Happy 4th of July, Independence Day! Remembering Their Sacrifice for You!

American Post-Gazette Distributed by C O M M O N S E N S E in Arizona July 4, 2020

Happy 4th of July, Independence Day! Remembering Their Sacrifice for You! The road we have walked as Americans has rarely been smooth or straight. We have been challenged and tested many times in many ways – by wars, natural disasters, disease, economic chaos, political strife, and yet the underlying documents that bind us have prevailed until now. Today, we stand at crossroads facing a new kind of enemy, more insidious, and in numerous ways, more deadly than any we have ever known. The enemy is among us, having insinuated its way into the highest offices of the land, threatening our liberty and the very foundations that made this nation. There have been times past when our patriotism has waxed and waned, when the pedestrian burdens that life imposes have distracted us, when we have become complacent in the assumption that all we enjoy is the normal human condition, but it is not. Our liberty was hard won, and we must fight to maintain it! We are reminded, today, of an immigrant to these shores - Mr. Thomas Paine, a man of modest means who became an anonymous pamphleteer, in a role we well know. Mr. Paine cloaked himself in anonymity to avoid the hangman’s noose. Not all of the brave signers of the Declaration of Independence were equally fortunate to survive the Revolution without having to wear the necktie of death. We at C O M M O N S E N S E are similarly anonymous, but for reasons that we wish only our ideas to be challenged, and this is best accomplished without the publication of persona. In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship." The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage. What does it take? Three Percent is the number of colonists who took the field to actively fight against King George III. Three Percent is the number of America’s armed citizenry today who can be counted on to actively resist any future restrictions on firearms, or indeed, any more attacks on the God-given natural liberties which are codified in the Constitution. There are, give or take, a hundred million firearms owners in this country. Three percent of that number is three million. So when we speak of the Three Percent, we are talking about three million firearms owners who are politically active, but no longer count on politics alone to defend their liberties. These three million have watched as our traditional right to arms has been attacked and diminished on the federal level for more than 75 years since the National Firearms Act of 1934. In that time, in almost every instance when a new firearm restriction has been proposed, we have lost the political argument and being law-abiding we have allowed ourselves to be shoved back, grumbling. The Three Percent are simply saying, "No more.” One more restriction on our natural liberties -- the liberties the Founders did their best to secure -- and we will resist. If our right to peaceably assemble with other law-abiding citizens is restricted we will fight back and dare the authorities to do anything about it!  We can only be oppressed with our consent, for we are armed. And WE DO NOT CONSENT. How will they react? They will shoot you or arrest you. Yes, they must. “It is what they do. That’s the ultimate threat behind every governmental infringement. ‘Do this or we will shoot you.‘ But THEY must fire first. Do we need a revolution? No, we need a RESTORATION. There must be no Fort Sumter(s). THEY must cede the moral high ground.” We are the Three Percent. We will not disarm. You cannot convince us. You cannot intimidate us. You can try to kill us, if you think you can. But remember, we will shoot back. We are not going away. We are not backing up another inch. And there are THREE MILLION OF US. Your move, Mr. Wannabe Tyrant. Your move.