Western Rifle Shooters Association

Do not give in to Evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Repost: Hoist The Colors!

As submitted by a reader:

As Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End opens up, lines of people in shackles and chains are being led to executions. The herald of woe is reading out the list of rights that have been suspended and informing the condemned men, women, and children of the charges against them. Piracy, aiding pirates, associating with pirates, ad nauseum -- anything having to do with pirates.



My imagination needs no invitation to wander. So I start substituting Obama lines in there. My kids holler at me to stop it. They’re trying to watch the movie.

In my own mind, I translated that scene to today’s world.

Lines and lines of otherwise free Americans are indicted as thieves for wanting to keep the sweat of their brow -- turned into beggars thanks to government-owned industry. (In Pirates, the East India Trading Company; today, the bankers - what’s the difference?)

A crisis in which an unelected, unaccountable Czar Beckett is able to suspend rights, alter laws, issue judgment, and execute punishment without appeal. Failing to actually find and apprehend the pirates he’s been sent to find and destroy, he instead heartlessly goes after the softest targets: anyone who’s ever been associated with the pirates.

Tyranny.

In the face of this shameless tyranny, a small voice raises a sad song of defiance:

The king and his men
Stole the queen from her bed
And bound her in her bones.
The seas be ours
And by the powers
Where we will, we'll roam.

Yo, ho, haul together
Hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die.

Some men have died
And some are alive
And others sail on the sea
With the keys to the cage...
And the Devil to pay
We lay to Fiddler's Green!

The bell has been raised
from its watery grave...
Do you hear its sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
Pay heed the squall
And turn your sail toward home!

Yo, ho, haul together,
Hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die.

I continued with this parallel. How we as a country chose security and prosperity over lady Liberty - whom we have bound in so many ways (just like Calypso was bound). America placed freedom herself into a cage - as if to protect an endangered species from poachers. So we visit freedom like we’d visit a caged, endangered animal at the zoo, and from the outside of the bars looking in, we think to ourselves, “We have freedom.”

Though stronger bars have been added since 2001, the cage and doors were built decades ago - before some of us were even born. Most of us have never known a time when Liberty was not bound. The song goes on.

There are some among us who have the keys to the cage. But to truly release Lady Liberty herself might mean our end as a consequence.

Finally, the call goes out for freedom. Does anyone hear?

The media ignore us. The White House demonizes us. The Speaker of the House equates us with Nazis. Some liberals call for simply letting all of us die - not being worthy of even life itself.

Does anyone recognize the call for what it is?

Do we dare answer?

Enslavement, security, and tyranny are already upon us. The shackles and chains have been forged and prepared. Freedom, our home, lies on the other side of the storm. Do we turn into that storm, or just avoid it? Do we risk all to reach for freedom, or meekly march in shackles and chains to the inevitable end prepared by every tyrant for those he hates?

Do we realize that we have already been condemned as outlaws – “domestic terrorists” is the preferred term these days – and as such, we can expect no protection from the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the various state constitutions, and indeed, the majority of our alleged countrymen?

As we try to file away at the iron bars between today’s America and the country of the Founders, how many of us realize how late the hour truly is?

And most importantly – who among us will stand when that same trembling voice calls:

HOIST THE COLORS!

III

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"While pirates used the red, or bloody, flag as well as black flags, there was a distinction between the two. In the mid-18th century, Captain Richard Hawkins confirmed that pirates gave quarter beneath the black flag, while no quarter was given beneath the red flag."

So says wikipedia, the font of all wisdom.
Eric
III

March 23, 2010 at 2:27 AM  
Anonymous Justin said...

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
H. L. Mencken
US editor (1880 - 1956)

I didn't say it. Just copied and pasted.

Justin
III

March 23, 2010 at 3:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is that flag real & for purchase?
Or is it just a j-peg?

(Hmmm . . where could I get one made?)

B Woodman
III-per

March 23, 2010 at 12:54 PM  
Blogger Concerned American said...

It's just an image for now, courtesy of threeper Eric.

If you had them made up, I'll bet you'd sell quite a few.

March 23, 2010 at 1:14 PM  
Anonymous Patrick Henry said...

I know it's just a movie, but it's an illustration of something all too real and all too common...

What could ever make such numbers of people walk unresisting to the gallows - or kneel and wait for the bullet?

Why are they not fighting? If I am to die, I'm damn sure going to do my best to take at least one of the tyrants with me!

The old adage to "die like a man" is horse-manure. F*** that. MEN don't march to the slaughter like sheep, REAL men fight until the very end!

I'm going to repeat what I've said many times: When they begin to come for us, we need to make sure we kill the first one through the door.

This won't save us - as individuals - but it will cause the jackboots to think twice about being the "entry-man." If there is no first, there can be no second, third or 12th.

I care not what others will do, but as for me - GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!

March 23, 2010 at 2:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

III-per Eric,
If I can find a place to get these flags made at a reasonable cost, do I have your permission to do so??

Don't want to tread on intellectual property, ya'know. Especially for a fellow traveller & friend-I-haven't-met-yet.

B Woodman
III-per

March 23, 2010 at 4:43 PM  
Blogger Carl said...

Justin, you beat me to it. Mencken was the first thing I thought of when I saw the flag. Good show!

III

March 23, 2010 at 7:04 PM  

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