Let Freedom Ring

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

At the height of the Obamanation, there was a con in Philadelphia, and — of course! — we took a chance to visit the holy sites.

At the time there was a legend rampant that if you rang the Liberty Bell, there would be a second American Revolution. Dan caught me trying to lean-not-lean on it and told me to stop it. And I’ll give you the poor thing is strapped down five ways from Monday to the point that it would take a five point Earthquake to move it.

Look, by disposition I seem to always be on the side of chaos and upending. It is a very funny — not funny — joke of the Author that He then requires me to be the sane one, holding the reins and saying “it might eventually be needed. But not yet.”

Weirdly the “revolutionary Fed Speak” has propagated frantically on Twitter, and i want to tell you, it’s an ops, and it’s not an ops for OUR side. (It rarely is. The individualists as always fail to organize.)

Yes, the “socialists” have got some wins in jurisdictions where the voting is so corrupt they could run Mickey Mouse (instead they chose to run Goofy, of course) and win. But that doesn’t mean much for the country at large. I always roll my eyes when I read something about how people under thirty think well of communism/socialism. I’ve been reading this headline my entire life, which means at one point it was my generation they were talking about… on our way to becoming, as a generation, the most irascible constitutionalists on the block.

Not only does socialism sound great when your only experience of life is school and parents looking after you. Once you enter the working world and acquire responsibilities and rights, the socialism peels like snake skin, allowing the individual to grow.

Add to that that a) the kids have been told that anything requiring community is “socialism” including roads and schools. I’ve had someone argue that with me in the past, and thereby class the ROMANS as “socialist”. Then there is the fact that their acquaintance is mostly from school and the teacher probably told them socialism was great, so they’re afraid of letting the classmates know they don’t buy into it.

Anyway, I don’t see any great deviation from norm in the kids, except maturing a little later.

And honestly, the beginning of the twentieth century was more reliant on collectivism and central planning of all sorts. It was back then just the “sensible position” because of the way that industry had been reorganized by central planning and made so much more efficient and prosperous. It seemed logical and obious it would achieve the same to organize government the same way. (I remember the remnant of it in my high school economics class where they talked about how hard it was for the mixed economies to catch up with socialist/communist ones who were eliminating all inefficiencies, by nature.) If you don’t believe me, read early SF and you’ll catch the whiff everywhere. Which is why FDR and the other “progressives” got away with so much.

Now, in the post covidiocy era, we’ve become more jaded about the whole central authority thing. No, not all of us. (For is it not written, the custard heads thou shalt always have with you.)

Yeah, “Socialists” are winning in places where a cat would win with a D after its name, mostly because the fraud machine is that efficient. And btw that means they’re convincing themselves that running to the left is the way to go. Will it work? Well, it depends on whether the “socialism” is the real draw (it won’t work) or they have the fraud that set up that this is just to give cover to the fraud (“see, we told you they wanted socialism. That’s why we won.”)

How do I know that socialism isn’t what people want? Because the left has been trying to sell this since 08 and everywhere that it’s not a safe space for crazy left, it bounces like a weaponized rubber ball. Because people picked Trump. Twice. And not all the promises that “There will never be jobs again, but government will take care of you.”

I think coming out as socialist is their last attempt at appealing tot he masses, which in their head (arrow of history) are of course socialist. Like Occupy Wall Street, which was in the same category, it won’t work. because the masses are not socialist. They might think that’s the name for anything cooperative, but they’re not in point of fact socialist. And the things the crazy socialists say repel.

Anyway, we might yet lose control of the country. We might yet need “a second American revolution.” Heinlein believed it, and you know, I have one, at the end of the USAian arc in DST.

But today is not the eve of that day. Today this is in no way needed. The screaming voices on Twitter are trying to get us to move because that is, in fact, their last chance at winning. (And even then their chances are low.)

So, go out and celebrate the fourth with an absolute clean conscience and happy soul.

Yes, the country got very far down the path to “Progressive-possessed” before any of us were born. But we’re clawing it back, and things are in point of fact going our way.

We are winning this, without the need to roll the dice in a revolution. Which is the best kind of win, I might add.

Note I’m not saying it will be easy — if it were easy, it wouldn’t need Americans — or that we won’t have loses. I’m just saying we will win without massive loss of life.

Be not afraid. As for me and mine, we’re watching the sacred musical (1776) and then blowing up stuff, as it should be. There is 100% chance of wretchedly rendered but very fervent singing of the Star Spangled Banner, too.

May it always be so.

2026 FUNDRAISING APPEAL. If this is one of your regular stops, please consider donating! Because Jerry Pournelle told me I should be making 100k from the blog, given readership and how often I blog. So far I’ve never made more than about $30k per year, but then again, I’m not Jerry. I think he was assuming HIS value add. :D
Whichever. he said to fundraise annually and I’m doing it. It helps convince my family I’m not insane when I got to bed late and get up early to keep the blog fed. (Today? today it’s a matter of doctors. Sorry.)
The full appeal is here: Toss A Coin To Your Blogger, Oh Readers of Plenty paypal link in it is broken (fixing but also here) and forgot to give the snail mail which is Sarah A. Hoyt, 304 S Jones Blvd #6771, Las Vegas, NV  89107.

35 thoughts on “Let Freedom Ring”

  2. Ahhh…we picked Trump thrice. It’s just that the second time, 15 million Democrat voters appeared from nowhere, voted unanimously for Brain-Dead Biden and Kackling Kamela, and then vanished without a trace the day after the election. Along with all the other shenanigans we saw.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. The American Revolution built for a good long time before Lexington and Concord. Small, local groups self-organized between 1763-1775, people corresponded between the colonies and compared notes, and local leaders began to ask questions the Crown’s and Parliament’s agents could not answer to the satisfaction of Farmer Giles and others. As the Declaration puts it, “a long train of usurpations” had to come first, and even then, a goodly number of people hesitated. These were people who had seen the French and Indian War, had fathers and others in the fighting in the Carolina backcountry in the 17302-40s. Others had heard stories, enough to know that the royal government wasn’t something easily thrown away.

    Anyone who thinks a revolution of any kind starts like a light-switch and ends the same is a fool, drunk, or never really studied history. Or glows in the dark.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. I’m curious about how many guys got together to practice competitive shooting/militia organization in the decade prior to the Declaration.

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      2. My SWAG is that anything that can be done (as a matter of skill, normally, but….) will eventually be done as a competition.

        Unscientific guess? Lots.

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      3. Remember that many of them were veterans of the wars against the French. I have seen discussions of war-gaming Lexington and Concord that warned that contrary to the usual course of things, the militia had more military experience than the regulars.

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  4. ‘“Socialists” are winning in places where a cat would win with a D after its name….’

    I dunno, a cat would be preferable to some of the clowns the Lao Dong Dem Cong have been trotting out lately. It’d be entertaining, anyway.

    Liked by 2 people

    3. Let’s really go all in and get a certain Ox of some renown around here, or, perhaps, a registered fool to run the show.

      They, at least, wouldn’t fleece us blind.

      Liked by 2 people

        2. I think its the perfect ploy.

          They spent decades, step by slow step, infiltrating their chosen party. And now, just as they see final victory in their sights, a bovine of slow, but sure purpose, foils their nefarious plans for world domination.

          They expect Elon Musk, meanwhile, plodding along, where they would never think to look…

          Slow and steady wins the race, my friends…slow and steady.

          Liked by 1 person

  5. First of all, I’m in favor of stripping out all child-labor laws for anyone 13 or older. This whole eternal childhood crap is one reason we have so many teens, twenties, and thirty-year olds who have zero understanding of responsibility. Let them work. Heck, make them work at least beginning part-time jobs so they actually develop some idea of work = reward and no work means no reward.

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    1. That and try to make sure the kids have options outside of “working for the family business”. Otherwise you end up with “work means no reward when the parents have another bill or Shiny they want to get.”

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  6. In addition to lighting up the local sky above my backyard, I decided to do domething REALLY off the wall to celebrate 250. I am doing a little light reading, just a 29 page pamphlet from some guy named Payne.0

    You could modernize the phrasing abit, publish it anonymously tomorrow, and Common Sense would be just as timely as it was in 1776. Human nature hasn’t changed in a long while, probably since humans became human.

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    1. We’re at the beginning of Fire Season, so I’m skipping anything that throws sparks. ‘Splody bits are already verboten in Oregon. (The two guys who decided to celebrate Bastille Day with leftover fireworks and started a 2200 acre/30 house fire are permanently unavailable for comment. Something about 3 ‘S’s…)

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  7. My pilgrimage was in 2001, at the start of the Worldcon in Philadelphia that year, so cons seems to be a natural gateway. Got to see the Liberty Bell, I thought again: I’d ‘seen’ it at my grammar school in Pennsylvania in the Bicentennial year, but it turned out that was a replica they sent touring. Got to Independence Hall, and stood in that room they recreated for a certain movie.

    I’m so glad I got to do it when I did. About two weeks later, my morning’s writing skull session was interrupted by a radio report that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Your pilgrimage, Sarah, was probably a lot more burdened with arguably-justified security paranoia than mine was. Indeed, I’m a little surprised there haven’t been more vandalism attempts against those sites than there have been. (Even your image at the top shows some splashed paint.)

    It’s not that America was really all that more innocent then. It’s just that some of its younger people still had some of theirs remaining.

    Anyway, looking forward to gloriously excessive fireworks.

    Republica restituendae.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Son has gotten to see the heritage sites, twice; Aug 2001, and Aug 2005. In 2005, the 9/11 memorials.

      Local council does a three week (ish) tour with the National Jamboree contingents; 10 days National Jamboree, two days flying, one day water park (day after), the remaining days, before, taking the Freedom Trail Tour starting in Boston. Hitting Boston, DC, New York, the historical revolutionary and civil war national parks and monuments. Not the only council who does this, just some do tours before, and some do tours afterward.

      I haven’t seen the Liberty Bell. Been to the National Mall, and museums, twice; 3 days after staffing at National Jamboree; same years as above. (Not my fault the travel agent couldn’t get me a flight out for 4 days after end 😍Not that I asked them to try very hard.)

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  8. I was once asked if I ‘supported’ OWS. When I replied that I was in favor of letting folk speak their minds even if that speaking demonstrated that they were too dumb to pour pwater out of a boot even if there were illustrated written instructions attached to the heel, it did not go over well . . .

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    1. I’m especially open to letting such people speak … so long as they are speaking and not reading from a snake-oil teleprompter.

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  9. My Independence Day traditions are a parade, listening to the soundtrack of Disney’s “Great Moments with Mister Lincoln” (by Royal Dano), and watching “1776” and “An American Carol.” I also hope to finish “Mao’s America” this weekend (I HIGHLY recommend this book).

    No, they did NOT run Goofy. Goofy is a good guy, always trying to do the right thing. They ran the MASTER CONTROL PROGRAM, whose whole reason to exist is the consolidation of power and destruction to all opposition.

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    1. 2:50 PM East Coast Daylight savings

      11:50 AM West Coast Daylight savings

      Also has the appropriate times listed for mountain times, both daylight savings and standard.

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  11. We didn’t always pick Goofy. To steal a quote from fiction (by some authors who are almost certainly on the Left): “You said it yourself. This is insanely dangerous. Who better to try it on than someone who is dangerously insane?”

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  12. Sadly, no rockets’ red glare for us (too tinder-dry), but we’ll be watching 1776 live in theater – bless you, local opera/musical company! – playing an American trivia game, and I will be reading through the Declaration and Constitution on my own time.

    Also, I’ve been watching Hillsdale College’s Revolutionary America, which I highly recommend as a good overview of the reasons for the Revolution.

    Due to family health issues, probably no parades (too hard to fight crowds with a wheelchair-bound parent), but fear not, we’re celebrating in good style!

    Liked by 2 people

  13. Likely it’s just too long ago, but I am surprised the details on who ran and funded the OWS op have not come out.

    I recall 2011 OWS was breathlessly reported by the j-skool droolers as a totes-not-centrally-organized grass roots response to both the stated enemies of the people, that is, slightly more wealthy people, but only those who voted the wrong way, and as a real example of what those fake racisss terroristic Tea Party people who picked up all their own trash and other similar terroristic behaviors absolutely were not, an organic grass roots protest movement.

    And then pretty soon after they were pooping on police cars it just faded.

    Interesting how as the Wall Street/ Silicon Vally Techlord class became pretty much the core of the Dem constituency, protesting them kinda just stopped.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » AND RING, AND RING FOREVER:  Let Freedom Ring.

  16. We hosted a Canadian over the holiday weekend.

    On Saturday we: took him to the annual Anvil shoot at the Museum of Appalachia; watched the Blessed Musical (1776); then shot guns in our yard.

    These included: a 3D printed golf ball mortar, suppressed 22 pistol, 1911 in .45 ACP, single action revolver and lever action rifle in .357 Magnum, and last but not least, M1 Garand in .30-06.

    Liked by 1 person

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