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-Land of the Free
General Gage's Gun Grab
2024-04-19
[Breitbart] On April 19, 1775, seventy-eight-year-old Captain Samuel Whittemore crouched behind a stone wall next to his home. Whittemore’s old fingers tightly gripped his musket and his pistol. A sword hung from his belt. A phalanx of Redcoats looted homes as they retreated back to Boston. The senior Patriot, who had resisted tyranny and the rule of the Crown for years, planned to fight to the death to defend his home.

When the British troops approached, he blasted away, slaying two Redcoats and wounding or killing a third with his sword. The Redcoats then unleashed their fury on Whittemore, shooting him in the face with a .69 caliber ball, taking off part of his cheekbone, and bayoneting him six times. To finish the job, they bludgeoned him with the butts of their muskets, shouting, "We have killed the old rebel!" Whittemore lay in a pool of his own blood. His hat and clothes "were shot through in many places."

Miraculously, the old Patriot stubbornly refused to die. Brushing off the flesh wounds, he would live to the ripe old age of ninety-six. This week marks the anniversary of Whittemore’s epic stand and the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Two hundred and forty-nine years ago, farmers, tradesmen, laborers, and mariners—Americans of all stripes—came together to defend themselves against the most professional army in the world. April 19, 1775, marked the beginning of an epic journey for a band of brothers who risked EVERYTHING for a nation yet to be born. Over the course of nearly eight years, many of these Americans marched thousands of miles, often shoeless, unpaid, and starving, to fight for freedom and liberties most Americans today take for granted. Their resolute stand matters in light of multiple current events and relentless threats to American liberty.

In the fall of 1774, King George III told Lord North, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, that "blows must decide whether they [colonists but hereafter referred to as the Americans] are to be subject to this country, or independent." The Crown moved toward using force. For years, friction had been building in the provinces. Beginning in September 1774, Gage’s forces conducted a number of so-called powder alarms aimed at seizing gunpowder and munitions. Black powder in the colonies was precious and had to be imported, since virtually no organic production existed in North America. The Crown put in place a ban on the importation of powder and firearms. Mercilessly, they leveled a number of hard economic measures, closed the port of Boston — throwing thousands out of work — and passed several acts aimed to destroy the colonies’ economic will.
Posted by:Besoeker

#2  Well noted reminder of the justifications P2K!
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2024-04-19 14:31  

#1  He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.


We are well past there.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-04-19 11:12  

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