New Years message from Oath Keepers Founder
Stewart Rhodes:
Let 2015 be a year when we all honor our oath to defend the
Constitution by acting with maximum courage, strength, and honor, to live out
the spirit of the Founding fathers, and to honor those who have come
before. Remember, as John Quincy Adams
said, "Duty is ours; results are God's." Let us set aside fear and do our duty.
Here at Oath Keepers, we are kicking the new year off by
launching a new website, which should be up and running within the next week,
and we will have more exciting news and upcoming initiatives and goals for 2015
which we will share with you in the coming weeks of this new year.
But today I wanted to thank you for your devotion to the
cause of liberty, and for your support of our mission to defend the
Constitution. For those of you who are
members, I thank you for stepping up and formally joining this org and this
cause, and I look forward to working hard with you this coming year to preserve
liberty and to restore our Republic.
For those of you who are not members, but who support our work, we thank
you for that support.
Let us all walk our talk in 2015, while always remembering
what matters most - that we leave our children and grand-children free. This is a good time to reflect on the past,
but to also look to the future. Today,
let us harken to the timeless words of Thomas Paine, in his immortal work, The
Crisis, published on December 24, 1776, when the war of the Revolution was not
going well, and the patriots needed to be reminded of what matters most. Let his words burn into your soul, and let
them ignite a fire of resolve within you:
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.
And this passage
also, can help us to see our duty:
I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against
the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern
at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about
eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely
as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression,
"Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but
fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place,
and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it
be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection,
well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.
Thomas Paine had a gift for articulating timeless truths
that always apply to the struggle for liberty, in any age. Let his words awaken you to your duty in
this New Year, and may you set aside your regrets, your fears, your
should-have's from the past, and instead start anew, with a renewed commitment
and resolve to defending liberty for your children's sake, with courage,
strength, and honor. Let's make our forefather's
proud, so that they will know that their hard work and sacrifice was not for
nothing - that we deserved the liberty they won for us. And let us show this by our actions each
moment of each day. In all we do, our
first question must be "what is right?" And once we know what is right, it then
becomes our duty to do it. Duty is
ours. Results are God's. Let 2015 be a year we can look back on as a
year we fulfilled our duty.
For the Republic,
Stewart Rhodes, Founder and President, Oath Keepers
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment