DON’T TREAD ON TEA

“Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!” was the cry of Patrick Henry when giving a speech at the Second Virginia Convention to get the help from Virginia in the Revolutionary War and allow the people to gain their freedom from the English. On this tea, we have our own rendition of the Gadsden Flag. The Don’t Tread on Me slogan and coiled snake is a great symbol of liberty for all people. The Gadsden Flag is possibly the most demonized flag out there other than the confederate flag. We see what a fight it has become in the US just to keep some of our God-given natural rights, and on many fronts, this battle is being lost. There is nary a right included in the Bill of Rights that our federal and state governments have not infringed upon in the last few years. Though these infringements started many many years ago, the speed and magnitude at which they happen these days is astonishing and saddening.

Here at Teas for Freedom, we wonder so much lately about the way our nation is changing. Why are people so opposed to freedom and liberty? Why would people rather be sheep or an NPC talking piece for government? Why are people so willing to lose their God-given freedoms and liberties? Why do people want to control others in the form of Socialism or Communism? There are probably many different answers to these questions. Is it that they don’t believe they can make it on their own and/or have very low self-esteem? Is it an entitlement issue where they believe they deserve something they haven’t worked for? Is it because they are envious of those who have more? Is it because they don’t understand the real implications of Socialism/Communism/government control and want to either push control to show their moral superiority, or use it as virtue signaling? Or is it even something more sinister, where they believe they are better and smarter than others and would like to use control to their advantage, all while telling others they are doing it to help or do it for the “common good”?

Whatever the answer is to these questions, the outcomes are the same: a loss of liberty and freedom. In this outcome, some will gain or profit from the loss of individual liberty, and some won’t even bat an eye at loss of liberty because it hasn’t directly affected them. Even though we believe the “Don’t Tread on Me” mantra is a great one, the even more important mantra is “Don’t Tread on Anybody”. If we were thinking about the liberties of our fellow man, rather than just our own, we would be a more cohesive unit made up of the common man, who could work together to fight the power-hungry and controlling tyrants. This is at the heart of the Golden Rule.

One of our favorite liberty authors is Frederic Bastiat, who wrote the book “The Law”. This book changed the way we thought about force, when and if force should ever be used on people, and helped us better understand what laws actually are and what they aren’t (or shouldn’t be). What’s really important to remember, that we read in this book, is that government can only enforce law through force. So any law, if taken to its total conclusion, could ultimately be enforced at the barrel of a gun. Say we start by getting fined for breaking a law, but if we refuse to pay that fine, we will be taken to jail. If we refuse to go to jail and put up a fight at that moment, the police have the government authority to use deadly force. With this point in mind, the only laws that we should have are those we are willing to enforce at gun point. So what then, is a “real law” and the purpose of the government?

Here are a few quotes from the book “The Law” that will help explain:

“What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly.”

“. . . for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.”

“In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual’s right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder — is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?”

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

We can’t recommend “The Law” enough. It’s a short 50 page read, and will change your whole outlook on the point of laws, as well as the government. It was written in 1850, but the concepts written in the book are still very relevant for today.

You can read it online for free here. If you prefer to have an actual book to read, you can find it here.