I once was talking about a teaching colleague of mine with a friend. The teacher was experienced with over twenty years of teaching. Yet, the teacher wasn’t being effective. I expressed my wonder at how someone with twenty years of experience wasn’t very good at their job.
My colleague said, “Well, there’s a difference between teaching twenty years and teaching for one year twenty times.” I think you get it. If a person doesn’t build on their previous experience, they don’t get stronger. They start over and over again, repeating the same mistakes day after day, year after year.
That’s why history is so important to a society, and why those who wish to demolish that society begin with denying and destroying its history, especially the good parts. If they can’t get rid of it, they distort it and teach it to our young.
Some of the young people I talk with tell me they never paid much attention to history and politics in school or even as adults. So, now as we enter a very dangerous time in history, they aren’t sure they know what to do. How do they fight back? How do they change things? Can they change things in a government that seems all powerful?
The preacher Dutch Sheets talks about how we must use HISTORY to fight our battles and take out our “all powerful” enemies. He talks about “putting ourselves in the storyline.” If we don’t, we segment ourselves from history and, like the teacher of 20 years, repeat the same history over and over, never learning anything or getting any stronger. But what does it mean to put ourselves in the storyline?
Does it mean that we need to get a history book and start reading? Do we have to start watching documentaries about historical events? That’s one possible idea, although we have seen that these resources may not be reliable as they used to be. And, for many of the younger generations, they may reinforce false historical facts that actually will prevent them from being successful.
And for goodness sake, don’t go to Google or Wikipedia.
I find that one of the best ways to find out history’s lessons is to look at orginal documents. For example, how many of us have a copy of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution that we can access, a hard copy? I do and I read it occassionally. Every time I do, I find something that applies to our situation now.
The Declaration is a list of the Founders’ complaints against King George. You will see the words “despotism,” “tyranny,” “obstruction,” and “rights” used over and over. They list lack of representation, legislative bodies far removed from the people, control over the judges in the judicial system to follow the will of the King only, too many government offices, cutting off of trade, imposing taxes without citizen consent, refusing trial by jury, the King over ruling local legislatures, bringing in foreign mercenaries to terrorize the people, and ignoring petitions by the people to change these actions.
Sound familiar? It sure does.
Add to this the fact that George III, King of England before and during the Revolution, had severe mental and physical issues which caused him to be listless, unproductive, and generally ineffective. He was a weak king who who was disinterested in dealing with day to day affairs and relied on his advisors to tell him what to do. Again, sound familiar?
He also had fits of rage during which he made unrealistic and dangerous decisions for the empire. Hmmmm….
So, if we “put ourselves in the story” we get a clear picture of why this Revolution happened. It wasn’t just about taxes and tea, it was about basic human freedoms. And now, these freedoms we thought we enjoyed are being threatened.
I got all of that by reading a document of about 1300 words. A little longer than the length of a high school essay. The information regarding King George was easily found. No long books, boring classes, or documentaries. And no biased historian trying to interpret or sanitize what happened.
Next, read the Constitution. It’s a bit longer and complicated, but if you highlight the sections that seem important to you, you learn a lot. You may find out that the things you have been taught about your rights are not exactly correct. You have many more than you thought and they are not restricted as you thought.
And you will discover how far away from those Constitutional Rights our government has led us. All while we were comfortable in our ignorance.
You will see why mandates are not laws and are unenforceable. You will see why no one can force you to inject something in your body that you don’t want. You will see why action by executive fiat at any level is illegal and non-binding. You will see why you have the final say in how your child is educated, not some government body. And you might get kind of pissed, because you will now be part of the story, not just someone who is watching from the balcony and has no stake in it.
And don’t stop there. Keep going. Learn about other important parts of history, how countries have enslaved their own people via a careful agenda of actions that slowly tightened the tyrants’ grip, how some of those people gained their freedom, where Marxism and Communism came from and the damage and death they have caused. You don’t have to be an expert, just informed and educated. Once you start taking an interest, you will discover things you never knew happened and will find out why they happened.
This won’t make the fight any easier, because, trust me, the people in power will often know less than you do about The Constitution. And they will think that because they sit in a certain chair, have a certain office, and have certain letters after their names, they can pretend they know more than you. But, you won’t let them get away with it, because you will share your resources.
And, while we are on resources, I have three fellow warriors in the freedom fight, Althy, Bruce and Clive, who are MASTERS at finding the REAL rules, the ones the bureaucrats don’t follow, and throwing them in their faces. ( Nicely, of course). One of the best experiences you can have is watching the expression on someone who is in “power” when they find out they didn’t have the legal power they pretended to have.
As Winston Churchill once said, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
Make the truth one of your weapons. Put yourself in the story.
Secure your own copy of the THE DECLARATION and the US CONSTITUTION at Hillsdale.edu.
They also have online courses on the US Constitution for FREE!!!!
