America

The Forgotten Army and Murphy’s Law

Michael Cessna April 19, 2022

The Forgotten Army

In the wake of more violence by perpetrators who happen to use firearms this week, we are once again witness to strident calls to restrict the access to firearms by certain segments of the population, despite there being ever-less appetite for such actions, because most Americans now realize the fallacies and dangers of such calls for restrictions – because they worked so well before – not least, because we witnessed the spectacle, not two months ago, of the Ukrainian government frantically offering to almost literally throw military weapons of all types to a civilian population – few if any, of whom had any prior military experience or training – in preparation to receive a military invasion by a neighboring power that was literally “at the gates”, as it were…no word on how that is working out.

Probably not well.

Battles are fought all the time, on every continent, between all kinds of opponents. While it is true that the victors write the history, sometimes, the victors shoot themselves in the foot.

Today is no different.

*The Minute Man, a statue by Daniel Chester French erected in 1875 in Concord, Massachusetts; Source: US National Parks Service; Public Domain*

On April 19, 1775, a battle was fought outside the city of Boston, Massachusetts. In the aftermath of that battle, a heroic – even Homeric – myth was created, a kind of ‘American Iliad‘, which sought to define a nation and how it fought its wars.

The effects of this myth have killed innumerable American soldiers since it took hold, and has caused a potentially fatal misunderstanding of military force within the United States, a misunderstanding that drives everything from firearms design to national military fiscal policy, to casualty rates and has called into question not only the very idea of taxation itself, but of military training, as a concept. It is a myth that needs to be staked to the ground, and its head struck off.

The myth goes something like this:

“The arrogant, degenerate, and authoritarian British foolishly tried to clamp a tax on their American Colonies without giving them a say in the matter. When the Americans protested, the British tried to throw their weight around — at which point, the rugged, sturdy American farmers “grabbed thar shootin’ ayhrons”, and rose in righteous fury to destroy the vaunted professional army of the British Empire in detail…”

…Which would make for a really great story.

The only problem is that it is almost entirely bogus.

The taxation issue aside – and the British, to be honest, weren’t being unreasonable in any way, about it – here is what actually happened:

On the British side, as tensions rose in Boston, the Crown began to send in more troops. These troops had the cache of “the Regulars” behind their name…the problem being, the vast majority of them were raw, in the extreme. Most had never heard a shot fired in anger, and most of the units involved had been on quiet garrison duty for decades.

In contrast, as much as 40% of the Colonial militia in the region around Boston were not simply veterans, but combat veterans, of the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years War, for our European readers). As well, most of the senior American militia officers, while not having served as long as their British counterparts, had served all of their time during “active combat operations“, as we would say now.

When it became clear, in 1774, that military action was likely, the Patriot hard-core staged a political takeover of the Massachusetts Militia structure – largely a joke at that point – and began training in earnest and assembling supplies — while lots of historians like to discuss the activities of the Committees of Correspondence, or the Committees of Safety, not many tend to delve too deeply into the actions of the ad hoc Committees of Supply…’logistics‘ are boring drudgery after all.

Right?

*General Thomas Gage; oil on canvas; Author:John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), 1788; Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection; CC0/1.0*

General Thomas Gage – a very sharp (by the standards of the time) and well respected leader by all sides – tried to carry out his government’s orders, and 1774 became a kind of ‘spy war’, as British and Colonial intelligence teams sparred. (The Founding Father’s were hell on wheels when it came to intelligence operations, but that’s another article, entirely.) There were several small armed confrontations prior to the battle, and every one of them revolved around weapons and/or ammunition stockpiled by the Committees of Supply.

These raids, in fact, convinced the Massachusetts Patriot leadership to concentrate a large portion of their supplies at Concord – over 20 miles from Boston – to (hopefully) place them beyond the easy reach of the British garrison. Very quickly, however, Gage’s intelligence teams located the cache. Gage – who, knowing America and Americans very well, having both an American wife and nearly 20 years of service in America – had tried to take a diplomatic track to defuse the crisis. For his efforts trying to play peacemaker, he learned that he was about to be replaced (“aided and advised” was the term used) by three senior generals, so he fatefully decided to launch a swift raid to try and polish up his image, before he had to testify before Parliament.

Gage selected for the raid the British Army of the time’s equivalent to “special operations forces” – his garrison’s grenadier and light infantry companies; as an afterthought, he detailed his Third Brigade of ‘regular’ troops to act as a reserve force.

By the standards of the time, Gage’s plan was difficult, but it should have worked with little trouble. As it happened, however, Colonial intelligence was on the ball, found out about the details of the raid, and got the alarm out when the raid force began moving to their boats.

By the time the raid force marched into Lexington, the town militia company had assembled, then partially dispersed, to wait for events to develop. The details of Lexington are very well known: a tired, wet, jumpy British force; a confused command structure; and a random shot at the wrong moment, all combined into “the Shot Heard Round the World”…

*Cropped version of “The battle of Lexington, April 19th. 1775. Plate I.” In: “The Doolittle engravings of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775.”; Date: 1775*
*Source: New York Public Library Collection Guide: Picturing America, 1497-1899; Author: Amos Doolittle (engraver), Ralph Earl; Public Domain*

…Meanwhile, the Colonials had not been idle.

After their political coup to gain control over the militia, the Colonials – in addition to assembling a large amount of supplies – had been training relentlessly, while their senior leadership sorted themselves into a command structure with a speed only seen with veteran officers who have no time for posturing.

The numbers (Galvin) are staggering — nearly twenty-two thousand militiamen were available for combat on April 18th. Perhaps 40% of these troops could be termed “Minutemen“, available to respond to an alarm “at a minute’s notice“, at least in theory. In practice, the Minutemen were usually in the forefront of Colonial action.

LtCol Francis Smith, leader of the British forces at the Battles of Lexington and Concord; 1764; Artist: Francis Cotes (1726–1770); oil on canvas; Collection: National Army Museum (national-army-museum.ac.uk); Public Domain

*Portrait of Paul Revere, 1768; Artist: John Singleton Copley (1738-1815); oil on canvas; Public Domain*

As the well-behaved British troops’ destruction of what supplies they could find spurred the militia units assembled on Punkatasset Hill to march into history at the North Bridge, thinking that the British were burning Concord town, other regiments – summoned by the alarm riders Dawes, Prescott and Revere – were marching down the twisting road network towards the Boston Road. Because of the poor nature of the roads, the Militia units to the northeast of the fighting actually had further to travel than other units to the west, near Worchester.

Fighting began in earnest as the seven hundred or so British troops were swiftly outnumbered by the continually-massing militia forces, as they tried to make an orderly retreat from Concord down the tiny, twisting, sunken road between the two villages. By the time the task force reached Lexington, they were effectively finished as a fighting force; had Hugh, Lord Percy’s 3rd Brigade (summoned by LtCol Smith, the raid force commander, earlier in the morning) not been anchored on Lexington Green, awaiting the raid force, they would have been destroyed in detail.

As a result, after the British column rested and reorganized momentarily in Lexington under the artillery of the 3rd Brigade, they set out for Boston. Along the way, the leading elements of multiple Militia regiments struck the British column with as much force as they could; Brigadier General Hugh, 5th Earl Percy, wisely kept his column moving as quickly as he was able. As the Militia companies fired on the British, and the column continued its retreat, the remainder of the arriving regiments piled into the pursuing Militia column that snaked back along what is now called “Battle Road”.

Map showing the route of the British army’s 18-mile retreat from Concord to Charlestown in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. It shows the major points of conflict, as well as showing the route taken by Hugh, Earl Percy’s reinforcements; Date:Unknown date; Source: PDF created in 2000 (http://data2.itc.nps.gov/parks/mima/ppMaps/MIMAmap2.pdf); Author: US National Park Service; Public Domain (Link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Concord_Retreat.png for high-res)

In the end, of course, the battered, exhausted British column successfully retreated into Boston, while the pursuing Militia regiments fed in around the city to establish siege lines, beginning the American War of Independence…

…Which brings us to — “What’s the point of this article?”

The foregoing should demonstrate the obvious: that the Colonial Militia could never have fought the battle it did on the 19th of April without spending significant time training relentlessly and assembling a real supply base well beforehand — a supply base, incidentally, that shaped the entire course of the battle.

This leads us to several lessons about the “spontaneous uprising of disgruntled farmers”:

Training works. Disorganized rabble goes to war in droves – and dies in droves. Although they might win – will they have a viable population afterwards?
Supplies are vital. Without them, the enemy likely won’t go after you immediately…of course, you can’t go after them, either. For the modern “Patriot” militia in the US, this means that you need to stop being selfish and greedy, and start buying supplies for a unit, with the full knowledge that you are going to give all of that stuff away early, on.
Have a plan. Even if it’s a bad plan, that’s better than no plan at all.
Learn about “things military”. The myth of the “Armed, Righteous Farmer” (or “Worker”, take note) translates both to people feeling that they do not need to know much about “military stuff”, but also – dangerously – that it can’t be overly complicated. This, in turn, usually prevents people from asking things like, “Why are we spending US$148million for an airplane that doesn’t have an engine?” See: A, B & C
Don’t believe your own press. Ever.

Which brings us to…..

MURPHY’S LAW — Professionals vs Amateurs

Murphy’s Second Law of Combat is:

“Professionals’ are predictable, but the world is full of amateurs.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

There is a dangerous – and frankly, bizarre – notion that has been creeping into the Western psyche for the last twenty or so years. This particular pearl of twisted, acrobatic logic goes something like this:

Standing armies are dangerous to Liberty, are ridiculously expensive, encourage “foreign adventures”, and really aren’t all that capable, when it comes to winning wars. After all, that was the view of America’s Founding Fathers, and they were generally right, more than they were wrong, so this must be the case. Therefore, we just need to forget about standing forces, and rely on Citizen militias, like in the early days of the American and French republics – after all, the Swiss and the Israeli armies are all or mostly militias, and they do just fine…

…Now, this argument is rightly laughed at openly by anyone with anything more than the most cursory knowledge of military history or science — but the problem in both the United States, and increasingly in the other Western powers, is that few people study either subject. Indeed, it can be argued that the study of these subjects by anyone outside the professional military establishment is actively discouraged, with many institutions of higher learning being openly hostile to the very idea of devoting resources to such classes.

As a result, what had been the occasional comedic relief and internet meme fodder provided by certain political figures breathlessly ranting about the evils of bayonet lugs, “magazine bullet clips“, and “shoulder things that go up” has now taken on a far more serious dimension, as people who should know better are increasingly making dangerous attempts to use badly flawed historical references or simple dismissals and assumptions to prove their case.

While it is clear that armies can be dangerous liabilities to their home countries, as of the earlyearly-2000’s, few states in the world can be accurately described as being “military dictatorships”. Nor has this been the case for many years. However, given the history of the past hundred years, a tyranny enforced at bayonet-point is a valid fear.

But it remains – or should remain – a remote fear.

The willful disregard of history, technology, economics, logic and psychology in certain quarters, especially in hyper-unstable times such as these is a direct result, in most Western countries, of two or more decades of confused missions, “mission creep“, and shocking levels of mismanagement in defense expenditures and policies; the United States is unique only in the scale of its own issues.

This attitude is typified – to cite just one example – among adherents of former US Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who infamously suggested (supposedly as a joke) pursuing every enemy from Osama bin Laden to Somali pirates using mercenaries operating under Congressionally-issued “Letters of Marque” — in apparent ignorance of how such documents worked in the past, what the ramifications (legally, as well as internationally) could be, nor even the simple fact that there is painfully little incentive for anyone to pursue or attack such targets.

But that sidesteps the real issue, that being where these prospective privateers got their training and equipment in the first place…but that is a digression from the point.

To grasp this problem in full bloom, this author had it explained to him by a person, via Facebook (with, apparently, a completely straight face) that standing armies – and presumably, their training – were pointless, because all that training and equipment failed to prevent the slaughter at Omaha Beach, on D-Day, and that likewise, all the training and equipment in the world failed the US Army Rangers in Mogadishu, as well as the lack of victory in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and now in Syria, to say nothing of Vietnam…

…It is truly difficult to attempt to argue at such a level of “un-knowledge” (hooray for adding to the English language?).

To demonstrate this problem, let us engage in a thought experiment.

I propose a situation where two thousand people are assembled in a parking lot. We will divide them into two equal groups. These two thousand people are uniformly aged 18 – 25; are 90% male/10% female; are all in what could be generally regarded as “good physical condition“; and finally, all of whom are capable of reading to at least the eighth grade level.

These two units together, equal the manpower of two slightly large light infantry battalions. We will train each battalion for one year, at the end of which, they will fight. Battalion A will be trained the way citizen militia aficionados think they should be trained. Battalion B will receive a more conventional training regimen. Both battalions will have access to the exact same weapons and equipment.

Both battalions will be provided with teams of experienced instructors; but here is the first difference: Battalion A’s instructors will be a grab bag of prior service veterans from various armed forces, while Battalion B’s instructors will be a dedicated and experienced team of professional soldiers, working from a minutely planned schedule. (We’ll leave aside how Battalion A’s instructors actually got their training, for the moment.)

Neither group of instructors will accompany their battalions into the coming fight in a year’s time.

How will this play out? We’ll begin with Battalion A.

Firstly, Battalion A’s troops will have to purchase their equipment from their own pockets. This will significantly degrade their individual supply situation, because they are from a cross-section of the economic spectrum. Modern military equipment is expensive — it takes roughly US$3,000, as of 2016, to equip one person as a light infantry soldier with the most basic level of gear.

This also impacts their weapons: modern crew-served weapons (machine guns and mortars) are significantly expensive; the US military currently pays c.$25,000 for every 81mm mortar it buys – and there are anywhere from four to eight in an infantry battalion. Machine guns – from M249 SAWs to M2HB .50’s – are no cheaper. And those prices are only for the weapons themselves – ammunition not included. Battalion A might be able to pass a collection hat, but they won’t get more than a few military-grade automatic weapons. On top of this, Battalion A must purchase their own ammunition, for both training and combat.

Then, we get to training.

Battalion A’s recruits are completely untrained. Their instructors all have experience, but both they and their recruits — being unpaid — all have day jobs. This means that they will train when they can, usually between two and four days each month. That applies to both instructors and students. As a result, only fifty to sixty percent of the unit will be training at any given time, because that is all that will likely be able to show up.

As well, Battalion A will need to rely on charity to find places to train, where they can actually learn how to maneuver around in the field. Also, Battalion A must rely on their private vehicles for both training and combat – $25,000 for a mortar is a lot of money, but that’s only half of what a decent pickup truck capable of functioning as a “technical” costs, new.

Actual, “military-grade” vehicles are almost certainly out of Battalion A’s reach.

Because of the loose structure of the unit, the troops will choose their own officers and NCOs – sometimes, they will pick competent people, most times…not.

Meanwhile…..

Soldiers in a Niger army unit stand in formation while a dignitary visits their outpost during Operation Desert Shield. The men are armed with M-14 rifles; Date: 14 May 1992; Author: TECH. SGT. H. H. DEFFNER; Public Domain

Over at Battalion B, things are radically different.

Battalion B’s instructors started by herding them all aboard buses. They then trucked them to a large, remote base in the countryside. There, they began a punishing, 12-week long training cycle, learning as much of the basics of soldiering – which is far more than simply pulling a trigger – as they can. Battalion B will probably wash out 10-15% of their recruits during this period, mainly because a certain percentage of the population simply doesn’t mesh well with that kind of environment.

At the end of this 12 week cycle, the instructors give the troops a week off, to blow off steam. When they return, they begin a three week long advanced infantry course, where they fine tune the very basic infantry training they were given earlier.

This is also where the instructors begin identifying those with real leadership potential — with only a year to get ready, there is no time for a service academy, nor even full-length officer or NCO training schools. The leaders the instructors choose will be cracking eighteen hour days, while their troops will be running sixteen.

British Army Lt. Col. Alistair Aitken, commanding officer, Combined Forces Lashkar Gah; Date: 16 July 2011; Source: http://www.defenseimagery.mil/imageRetrieve.action?guid=d27d4312dd0f5f1534d9ac33ad07a4b5ff92c737&t=2; Author: Cpl. Adam Leyendecker; Public domain photograph from defenseimagery.mil.

After this, the recruits will enter a grueling, four month long training cycle, to learn the ins and outs of specific job fields. Finally, there will be four months of field maneuvers, trying lock down the specifics of complex operations, before going up against Battalion A…

So — how will our hypothetical battle play out?

A lot, obviously, depends on the mission of each unit: realistic orders and goals from the unit’s respective higher authorities will have an enormous impact on their actions.

But in most plausible scenarios, even if Battalion B performs badly, Battalion A is going to get used like a floor mop: if they’re lucky, perhaps sixty percent of their force will even show up. Those troops will have little coordination, as not everyone will have radios. Night fighting will be problematic, at best, since few of Battalion A’s people could afford night vision equipment. Battalion A’s casualty recovery and evacuation processes will haphazard to non-existent, exacerbated by many of its people not being able to afford even minimal body armor or basic medical gear.

In contrast, Battalion B – showing up with everyone who had not washed out of training – will likely be advancing rapidly, coordinating the movements of its subordinate units via radio. While many of its troops will be hit, their injuries will be greatly ameliorated by having everyone in body armor, and prompt medical processes. Some of Battalion A’s squad elements might have some level of success (and, being fair, possibly spectacular success), but nowhere near enough to affect the outcome: Battalion A gets creamed, ninety-nine times out of a hundred…

But why? Why should this be so?

In a word: Taxes.

Battalion B was equipped, trained, housed and paid by a government that took in enough money to make this happen. Just how much money are we talking about?

Conservatively speaking, somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-100 million dollars for the battalion…and that’s running on an extremely tight budget.

As of 2007, it cost the United States Marine Corps approximately $52,000 to “basically train” a single recruit over an eighty-six day training cycle. Add in an additional nine months of training, plus meals and graduated pay for troops and instructors, as well as replacing expended training materials, and you can easily multiply that by six — in excess of $300,000, per person…

…On top of the $50-100 million for the minimal amounts of arms, vehicles, equipment and expendable items a battalion would need to enter combat with.

Troops buying their own gear, and providing their own training, simply doesn’t work for any but the most basic of military functions, and hasn’t, since at least the year 1900.

Now, a charge of bias could be leveled, here, in that the author – a product of, and firm believer in, standing professional forces, supplemented by properly trained and equipped citizen militias – deliberately weighted the results of this hypothetical battle in favor of the big-government supported force. That is a valid concern, which I will now address.

When the “small government/citizen militia” advocates seriously suggest measures like what produced Battalion A, they invariably cherry-pick data, and cite examples well out of context to prove their points. Favorite examples include the US Army Rangers’ disaster in Mogadishu, and the examples of the Swiss and Israeli use of largely Citizen militia forces.

What they avoid mentioning are things like the lopsided numbers (90-odd Rangers vs c.3,000 Somali militia, with the Rangers inflicting at least 500 casualties, or more), as well as the fact that the Swiss and Israeli economies both stop dead if any large-scale call-up occurs. As well, the fact that both nations employ compulsory service for most of their citizens, in addition to maintaining comparatively large standing bodies of troops, is rarely mentioned.

Even in the United States, the various State National Guards do not operate this way: their recruits attend Regular Army basic training and schools, just like Regular Army recruits — although there may be long delays between schools.

In point of fact, no one outside of Third or Fourth World tribal militias even attempt to train forces using the weekend method…

…Because, again, it just doesn’t work against any serious opponent.

The point must be driven home, that this dangerous set of beliefs is not merely a beer and pretzel thought experiment, nor a set of hypotheticals discussed over gallons of coffee in a cafe.

Gary Hart was wrong to promote it in 1998, Ron Paul was wrong to imply it, and their adherents are wrong to promote it, today.

The Universe is not static; things change. You adapt the the changes or you get run over.

ON AMERICA’S TRUE MANIFEST DESTINY AND WHY I LOVE MY COUNTRY

Bill Collier April 17, 2022

By Bill Collier, Publisher- TLDR: Loving America Means Loving Our TRUE Manifest Destiny As a Free and Pluralistic Society of Equals and An Empire of Liberty and Justice For ALL

I love my country. If America ever needs me, I am there. Period. This country has given me far more than I could ever give back, and that includes my life. I meant it in 1987 when I donned a military uniform and I mean it now and always will.

Every country has its flaws and I don’t cotton to the idea America is objectively superior to every other country, but for me, America is the greatest country in the history of the world and is the best country for me. I will defend her always and until my last breath.

America has not always been America to EVERYONE.

Over the years we have been more and more inclusive and we have yet to fulfill our potential for every person, national people, or even community in this land. But the arc of our history has bent every more toward including everyone in this dream of true freedom surrounded by opportunity and fairness so that no person regardless of anything is ever left behind in our progress.

This work is ongoing and is being threatened by forces that come from a place of hatred, anger, and authoritarian control. The hazards to our true manifest destiny come from left and right, and even the middle, as a grievance culture, cancel culture, and jingoism compete as dark alternatives. We are seeing people look to the past to both condemn the future and their fellow Americans who weren’t alive as well as others who see in the past some idealized reality they think they can return to.

I look to the future, being informed by the past, good and bad, without using it to condemn or idolizing it to stop progress. I crave to see a time when our true manifest destiny as an empire of liberty and justice for all, an empire that protects and nurtures a totally free and pluralistic society of equals without favor or discrimination, is achieved and will always work toward that future, a goal which we have never fulfilled.

This is in fact the manifest destiny of America as a free and pluralistic commonwealth of multiple nations of people and totally sovereign persons within a federal union of free republics and local consensual democracies. This FUTURE is what makes me feel so proud of my country. I take this as an a priori article of faith that this land and its many peoples and sovereign individuals has a true manifest destiny to become an empire of liberty and justice for all.

To clarify, the “sovereign citizen” movement is a wacky, often jingoistic, archaic, and pathetic misrepresentation of what it means to be a sovereign individual in this world.

I am speaking to the future instead of getting lost and mired in the past. When we fulfill our manifest destiny to a substantial degree, then we can look back more dispassionately on the past and be more frank and honest. I do not ask you to idolize our past any more than you should use the failures of the past to condemn people or our country today. I ask you to love our future based on striving toward the goals of our manifest destiny.

As I see it, I know of no other country has the ideational framework, natural resources, or heritage and diversity of peoples that could create a future such as America could fulfill. That doesn’t mean I am right, but I suspect I am right.

Until everyone in this land almost always feels and experiences this manifest destiny, until THAT America of our IDEALS is America to EVERYONE almost all the time and in every place, then looking back is not a guide to the future but a way to keep us chained to the past. We must replace recriminations with aspirations. We must replace blame for the past with responsibility for the future.

The fact so few really understand and then also embrace and work toward this noble manifest destiny makes me grieve for my country.

Regardless of that, I love America, my country, and will always stand for her, for our flag, and for a more glorious future which will advance the cause of human dignity, human rights, and human flourishing like no empire in the past has yet done. This is my hope and it is a hope not limited by the past or present.

If perchance this future never arrives and if in future centuries America is no more, it will not be said that Bill Collier did anything other than fight for that future out of love for this country and its many peoples.

If all the national peoples and every free and sovereign person as well as every resident of every local community as a consensual democracy were to embrace this vision for our land then they would all, regardless of how they got here and even if they came illegally, be true Americans worthy of this manifest destiny and worthy of being treated as my equal and my countrymen.

But if even the “legal” citizens, by birth or naturalization, do not embrace such a vision for our country, then in truth they are no better than than the “illegals” they so staunchly fear will overwhelm this land and be used to turn it into something far worse than it has ever been. By rejecting or just neglecting this vision, these legal citizens are as much a hazard to our country’s long-term survival as anyone wants to claim the illegal migrants are.

We need people who love America and that really means loving our manifest destiny and as for me, anyone, regardless of legal status, who embraces this becomes my ally and everyone who rejects this is at least my political opponent, regardless of their Party or citizenship status.

The Root Cause of The Demise of Our Culture: It’s NOT What You Think!

Bill Collier November 13, 2021

Bill Collier, Publisher- What is the real cause of the demise of our culture, which involves moral confusion and depravity, the prevalence of corruption in every major institution, and the rise of authoritarianism, throughout all Western Civilization?

It’s not what you think!

Darbyism and other form of pessimistic millennialism represents the first stage of failure of what was once a mostly Christian civilization, our once noble and ever advancing Western Civilization, and the retreat of men and women of faith from their role as salt and light within a fallen world. This is the root cause of why our culture is a failed culture and why, even in our lifetime, we may see failed states replace our country unless this death spiral is somehow halted.

Darbyism and post-millennialism writ large and taken to literal extremes have undermined this civilization and relegated the church to the corners and edges, with neither economic/political influence nor challenging ideas.

“The imminent return of Christ totally forbids all working for earthly objects distant in time.’ Francis William Newman, Phases of Faith; or, Passages From the History of My Creed (London: George Woodfall and Son, 1850), 35.)*

This idea pervades the western church and has made it easy prey. Its idea of “engagement” and “relevancy” is mostly a marketing ploy to gain parishioners by accommodating their embedded assumptions and sociocultural constructs that contradicts core Christian ethical, moral, and basic doctrinal essentials. The church establishment in most mainline churches, including the Catholic church, has adopted the priorities and sociocultural constructs of the worldlings, with few marked exceptions, such the Catholic stance on abortion.

This reflects the negative eschatology in which it is believed that darkness alone will grow while light recedes and no advances or victories other than the “moral victory” of persecution and martyrdom, are possible until the Return of Christ.

I do not hold to such a negative, passive, eschatology.

If I am wrong but I diligently seek both to be a witness and influence, as salt and light in in proclaiming the Gospel, for Jesus and to build structures and institutions that will reflect the Christian worldview and last for generations, then what harm have I done? At the least, I have occupied until He Comes, and I have been a light in darkness without compromise.

But if I am right and the negative eschatology is wrong, and I say negative because merely waiting passively for the Return while the institutions around you devolve, insures ongoing defeat in this life and a lessening of the Christian witness and presence, then what of that? If you are wrong in your eschatology and you take Darby’s advice and then within 100 years the Christian witness and presence is virtually non-existent, because followers have been cancelled and starved and future generations brainwashed and prevented from even knowing the truth, then what guilt do you bear?

A negative eschatology is the best way for the enemy to triumph and to stamp out our Christian witness and if it is wrong then it is doubly problematic and harmful. But a positive eschatology that propels us to witness, to be an influence, to build our own sociocultural constructs and structures independent of the world, and to seek in our careers and livelihoods allows us to be a witness and influence. If then the end comes suddenly or the darkest days emerge, we have done no harm and have only saved more souls from eternal death.

The discarding of the Darbyist claims and all those that stemmed from them is essential both to the emergence of a Christian civilization and, more importantly, to the preservation of the Christian witness and presence for generations to come.

A Pandemic of Lies and Authoritarian Oppression

Bill Collier September 21, 2021

America’s latest aspirant to Caesar’s crown, one Joseph Biden, loves to talk about a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” But the real pandemic is a pandemic of lies and authoritarian oppression, as witnessed in part in this undercover video. In this video, it becomes clear that, in this Federal hospital that allegedly serves the Native American community, all efforts bend toward concealing any and all connections between the jab and negative side effects, including death.

This doesn’t prove that, statistically speaking, the side effects don’t outweigh the benefits, but it calls into question whether due diligence is being used in sussing out the ACTUAL side effects. What is more, the entire regimen of lockdowns, censorship, criminalization, mandates, and masks, and all the other things, all tend to feature two key things: they aren’t slowing the virus appreciably as the goalposts keep being moved and they only tend to make the ruling class wealthier and more powerful than the working class who produce the wealth.

If this video of this hospital is anything approaching the norm, that’s bad news for the entire population who, based on the claims in the video, may be being forced to use a medical treatment that is ineffective and whose potential side-effects are not truthfully reported. At the very least, in this community of Native Americans in this hospital, the people are not being served with honesty and integrity. Perhaps the fact this is a Native American community has made this careless and dishonest approach acceptable to the Feds.

Fauci funded the pandemic genesis, even if unintentionally, and he should be investigated and, if reasonable cause is found, tried for mass manslaughter. See Sky News Australia’s news report on the true origins of this virus. From the beginning we were lied to.

Whether or not you get the jab is up to you, but that doesn’t change the fact we are facing a pandemic of authoritarianism as opposed to a pandemic of the unvaccinated as one of our more divisive and shrill presidents has claimed. The vaccine isn’t living up to its promise and every goalpost so far, every promise, has turned into a new goalpost and a broken promise.

Perhaps we are being lied to, perhaps we are facing uncertainty due to an evolving threat that emerged thanks to US funding of forbidden research in a Chinese lab, or perhaps we are simply dealing with widespread incompetence by the Federal Government. Whatever the case, human dignity and human rights are being eroded and, like the Patriot Act which was allegedly aimed at Islamists abroad and which has now been aimed at domestic opponents of the ruling class, nobody expects these newly minted authoritarian powers to be relinquished.

It is argued, and perhaps not without merit, this pandemic was a crime of gross negligence by the very people who now want total control as a “solution” to their crime and as a means of covering it up.

Fear truly is, as said in Dune, “the mind killer”, and fear of this virus is driving people mad. This virus should be taken seriously, it’s no joke, and yet it isn’t in any way a justification for an authoritarian overreach that isn’t even working. It is probable that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the cost, but coercion, shaming, and not being perfectly transparent will continue to make any desire to see more than, say, 80% of the population become vaccinated unlikely.

On the other hand, if it is achieved at the expense of the Bill of Rights and if such precedence stands and if these authoritarian powers remain in place like the Patriot Act, then what good has been achieved? You have survived a virus only to become a slave. Many would prefer to take their chance with the virus and death than to be reduced to a cog in a machine they cannot control.

Is this video typical or an outlier? We don’t know. But we do know that incompetence and broken promises by the Federal Government is severe and that these draconian measures aren’t working. We do know our government has a long history of suppressing truth and conducting gross crimes against humanity or simply covering up horrible mistakes.

If we want people to be vaccinated we have to have transparency and honesty at every level and we have to always, carefully, weigh our reactions to do the least harm possible to human dignity, human flourishing, and human rights. If indeed this virus is unpredictable and frustrating in its evolution, we should avoid sounding certain and making threats and promises based on that certainty. To claim certainty and use fear and promises to gain compliance and then to say “my bad, but, hey, it’s impossible to predict this thing’s course” is totally unacceptable.

The people, all people, even the doubters and squeamish, deserve to be treated with honor, respect, and honesty. Villainizing them and possibly criminalizing them and gathering authoritarian powers you will never surrender even after this ends is a wholly inhumane and unethical response that warrants the very fear and resistance the ruling class and their phony press are so upset about.

Building A Nationwide Support Structure For Freedom Builders!

Bill Collier September 20, 2021

People struggle to build freedom mostly because they lack a support structure that gives them connections, activities, and resources that cater to them. The support structures of our present sociocultural and socioeconomic system benefit the rulers and corall and manage the serfs, they are not designed to promote or facilitate things like virtue, liberty, and independence.

What does a national support structure for freedom builders look like?

We intend to use a virtual-to-local approach to building such a support structure, we intend it to be fully funded mostly through subscriptions within a free market framework, and we intend it to support a multiplicity of freedom-building organizations, businesses, and local groups/networks all over this land. Our conception ot a nationwide support structure is based on a virtual-to-local approach where people connect and gain insights through The Freedomist and other affiliated websites or virtual communities but they use a ready-made local charter to gather and work together locally. In essence we are talking about a country-level Freedomist Network that either plants its own local franchise groups, communities, and networks or facilitates like-minded and similar, but unaffiliated, groups of people.

This website is just the beginning. Our content is meant to both inform you of current affairs from a pure freedom perspective and to arm you with ideas and concepts by which you might persuasively engage others. It is also meant to gather a massive countrywide list of freedom activists around the country, focusing in having at least 1000 “Freedomists” in every single Congressional District who support our effort as subscribers. This is both our main product, intelligence and empowerment content for freedom builders, and our crowdfunding effort. Through subscriptions to The Freedomist our goal is to build more virtual structures and to hire full-time freedom builders in every state and Congressional District who can proactively serve and support individual freedom builders.

In the event, for instance, we see at least 10 local Freedomist Communities in every US Congressional District with 500 or more members per community, we will see a massive support structure that tens of millions of Americans can access that facilitates their freedom building efforts. We could see a time when, thanks substantially to this countrywide support structure and its virtual-to-local approach, over 50% of all US Counties and Parishes have declared themselves to be Freedom Sanctuaries, or what we call “Freedom Shires”, whose elected or appointed officials, school officials, judges, and law enforcement at every level actively embrace and defend liberty as defined by the original spirit and intent of the US Bill of Rights.

Many freedom building efforts fail because they attempt to “go to battle” without first gathering, training, and nurturing an “army” of dedicated and engaged activists who are not merely told what to do but who are empowered and given agency to decide what to do within a broad but cohesive and disciplined framework. Our aim is to build the infrastructure for a countrywide Freedomist movement of activist freedom builders who are empowered to pursue and build their own freedom and to activate local citizens until they find themselves living in a Freedom Shire.

Let’s try to visualize this support structure and what it will do for you and local groups of Freedomists.

The “end of the funnel” for this effort is a Freedomist Group of around 10-20 adults, a Freedomist Club of around 120 adults, a Freedomist Community of perhaps 500-1000 adults, and, through their activities, the eventual declaration at County level of Freedom Sanctuaries, which, when combined with local freedom-building networks that facilitate individual and local self-reliance, result in a Freedom Shire.

A Freedom Shire isn’t an entity per se, it is an achievement wherein a county parish, or city has both been declared a Freedom Sanctuary and has a local citizenry who are mostly self-reliant and self-sustaining without being dependent on any entity or system they do not directly own and/or self-govern. This is the end-goal of the Freedomist: to facilitate communications, knowledge, connections, and collaboration which would ultimately result in over 50% of all US Counties, Cities, and Parishes being both declared Freedom Sanctuaries and achieving a Freedom Shire state of being.

We cannot begin to imagine the political, cultural, and economic shift and devolution of power and wealth from the top and center to individuals and local communities that must necessarily and inevitably follow achieving this result. If over 50% of all US Counties, Parishes, AND Cities become like unto a Freedom Shire in their living, daily reality the ability of left or right authoritarians to corall people into serfdom would be critically undermined.

Let’s focus on a Freedomist Community organized around Groups and Clubs and what activities it would promote, facilitate, or conduct. The Freedomist Community would be responsible for the following primary types of activities:

1. Providing hosting and meeting facilities to engender social activities and gatherings among Freedomists and to engage the local citizenry in a Town Meeting system of instruction and guidance to all local officials and entities of any kind that hold a public trust (Clubs would have their own local facilities)

2. To create a mirror structure of all local official and corporate or non-profit organizations and entities whereby “Mirrors”, individuals who mirror their actual counterpart, and their 5-10 member Round Table Groups, shadow and track all activities and, at the behest of a Town Meeting of all Freedomists, engage those officials in a transparent civil discourse

3. To facilitate the development of a local intranet through mesh hubs whereby Freedomists can connect and communicate without using corporate controlled platforms, communications services, or the internet which can also be connected to all such networks via our own satellite communications

4. To act as and build a local people-centered free press using the RAWE News model where RAWE stands for Resource, Advocacy, and Watchdog coverage that is Entertaining and Educational

5. To facilitate the printing and distribution of a free “underground newspaper” that speaks the truth and mobilizes peopld to take positive, peaceful, and effective action for freedom

6. To provide educational, inspirational, and practical information and local training and cooperative activities that tend to help individuals, families, and free associations to be prepared for disasters and emergencies, to become materially self-reliant and independent, to be safe and secure, and to have legal protection of their rights, persons, and property from all hazards

7. To educate, inform, motivate, and mobilize voters to take The Freedomist Pledge, participate in local Town Meetings and Caucuses to guide all local officials and organizations, and to vote in elections based on a Freedomist litmus test

8. To find constructive and consensus-based solutions and answers to actual injustice and inequity which affects local people and through which the result is a local culture that is based on a free and pluralistic society of equals

9. To facilitate and nurture, through our own alternative Chambers of Commerce, a true free market, a Freedomist-based capitalism that puts people first as opposed to the cronyism masquerading as Capitalism, whereby economic exchanges are based on freewill participation for the profit and benefit of all (even if you don’t like the word capitalism, we hope you embrace our concept of a truly free market that is just and equitable)

While our goal is to work with everyone who will work with us, our initial focus must be on finding, gathering, organizing, and mobilizing a core of Freedomist activists around the country until there is a vocal and visible Freedomist presence in every US Congressional District.

Today we have a free email list of around 584,000 American Citizens and an activist list of around 78,000. We have far to go but we have a good start and with your help we plan to go much further. Our network reaches many thousands of people every day, but we need to reach multiple millions and we need them to be from all over this land amd from all major demographics.

The Freedomist is NOT “Republican”, our core is freedom with justice for all people equally and fairly without favor or prejudice. We are not “Democrats”, our concept of freedom is founded on virtue, liberty, and independence at the individual to local level and through freewill participation among equals.

The Democrats today lead the charge in freedom taking activism using bogeyman fears and utopian promises on one hand and suppression and corporate censorship on the other hand. But that could change in the future as the Republicans are today collaborators with this freedom taking agenda and were in the past in the vanguard of this execrable movement away from freedom.

To Republicans freedom has been basically limited to doing whatever you like for profit and the social consequences or social injustice be dammed. To the Democrats, freedom is mostly limited to sensual life in the form of sex and recreational chemicals while in all other matters their corporate monopolies or the government are in total control of your life.

Neither the Republicans or the Democrats are a pro-freedom party. Neither truly advances freedom based on virtue, liberty, and independence for everyone equally, fairly, and justly. The policies of neither Party could ever result in an individual and local community centered free and pluralistic society of equals.

By building this countrywide support structure we have a chance to stem the tide of leftwing and rightwing anti-freedomists whose agendas tend to do harm to the rights, persons, and property of average people, albeit each Party tends to favor some demographics over others.

America As A Commonwealth of Freedom

Bill Collier September 17, 2021

If you truly want a free country, a Commonwealth of Freedom, start by repealing the 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve Act, both in 1913, the year our republic died but it took this long for that death to look obvious. Anybody who isn’t serious about these things isn’t serious about saving freedom from our corrupt and rapacious ruling class and is just playing silly games that don’t matter to anyone in any material way.

Beyond these things the following Constitutional Amendments, or something like them, are needed to enhance the Bill of Rights and devolve power to private persons and local communities. Whether you agree with them all or not, perhaps by sharing them we can begin a transcendent and open discussion of alternatives to the present and increasingly authoritarian system of corruption and control.

Here is a starting point for reform, dubbed “The Expanded Bill of Citizens’ Rights”:

1. Term limits and the rights of recall, petition, guaranteed majority elections, referendum, and redress, paper ballots, secure manual and publicly visible vote counting, voter ID

2. Treatment of corporate entities that exceed 5% market share, all Unions, and all financial institutions that serve the general public as semi-official bodies with a “public trust”, and that they be bound by the Bill of Rights in their treatment of their clients and the public, prohibiting them in the same way government entities are prohibited from participating in partisan politics

3. Creation of new Domestic Nations with tribal status and Homelands with the same internal autonomy as the states with the basic requirements being these Homelands be at least 100 acres in size for each parcel and the Domestic Nation have a tribal, ethnic, or fraternal bond and be similar to a fraternal benefit society of at least 25,000 members save for indigenous tribal groups which have to size requirement and granting one seat in Congress to each such Domestic Nation per 800,000 members

4. Return to the Gold Standard

5. Creation of a 1200 member Council of Censors individuals can petition to try any official in government who violates the Bill of Rights, this body being drawn by lottery from qualified Electors who pass a Constitutional Law test and who have a high character

6. Strengthening the Bill of Rights explicitly, especially the right to arms equal to a common infantry soldier, the right of free speech, Rights of conscience and free association, freedom of religion, and trial by jury

7. Requirements that all laws apply to all officials in government, that they be easily understood, and that they all be subjected to national referendum, as well as the REINS Act

8. The death penalty as the ultimate punishment for officials who violate the Bill of Rights, or at least stripping their citizenship

9. All elections use paper ballots, require ID, and all counting be live video fed to the public and be observed by all Parties and candidates designated representatives

10. Free trade that is fair trade aimed at applying the same regimen other countries apply to US goods and services to those countries and dissolution of international bodies like the WTO and the IMF, which are global kleptocracies

11. The right of freehold by which no person shall be taxed in their freehold, i.e. property taxes cannot be levied on the essential freehold needed for families and individuals

12. The right to form clustered living cohabitations for people related by blood, nationality, or fraternal bonds with up to 200 adult member-owners of a mutual benefit corporation and the internal social, cultural, and economic liberty of the same

13. The ability of 2/3rds of all States, whether by their Governor OR the legislature, to veto a Supreme Court ruling and require a national referendum in which 60% must APPROVE of the Supreme Court ruling

14. Reform of prisons to require no private prisons, no exploitation of the prisoners, and humane treatment that transitions prisoners to productive life in civil society and punishes those guards and prisoners who harm other inmates and holds all prisoners to a humane and civil standard: death penalty for prisoners who rape or seriously injure other inmates

15. Removal of government from all forms of marriage or civil unions with each marriage/civil union being a private contract, albeit absolutely prohibiting polygamy and allowing any domestic nation or religious organization to define these matters as they see fit

16. Ending federal involvement in all activities not explicitly consented to by 3/4 of all States with all federal departments being subjected to review as well as termination of all regulations not explicitly passed by Congress in detail

17. Requirement that no member of Congress vote on any bill they have not read and that unrelated items not be grouped together, with the Council of Censors having the power to try any member of Congress who fails to abide by this

18. Stripping of citizenship from any member of Congress who advocates for any policy deemed to violate the Bill of Rights in their original spirit and intent by the Council of Censors

19. Supremacy of Common Law and requirement that all alleged violations of any law be shown to involve an actual tort as well as creation of a requirement that all juries be directed as to their right to exercise jury nullification, to try both the person AND the law

20. Restriction of all Courts to the original spirit and intent of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, and the trial of any judge by a 12 member panel from the Council of Censors who violates this with the penalty being stripping of office and citizenship

21. Requirements that every state deem Counties or Parishes as constituent and self-governing entities which are assumed to hold all the powers not reserved to the Federal Government and that 3/4 of all Counties be required to approve state functions with a review of every department, all states being sovereign republics consisting of the Counties or Parishes

22. Home Rule Amendment whereby locales may form consensual community democracies through a consensual decision-making process like unto a town meeting with maximum local sovereignty

23. Treatment of gangs, totalitarian organizations which envision the destruction of liberty as defined by the Bill of Rights, terrorist organizations, and violently racist organizations which would violate the rights of others, as deemed so by the courts, to be criminal organizations as non-lawful enemy combatants in a state of rebellion, affiliation therewith being illegal (subject to review by the Council of Censors)

24. Community policing through a citizen’s constabulary led by ward level elected constables and the elected Sheriff to replace local police and state police, with greater access to weapons for volunteers who participate, creation of a county level 120 member Council of Censors who both oversee the entire Citizen’s Constabulary and who protect the Bill of Rights from violations by elected or appointed officials and government entities

25. Requirement that Constitutional literacy, especially the original spirit and intent of the US Bill of Rights, be taught and tested in High School, be a condition of receiving the right to vote as an Elector, and be taught at a higher level to obtain any degree or professional license

Such reforms are necessary to save the country and transform America into a commonwealth of freedom, a free society of equals which leaves nobody behind. We can debate these ideas but we need a new set of Amendments to fortify the rights of citizens and devolve power from state and federal governments and mega corporations to individuals, private free associations and enterprises, and local communities.

Authoritarianism Has Infected Our Society and It Must Be Defeated

Bill Collier September 13, 2021

Authoritarianism isn’t a strictly Democratic Party thing, it’s a malady afflicting almost all people with a high position, in government and corporations, whose first reaction to most problems is to force people and to delegitimize dissenters and opponents. The very rhetoric common to elections, in which the other side is painted in the grossest terms and with exaggerated caricatures, is an authoritarian tactic when you cannot win with ideas and/or your audience, the voters, lacks the mental discipline to be won by ideas rather than personalities and slick marketing.

Unfortunately none of us, including the Freedomist, is immune from this malady in our rhetoric and, while we must call out true authoritarianism and corruption in uncompromising language, our collective conscience as a country has been perverted into this authoritarian instinct toward the “others” outside our group. If our forefathers said something like that our form of government required a virtuous or moral people, surely civic virtues must be included in that “morality”, not just our own convictions about love, marriage, family, and decency.

Whether it was George Bush the second and his war on terror, along with his “Patriot Act”, or Biden’s vaccine mandates on all companies who have over 100 employees, the basic instict, left and right, is to use the hard power of authoritarianism rather than trust people as individual, families, free associations, free enterprises, trust communities, and local governments to make the best decisions for themselves. In an environment where everything outside state and federal government has the most power to choose and where these bodies of people and individuals choose what is best for them, the best and smartest ideas triumph over foolishness.

Devolution of corporate and political power from the few to the many is an essential element in any kind of freedom agenda. This must be coupled with caring for the places and people in our country who have been historically and presently left behind and denied equal and just access to the “American dream.” This is a vision of liberty with justice for all and prosperity through a combination of merit and equitable opportunities, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, status, sex, or anything else.

The desire to have a free and pluralistic society of equals where merit is matched with absolutely equal opportunity leads to an instinct that is averse to using the hard power of authoritarianism. Nothing, not even a pandemic that has less than a 1% chance of killing the afflicted, justifies authoritarianism, but for most politicians, every crises is an opportunity for self-aggrandizement or to do favor for cronies who helped them into power.

The Biden administration’s reliance on authoritarianism is becoming intolerable for those who disagree with his neocommunist ideology and his perverted hedonism. But for those who endured Trump’s ideology and who saw his ideas as undermining social justice and fomenting divisions, the same sort of angry opposition was the result. Trump’s rhetoric was hostile, crude, and lacked decorum and was almost always meant to engage in character assassination rather than engaging in ideas.

We are not losing our collective minds over Trump’s rhetoric and, while we reject such behavior in any leader, the truth was that President Trump did not materially assault our core freedoms as most Democrats do, but other Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and Kevin Brady, have no compunction with using authoritarianism. Both, for instance, support the ideas of taxing miles driven and installing a breathalyzer or something like it in every car, all gross violations of our human dignity and human rights.

The attitude from those on the right, which we as Freedomist have long been associated with whether we mean it or want it or not, is for those disadvantaged by our society to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps”, and to stop whining about racism or social and economic justice or historic wrongs like slavery, native genocide, or prejudice. When being black and living in certain cities is a guarantee of lack of equitable and fair opportunity and of societal prejudice, the right response is to rally around such people and demand restorative justice without violating anyone else’s rights in the process.

The wrong response is to demonize all white people or to use this as a justification for authoritarian measures, like “outlawing”, now via corporate monopolies, “hate speech”, and broadening the definition therof to include any idea not in harmony with the enforcer’s pet ideology. The wrong response is to deny this injustice and to hire mercenary occupier cops who treat the populace like the entire community is one vast slave plantation.

Authoritarianism as we define it is the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to corporate or governmental powers/decisions and policies at the expense of personal freedom and self-determination among voluntary bodies of people, usually coming from a lack of concern and respect for the wishes, concerns, needs, or opinions of others.

This definition of authoritarianism is accurate and useful as a plumbline to determine whether an official, corporattion, or any entity, including the so-called “press”, is acting out in an authoritarian manner. We find thereof that aspects of authoritarianism have pervaded our culture and our very discourse to such a degree that one hardly realizes that it is present on their side but readily sees it on the other side.

If your response to something is to want to make it mandatory, whether by corporate or government power, and to show a lack of concern or respect for others who may have different opinions and needs, then you are afflicted with this malady. You are also part of the problem. We are part of the problem!

Freedom is built on virtue, liberty, and independence. Included in virtue is social and economic justice that leaves nobody behind. Included in liberty is equitable opportunity to have a fair and even chance at life. Included in independence is the country-wide mutual assurance and restoration of people and communities who have been left behind so that they can become materially independent.

As Freedomists we want all the freedoms associated with the right in their rhetoric, things like free speech and self-determination, self-preservation and a free market. We think our friends on the left should also embrace these things because without them social and economic justice are just words used to make people angry and get votes without actually helping them.

But as Freedomists we also embrace the virtue of social and economic justice by which nobody is left behind. We embrace equitable opportunity and fairness so everyone has the same even chances based on their true merit of character and skills. We embrace mutual assurance to help people in crisis and restorative justice to lift up people and communities left behind until all can become materially independent.

We urge our friends on the right to see in these things not a leftwing plot to impose comminism, though actual necomm progressives are using rhetoric about these things to move us toward authoritarianism. We urge our friends on the right to realize that if we can address these issues and needs then our entire free and pluralistic society will flourish and freedom will prevail.

For instance, white shaming isn’t restorative justice. Restorative justice is when a disadvantaged person and their community are given a hand and assistance to become prosperous and to take back their power in a way that matches their needs, wishes, and beliefs. The end goal of restorative justice is for every person and every community to have the same platform and opportunity to prosper and succeed and to always enjoy the same human dignity and human rights which leads to human flourishing as everyone else.

We must both purge ourselves of authoritarian thinking and we must discern, expose, confront, and overcome authoritarianism wherever and however we can, and that without partisan favor or prejudice.

What Follows If America Ceases To Be A Commonwealth of Freedom?

Bill Collier September 10, 2021

What will happen if freedom itself dies in this land at the hands of the woke communists and their neocon collaborators?

America cannot remain the world’s predominant freedom commonwealth uniquely blessed by God if our people are willing to follow a godless ruling class and their prescriptions, which violate human nature, the laws of Creation, and God’s standards of righteousness and justice. These things may be protected by law, but they cannot be mandated by law, they either come voluntarily from the heart or they will eventually be involuntarily outlawed. A society of people who willingly embrace depravity and authoritarianism as the norm will never tolerate anything other than total submission.

Imagining that we can, or should, change the fundamentals of human nature in how we create things like marriage, family, and community is a deadly and foolish undertaking that will surely lead to ruin. But the majority of Americans are clearly willing to submit ir tolerate leaders and people with a public trust who do these very things and who desire to shun, shame, and outlaw those who refuse to go along with their godless social, cultural, and economic norms.

What then follows if America as a country ceases to be a commonwealth of freedom and devolves into a savage, alt gendered, totalitarian state where only a few corporate and political shot-callers control politics and where politics controls everything else? What happens is that God raises up new peoples and new countries to fulfill that which America, as a whole country, first ceased to defend and then began to attack.

We can foresee a day, unless the current path is changed, when those who love things like freedom founded upon virtue, liberty, and independence will be a persecuted minority who can only survive through parallel structures that have no dependency to the godless, anti-freedom structures which then dominate this land. But those parallel structures can emerge and, with God’s protection and provision, no power in hell or on the earth will be able to prevent them from emerging and thriving.

Indeed, if America as a country is to be redeemed, then the emergence of new structures for an entirely parallel sociocultural and socioeconomic infrastructure and civilizational paradigm cannot come soon enough. The alt-gendered, hedonistic and authoritarian “woke communism” with its cancel culture extremism is aimed, by hell itself, at the heart and soul of God’s intended manifest destiny for America.

Being afraid to confront and resist the violent perversion and attempted redefining of such sacred instruments of God’s will for human civilization, such as marriage, family, kinship, nationhood, and community, exposes our own pusillanimous hearts. Such a people who cannot or will not arise and resist the siren call of hedomism and authoritarianism will have their lights extinguished and God will raise up a new people, new nations, and a new commonwealth of freedom.

The idea God’s arc of history for human civilization will be prevented from being fulfilled is an idea born in an absence of faith and truth. As the worldlings grow in their wickedness, so too God’s people, if they heed His call, will grow in virtue, and as the worldlings become less free, the nations of people who follow hard after God will become ever more free.

At no point in human civilization will the power hungry, perverted, morally reprehensible forces of totalitarianism whose every idea is born in hell gain world dominion. Pockets of human flourishing rooted in God’s blueprint for human civilization will always remain somewhere, until the time when God removes His People from this present world.

We envision the deliberate creation of alternative, parallel structures, beginning with a virtual commonwealth called “Upadaria”, as a platform that promotes freedom based on virtue, liberty, and independence and that emulates a non-territorial “country” that adheres to God’s standards of righteousness and justice for the nations. We believe the creation of these structures, which also includes distributed free cities, hubs of refuge and support, and clustered living options, could help restore America to its true manifest destiny or, in a worse case scenario we do not want to see happen, create an ark of sorts for people during times of great unrest and ruin.

People who either embrace our virtual commonwealth as e-Citizens or who embrace our alternative nationality, as peers of a globally-distributed spiritual nation whose God is the Lord, will find options and alternative solutions that tend to enhance their level of freedom and prosperity while empowering them to become more influential as a witness for the Lord to others. In the end, this could become the basis of what follows IF America as a country ceases to be a commonwealth of freedom and abandons its true manifest destiny. It could also become the rallying point and foundation for restoring our country to its God-given purpose.

We hope, pray, and work toward creating these parallel ideas, relationships, connections, and structures toward the end of saving our country from being dominated by perverted and corrupt authoritarians, the woke communists and neocon collaborators, whose only god is their own self-pleasure.

But we also know and acknowledge that if Americans do not reject and resist, with spiritual weapons and not the weapons of this world, the wanton destruction of our culture and way of life, then what follows will be the demise of our country and the emergence of new nations of people and a new country who fulfill God’s intention to always have a commonwealth of freedom on this earth.

Why Is America The Greatest Country Ever and Can It Last?

Bill Collier September 10, 2021

If you aren’t an American and we say America is the greatest country ever, this may rankle you a bit and make you feel insulted or that we who say that are conceited and rude. But bear with us for a bit as we explain why this is so and why this definitely doesn’t make any American better or more valuable than you, because everything we say about America, for the reasons we give, can be said about you, for the same reasons.

On the other hand, if you happen to hold an American citizenship and vote in our elections but don’t agree that America is good, perhaps you are looking in the wrong places, perhaps you are acculturated to see only our flaws and failures, and perhaps you are so animated by alien and, frankly, rather authoritarian ideas that your eyes will always be jaundiced toward this country. We won’t accuse you of not being an American if you are genuinely deceived about how and why America is good, and therefore great, but there are some who hold our citizenship but whose hearts have turned against us in the same hateful passion any foreign foe might feel toward our country.

America is the greatest country because the arc of its history, even in its most flawed states and during its most henious acts, bent ever more toward freedom and God’s standards of righteousness and justice, thus producing more liberty and prosperity for most of its people than any country in history.

America was not and is not “America” to everyone all the time, some whole groups of people (think inner cities or Appalachia, native American reservations, or the migrants we both tempt across our borders and then condemn as illegals) are left behind. But more of a percentage of Americans were embraced and blessed with freedom and prosperity in, say, 1990, then 1890.

That being said, and this is where America is in danger of losing its crown as the greatest country, the amount of total individual freedom and individual to local autonomy from a top-down system of control owned by the most privileged in 1790 has eroded and hasn’t been experienced by very many Americans even today. Put another way, a rich, white, male in 1790 had more freedom in that era than anyone, including rich white males, does today.

A downward trend isn’t a forever trend and if America is somehow returned to the path of its true manifest destiny as a commonwealth of liberty with justice for all, then we will see this a mere dip in an otherwise upward arcing advancement.

America owes its status as the greatest country ever to God alone. What made us great is our arc toward ever greater freedom with justice and prosperity for all that became more and more common for more and more a percentage of our population. This is an arc of history any would-be tyrant or authoritarian coterie could not tolerate as it would make their totalitarian agendas less feasible.

In the Freedomist vision for America nobody is left behind, the arc of our history continues back on track to expand freedom with justice and universal opulence (abundant prosperity) for all, without exception. If you think rich, white guys in 1790 had all the privileges and maximum freedom and prosperity and this upsets you, consider focusing less on bashing rich white males and more on wanting all Americans to have the same freedom with justice and prosperity.

This all came from God. We did not invent it or create it. Indeed, anyone, anywhere in the world who learns the ways of God’s standards of righteousness and justice will find the same blessings of freedom with justice and universal opulence.

America is the greatest country on the earth because of the blessings and will of God, who made this land a beacon of hope and a model of liberty to all the nations as part of His plan and blueprint to advance human civilization and therefore human dignity on this planet. We are not better people than anyone else. Everyone on the planet who sees in America’s goodness, despite our sometimes badness, the ways of God for the nations which ought to be emulated by all will have a part in these blessings.

American exceptionalism is a product of God’s plan to provide a sanctuary to the oppressed and an example of freedom to the nations. Why He chose this country is only known to Him, but God is the source and deserves the credit. Turning from God’s standards of righteousness and justice for the nations, denying His blueprints for human civilization, beginning with marriage and the family as well as extended family and local communities, we would eventually forfeit this status and God would raise up new nations and a new country or countries to carry the torch of His benevolent desires for humanity.

How and when this happens, if America as a country becomes a secularized, hedonistic, and authoritarian society led by unscrupulous and corrupted leaders without any regard to our true manifest destiny, is not clear. It can take decades or be sudden.

America is the greatest country ever, for now, but that isn’t anything we can brag about as if we made it happen, and it isn’t going to continue as long as we, as Americans, reject the God who made this happen and reject His manifest destiny for our country and His standards of justice as righteousness for the nations.