Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. Today is Wednesday, September the 21st, 2022. I hope you're having a great day. I was asked recently by a friend how I decide what it is I'm going to talk about for the podcast. And I told this friend that sometimes I know well beforehand what I'm going to talk about. It's just a matter of putting the ideas from my head to a piece of paper, perhaps, or just rehearsing in my mind what it is I want to talk about, and then I just go for it. Other times it's a little more challenging. We pretty much have a border crisis on the southern border of the United States. Social Security is a topic that seems to always come up, and for most politicians, it comes up around election time. So perhaps you'll have some politicians who will be talking about Social Security. I probably will be doing an episode about Social Security because there's some numbers there that I have studied that just don't jibe for me. And so I'll be looking at that and doing an episode on Social Security. I can talk about taxes. I can talk about the dereliction of duty by many who have taken an oath to uphold and protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I talk about freedom and liberty. That's what the podcast is all about. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again, that it's important for each of us, not just me, to study the issues. Of course, I want to be able to produce the best content that I possibly can. So of course, I will be studying and trying to make sure that I get it right. If I'm wrong, if I'm incorrect in something, then hopefully that's pointed out to me, or I discover it later. But in any case, the objective that I have is to be able to produce the kind of content that you as a listener want to hear. And that's what I hope I'm doing by doing this podcast. So that was somewhat of a long answer. I didn't give that lengthy of an answer to my friend. But the question really did make me think about, you know, how I actually pick a topic. And then once I pick a topic, I'm kind of like a dog with a bone. I just stay with it and I'm very passionate about it. And I try to explore every angle of it. I try to be as objective as I possibly can, even though I know, I admit that I have a certain bias when it comes to a particular topic, but we all do. All of us make judgments every single day regarding what we listen to, what we allow ourselves to think or to do, the kind of people that we associate with. We all make these kinds of judgment calls every single day. And so it's no different in a podcast such as this that I make a judgment call, and the bottom line is I talk about whatever I want to talk about. That's the bottom line. I don't do it because of what's happening necessarily in our society at any one given moment. Certainly that can sway whether I talk about something or not. But if it's something that I'm interested in, something that I want to be able to convey in this format, then I'm gonna do it. So here we go with today's topic, which is insurrections. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, okay, well, why is this guy talking about insurrections in the plural, not just singular? Well, hopefully you'll find out as the podcast unveils itself today. Certainly there have been dozens and dozens of insurrections throughout history, some successful and some not so much. Could probably even say there's probably been hundreds of insurrections from the beginning of time. Throughout the world, though, and here in the United States, we have had some insurrections as well. Perhaps we should define insurrection. The dictionary says that insurrection is an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government. So remember that. It's an act of revolting against either civil authority or established government. A lot of times I think people only think of the latter that it's a revolt against established government. But I also want you to think about how this idea of an insurrection is also against or revolting against civil authority. Now, I have spoken previously on the podcast about the Federalist Papers. They are a series of papers or letters that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and to a very limited degree John Jay had written after the Constitution had been ratified in September of 1787, September the seventeenth, to be exact. So in Federalists nine and ten, Hamilton and Madison wrote about the Union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection. In fact, the very first paragraph of Federalist No. ten, Madison writes Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished, as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. But it simply means to be deceptive. Now, in the case of the Revolutionary War, we had a group of people, ragtag group of people who were not even trained in the art of war, who went against, perhaps, at least of the day, one of the greatest militaries that the world had ever known, and that they actually, the ragtag army, that is, revolted against the monarch. So in other words, they had their own insurrection. And I will tell you that it ended up pretty well for many groups of people, including you and I, bear in mind, again, that the founders felt that governments shouldn't be changed for light and transient causes. So in the case of the colonists rebelling against Great Britain, they were not rebelling for a light or a transient cause. The well established monarch had power over the people, and the people had had enough, and so they revolted. They created their own insurrection. And as I said, it's worked out pretty well for us. So it would seem that there are times throughout history where an insurrection is justifiable. I want to take a moment and look at some insurrections from history.com that are, I would say, pretty noteworthy. And you can be the judge as to whether these insurrections were justifiable or not. We're all pretty much familiar with Napoleon Bonaparte. He had a very successful military campaign that ended in October of 1799. And then he had a scheme to overthrow the five-member directory that at the time ruled France. And it wasn't until 1804 that he crowned himself emperor. He used a combination of some propaganda, bribery, and intimidation, right? There's always intimidation. And he certainly hoped that he would be able to create within the legislature this idea of that he needed to be in charge. And as I said, he eventually did become the emperor. Another noteworthy insurrection took place by a guy whose name was Momar Gaddafi. Now, he was a pretty ruthless dude, but you gotta give some props to a guy who was 27 years old and a junior officer who decided he was gonna seize power for himself in September of 1969. While the current king at the time was out of the country, Gaddafi's people had driven some military vehicles into Tripoli and Benghazi, and they basically took over the country. Eventually, Gaddafi basically just imposed his will on the Libyan people, and he was pretty ruthless in the way that he governed. It was he shut down opinion, he punished people who opposed him, and he ended up reigning for over four decades, but it eventually caught up with him as he lost his life in 2011 due to the uh Arab Spring uprising. So poor Muammar Qaddafi, I guess. Uh no. Idi Amin is another leader who came to power via an insurrection. He and his supporters were able to use automatic weapons and mortars. They eventually took over an airport and other strategic sites, and then they did a successful coup over the radio, proclaiming eventually that they would restore democracy. But what happened was around 300,000 people who were perceived to be political opponents of Edi Amin's were brutally slaughtered. And he had a reign of about eight years or so before he actually uh lived out the rest of his days in Saudi Arabia, apparently. Finally, there was Augusto Pinochet. He came to power by directing an attack from a suburban command post, and he had two fighter jets that shot up the palace where the previous ruler lived, I guess. Eventually, Pinochet's men rounded up those who opposed Pinochet, and they were executed without a trial. And Pinochet himself had a 17-year reign of sheer terror, I'm sure, for the people that he ruled. By all rights, then, these people that I just mentioned were what we would probably consider as very successful insurrectionists. They had weapons, they had the means, they had the ability, and they had a lot of people who were backing them. So their success, well, as we know it, post-history, is considered quite successful, as ruthless as they all may have been. Now, if you would please, I invite you to come with me and as we fast forward to January the sixth, twenty twenty, to the so-called insurrection of our Capitol building in Washington, DC. As of yet, I've not commented publicly about this event on January the sixth. However, the time has come that I do need to say a few words about it. And naturally, you are at liberty to believe whatever you want about that day, but just don't impose those beliefs on the rest of us, as I will make an attempt not to impose my belief about that day on everybody else. Fair? Let me just say this though, that if January 6, 2021 was an insurrection, then Michael Scott is the CEO of International Paper. That's a company that has 49,000 give or take employees and revenue of $20 billion. Now, if you don't know who Michael Scott is, the internet's there for a reason, so give it a go. Listen, in no way am I dismissing or diminishing what took place on January the sixth of 2021, saying that it's nothing more than a child's clown or unicorn birthday party. It certainly wasn't that, but I don't think it was what some people are trying to characterize it as being this violent insurrection where our republic was in danger of being overthrown. Really? If January 6th then was an insurrection, then it was the most pathetic and anemic insurrection we've ever seen. I mean, seriously. Come on. There are people dressed up in different characters, they didn't have weapons, they weren't storming the Capitol and taking people hostage and shooting people up. Well, that happened by the Capitol policeman who shot a Air Force veteran dead, which he has still not been held to account for that heinous act. But I mean, come on. There was no insurrection on January the 6th, 2021. Period. You have a bunch of people who are trying to create history where none exists so that they can, I don't know, share with their progeny that, oh yeah, look, this is what happened on January the 6th, 2021. You weren't alive then, but this terrible, terrible man really tried to run a coup on the government and tried to say that the election was not fair and that he was gonna stay in the White House and he wasn't gonna relinquish or turn the reins of the presidency over to another guy. I mean, come on. It's about the stupidest thing I've ever really heard of, and I've heard a lot of stupid stuff. To me, it just goes to show what hatred and division and complete and utter irrationality, if allowed to fester, will actually produce. It's kind of a scary thing when you think about it. But thank goodness that we have the Constitution as a guiding principle and the law of the land, which, by the way, needs to be upheld. Allow me to provide some context now with something that happened in the summer of 2020. And again, remember that one of the definitions of an insurrection is revolting against civil authority. I want to quote some numbers to you from an article that comes from a website called Law EnforcementToday.com. This piece was written in, I believe, the summer of 2021, which was a year after the riots took place in the summer of 2020, subsequent to the death of George Floyd. It was said that there was an estimated two billion dollars in damages across the country. Also in Portland, Oregon alone, the riots continued for over a hundred consecutive nights. You might remember this. They also took over a federal courthouse. Now, is that not insurrection at its finest? And what was done to any of those people, I'm not sure. I don't remember, to be quite honest with you. But what I do remember is that there was very little in the mainstream media that anyone said anything about it. That dollar amount and damages also doesn't really say anything about the turmoil that it put people through who lost their jobs because a business was destroyed and had no means of income. Those kinds of things are hard to calculate with a monetary figure. Interestingly enough, this article from Law EnforcementToday.com quoted the HILL as saying that the worst insurrection in world history occurred on January the sixth, twenty twenty one, uh causing an estimated one point five million dollars in damages. One point five million dollars compared to two plus billion police. Also, quoting from the article, they said, quote, how damaged was the capital? How long was it that our democracy, quote unquote, was shut down for? Mere hours. How many members of Congress were injured or directly threatened? None. How many protesters were arrested in connection with the siege? Over five hundred. And many of them are in solitary confinement held without bail, and if some reports are correct, being subjected to physical and psychological torture. Close quote. Now, if we had a media that was actually doing its job, we might know more about some of these people. This article that I just quoted from was from over a year ago. We still don't know the outcome or the fate of those people who have been incarcerated because of January 6th, because they were just at the Capitol, minding their own business in many instances. There has been plenty that has been said in the media relative to January 6th, and even this subcommittee about January 6th was created. Where are any subcommittees that have been created to go over what happened in the summer of 2020? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Crickets. There are none. Probably never will be. We're two years beyond that, and there's been really nothing done because of it. The media is silent on it. None of the leaders, well, I shouldn't say none, some of the leaders uh that we have in power today have said nothing about it. And we have a media that's complicit with that. The media is supposed to, the press is supposed to be objective. It's a protected right under the Bill of Rights, for heaven's sakes. It's safe to say that they have abused that constitutional right of the free press. It's pathetic and it's sickening, and it's uh needs to stop and needs to change. Something needs to be done about it. Good, honest, hardworking people like yourselves need to step up and voice your concerns. We can't afford to be afraid of what might happen to us. That's not what it's going to take to defend the Constitution and our way of life. I, for one, will not stay silent when it comes to the Constitution. Whatever happens to me happens to me. I don't really care. I will fight and protect the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. And you can define fight however you want, because when something is worth fighting for, it's worth dying for. From the Revolutionary War up until today, people have done it, they do it, they lay down their life willingly in many, many cases, for the things that they believe in, and ensuring that it is preserved for generations yet unborn. None of us knows what the future holds, but this much I do know, and that is what James Madison himself said that quote, the instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils have in truth been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished. Think of the mortal diseases that have been foisted upon us because of people elected to represent us. The question remains then, will we perish because of it or will we rise to the occasion and overcome it? Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention today, and I'd like to end this episode by quoting again from Federalist Papers number ten regarding the Union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection. Think about it. We are a union of states, fifty states, and if we come together, we can overcome the evils and the designs of some people. Not all, because no one's perfect, but we can overcome the evils of a lot of people. In Federalist number ten, Madison says this The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man, and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity according to the different circumstances of civil society, a zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice, an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power, or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have in turn divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good. So strong is the propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. May we not sow the seeds of faction and disunity, but rather sow the seeds of union and of progress together, though we may disagree, and that's fine, but let's disagree in a way that is commendable and respectable. Ladies and gentlemen, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.