiers are better motivated because they are close to home, and there is far less need for a stifling and oppressive military bureaucracy.

.. and beyond this, the strategy that was chosen:

.. the decision to fight the war conventionally led to enormous government intervention in the economy through paper-money inflation, debt financing, price controls, and confiscation of goods

War debt leads once again to a desire for a strong central government that will eventually bring tyranny to the forefront yet again, like in 1794 with Washington leading 13,000 troops into Western Pennsylvania and the very real situation we have today with a militarized Redcoat fully entrenched here in the USA in 2019:

So we have come full circle in showing how this struggle between liberty and innovation has with power and political status-quo bureaucracy.

So quickly, in general, I will offer two of my own experiences with this as I referred to in my previous post:

Also in “Part 2”, I hope to offer my own general experiences of where an innovative project’s dreams were hijacked by political and organizational forces bent on expediency and short term gains.

I have a two in mind, one in business and one in ministry, that I have personally participated in. The parallels are very interesting!

It does seem that innovative projects and initiatives do threaten the political status-quo in any organization. I have no doubt that this is the main reason that Jesus himself resisted the human-natural act of forming an organization to accomplish some vision or mission.

In corporate America, as opposed to smaller businesses, there seems to be a bent toward managing verses leading, that risks are to be totally managed so as to really make no progress at all for years or decades. In the end, the business can no longer sustain itself as management surrounds itself with “yes men” (I know that sounds wrong in this PC-world, just assume someone else e-mailed me about this aggression) and stifles innovation that would actually IMPROVE the ability of the business to provide value to its customers going forward.

In my specific case, a very innovative project was hijacked in the development stage by management that failed to understand the project’s attributes and decided to bring in a partner that was ill-equipped to compete development and bring the project into production. Along the way, typical traits were demonstrated like the marginalization of those who really knew the core philosophy of the project as well as how the design was intended to positively impact this business. In the end, money was squandered and the project, like so many in government circles (F-35, Ford Carrier Class, etc), ends up imploding and being a general dumpster fire where good money is thrown after bad.

In organized ministry circles, similar innovative approaches can also bring the status-quo political fake news people out of the woodwork to halt anything that they can understand as being beneficial for people who could use a relationship with Jesus to bring peace and love to their lives and give them an insight into the way that Papa (God, Father) is especially fond of them. Close-minded church-goers and rule-followers have little patience for alternative ways that people can be reached whether is be from one’s home, from a coffee-house or even in the marketplace.

In my specific case, a ministry that had already transitioned from an inward facing clique/country club to a spiritual family that actually had a heart for those without Jesus, just could not give up their view that the church building was the center of what Jesus-following is all about. Threatened that their years of tithing (investing) might find them not able to realize their ROI, they effectively marginalized any staff (professional/volunteer) personnel that would not maintain the new status-quo.

In both instances, the lost dreams of the innovators has to be grieved, which is a process that every visionary has to deal with in their own terms. While they will many times see the positives and learnings that came out of the process as being very beneficial for the next “project/dream”, there is usually always a scar on ones heart to those that gave their all to attempt something that others barely or rarely understand, something much bigger than themselves.

I can only reflect on how Francis Marion, guerilla leader of the militia in South Carolina (1780-1783) that successfully dogged Cornwallis so that he could eventually be trapped by the French fleet at Yorktown. After much of the conflict was over, he was already being marginalized for the next chapter of life in the American Colonies as I indicated in a previous post:

So by the fall of 1781 as the British catastrophe at Yorktown reverberated throughout the British Empire, there were nationalist forces that were already parting ways with the radicals, and even the militias that brought them to this day. By 1783, Francis Marion saw the writing on the wall. The NOV1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the 06JAN1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Continental Nathaniel Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”. Georgia had also given Greene 24,000 acres as well. Marion eventually was awarded 300 acres in 1785.

It should be noted that the correspondence Marion had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in DEC1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. Marion lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now.

It is little wonder then why there is much more effort needed to be put towards the maintenance of liberty in this broken world than it does to maintain power. It seems that power, and kings, is the default mode of man:

Just some things to reflect on.

I do hope this allows y’all to reflect on history as well as current events.

-SF1