By Steve Rossiter ——Bio and Archives--March 23, 2023
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"A Patriot is someone who stands for his country always, and for his government when it is deserved." ~ Mark Twain
Twain has given us the most succinct definition of a patriot I have ever seen. First he draws a clear distinction between the country and the government. The country and the government are often interpreted as synonymous, but that is not correct. Country and the government are not synonymous.
The United States of America is our country. It is composed of our citizens, our society, our culture, and our values. Geographical boundaries define the location of our country, but the people who make up our citizenry are the country.
The government is a creation of the country in order to achieve and maintain a safe and orderly civilization to the benefit of the citizens of the country and all who visit. The Founding Fathers blessed the country with a constitution to protect the country from an over-zealous government.
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” ~ George Washington
"A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government." ~ Alexander Hamilton
"The state [government] is the servant of the citizen, and not his master." ~ John F. Kennedy
"A Patriot is someone who stands for his country always…” Today’s American patriot recognizes reality and truth based on the standards of the Christian Bible and the United States Constitution, as did the founders. American patriots recognize that citizens have lost control of the United States Government and are working diligently trying to achieve a peaceful resolution to regain control of our government.
America is facing a similar situation faced by the patriots of pre-World War II Germany, who tried to peacefully end the Nazi government before the disaster they foresaw happened. Thousands of German patriots died in their failed effort. The government changed the laws in Germany to make their abhorrent behavior legal.
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak, and not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless." ~ Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of those executed by the Nazi government about a month before the end of the war in Europe.
The 2023, American government no longer deserves to be supported by American patriots.
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." ~ Ayn Rand
Rand wrote this in the late 1940s or early 1950s. What I observe is that the “approaching stage” is past history, and in 2023 America has reached the inversion stage. The Biden government is doing anything it pleases, and American patriots are being denied a voice. The government has been holding political prisoners for more than two years without a trial, and government agencies are being used, very publically, against political opponents. The United States Congress fiddles while the President gives away unfunded money willy-nilly as if the U.S. Treasury is his own private checking account. America is being ruled by “brute force” by an evil unidentified shadow government.
"The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom..." ~ John F. Kennedy
What is a patriot? These guys were.
"The Founding Fathers were neither passive, death-worshiping mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters; as a political group they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action." ~ Ayn Rand
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"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." ~ John F. Kennedy
"The SILENCE of the good people is more DANGEROUS than the BRUTALITY of the bad people" ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
"It is always the right time to do the right thing." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
“I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.” ~ Thomas Paine
America is in desperate need of thinking patriots who are men and women of action as were the founders.
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After a 55 year career as a professional pilot in the military, in law enforcement, in the private sector, and in federal civil service, I am now retired.
In many of these positions I repeatedly took an oath to defend the United States Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.