Coming Trials
Frightening predictions made real.
I still remember the moment this essay recalls.
It was likely in 1989, years before Ruby Ridge, Waco, or the bombing in Oklahoma City that made clear to the State that it was not immune from retribution.
Today I remember that old man, and while he is long dead and buried, dust under his beloved nation’s soil, the words he spoke that afternoon still resonate.
We have seen this day coming for a very long time.
Coming Trials was originally written in April of 2003.
Read on:
There are moments when one is chilled... when one feels the truth of a spoken word, or a gesture - or when one hears with the heart, and not merely with the imperfection of the ears.
Such a moment came to pass in my own life, many years ago.
It was a lingering summer in southern Ohio, hot and dusty and lazy in the dying afternoon. I sat in a small-town barbershop, having my hair cut and trading quiet conversation with the locals.
The conversation turned to hunting, and then to guns - and as always, to the inherent rights of our people which have always been held as a bulwark against the natural tyranny of Men.
We discussed the latest gun-control laws, and how they infringed upon those same rights. We spoke of the anger we each felt. Of the simple wrongness of it, and of the consequences of this progression.
Our words were carefully chosen - for even then, before the ascension of William Clinton to the presidency and the disgusting abrogations of freedom that followed - we were aware that such talk amongst the People was not approved of.
It was dangerous, we knew. Seditious. Militias ran amok, and the force of the law waited with eager anticipation to intervene.
Young and old, we sat there. Talking. Sharing our thoughts quietly... and asking each other where it was leading.
Someone said with a shake of the head, "I don't like where this is headed." We all nodded agreement... and then I sat in sorrowed fear as I heard the next words spoken.
An old man, sitting in a leather-and-steel chair by the entrance, leaned over and spat grimly into the dust of the Midwest that blew gently along the road outside. His words were cold, and contained a sad and unmistakable finality.
"It's coming," he said.
We all fell silent.
Looked at each other, awkward in our relative youth... and tried to find a way to let the uncomfortable moment pass.
I looked at the old man, in his brown trousers and threadbare plaid shirt. At the VFW hat on his head. I wondered in what land he'd served, defending his nation and his freedoms with his blood and his life. I wondered what brother American had died in his arms, bubbling blood from a dying throat as the hammer of gunfire and shouts of raging men swirled around him.
I asked myself how he must feel, after such sacrifices - to find that in the end of his days, that they would all turn false and worthless against the devastation of those freedoms at home.
I wondered where that utter finality, and the utter weariness in his voice, came from. And I tested in my own heart the validity of those words... and was afraid.
I did not doubt him.
Forward by a decade, and we stand even further into that morass of tyranny that this old man foresaw.
Homes are entered with force, and Americans shot to death.
Neighborhoods cordoned off, and children seized.
Our people are marching in the streets, demanding justice - and demanding that our rights be respected, lest they be defended by more than merely passionate arguments.
Men are no longer afraid to speak their minds. The power of fear that was held over those who dared to give voice to their patriotism has subsided... and now it is openly asked in our homes, in our shops and in our places of work.
What will happen when that line is crossed?
For there is no longer any question that it has been drawn... and no longer a question of whether to draw it was right.
In this day, when I speak to people and hear their words... when I look into their eyes and take their hands in my own - the question is no longer if revolution is possible, or if it could be done.
The questions now are how...
...and who will lead.
I fear for our nation.
For we stand at the brink. And those who bring us there, with a blind faith in their own special privilege and a dismissive contempt for the rights of the People - ignore the fearful resolve that burns within the breasts of a million souls that will not acquiesce.
Our nation is not immune to civil war. It is not immune to the deadly and horrific strife of citizen against citizen... of brother against brother, of fathers leading sons against cousins.
There are ninety million firearm owners in America. Such a serpent should bear respecting... rather than used as a convenient scapegoat for the hypocritical lashes of those who seek to rule this nation.
And how close are we?
I see leaders arising. And rather than exhorting men to action, I see them working desperately to pacify.
I do not see them urging the loading of rifles... but rather a waiting, and a pleading for more patience and faith in the power of the vote to preserve our freedom.
I see them working to prevent bloodshed, not to instigate it. And this ominous sight fills me with foreboding.
We are not trying to create a revolution.
We are trying to stop one.
I hope that old man was wrong.
But in my heart, a sorrowed chill lingers.
Today that chill is gone.
It has been replaced with the severe coldness of fealty, cruelty, and majesty demanded by the grave work of the Company as a non-state actor in the Third World War.
The times have changed, and Men inevitably change with them.
My words still ring true from twenty years ago, as does the warning of an old man a decade before in the hot dust of a rural Ohio town.
Join the Movement and advance with us.
Grand rising!