Virtue Archive

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A Message to the Nation

A Message to the Nation, from The Resistance: When individuals, steeped in the traditions of their patriot fathers, witness the ebb of liberty and the sunset of that corps of...
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A Message to the Nation, from The Resistance:

When individuals, steeped in the traditions of their patriot fathers, witness the ebb of liberty and the sunset of that corps of rights once christened indivisible, and their humanity stirs their souls to pursue an honorable course to reclaim those self-same principles of freedom, it is incumbent on them to lay bare the injustices they have endured.

We hold with firm conviction that the individual is the supreme sovereign, that no just law can separate him from his life, liberty, and property without his consent, that when the express limits of government are usurped it is the right of the individual to disobey and to cast off each unjust and unlawful convention that violates his individual welfare and happiness. But when the custodians of our Constitution seek the edification of a despotic empire, it is our individual right, it is our individual duty, to nullify those decrees which violate our conscience.

The serenity of our citizenry in the face of such abuses is testament of the virtue of the American man, the self-same virtue that now compels him to refuse submission, conformity, and obedience to the illicit demands of tyranny.

We, The Resistance, recognize that the eternal disposition of the despot is to employ coercion, terrorism and violence in the subjugation of mankind. Each American citizen has endured violations designed to subjugate the individual under an evolving form of tyranny. It matters not which party rules; both require the sacrifice of subjects to the god of power.

The laws of nature compel us to accept that any unjust law, consistently applied as a boot to the throat of the sovereign, is unfit in the cannon of liberal jurisprudence and therefor null from the perspective of the individual. For too long, we as individuals have embraced the soft seductions of apathetic separation from our greatest of duties: the application of sovereignty. For too long we have accepted the role of the government of the noble oppressor. For too long we too have stood idly by in a state of willing ignorance.

As individuals we proclaim once again that every man is his own sovereign, to be judged according to his own obedience to principles of freedom, responsibility and tolerance, and that it is not the nature of man to be reformed by government, it is the nature of government to be reformed by man.

Every man is hereby absolved from the moral conflict restraining him from throwing off the shackles of unjust, immoral, and unconstitutional law. In so doing, the political connection between him and his nation is magnified and made living the furnace of disobedience. No longer will we live with blood stained souls in willing ignorance of the carnality that our sweat stained dollars have endorsed. We make our stand here. We make our stand now. We each proclaim, in no uncertain terms, that no more shall the downtrodden remain nameless. No more shall the government fain reason and eloquence, for it is brute force and our hearts are sounding, our minds are firm. We choose to disobey.

We join history’s historic objectors, that we too may find the courage of character to face the bludgeon, the gun, and the gavel; that we too may be remembered by our friends and our beloved families; that we too may be memorialized, not by the waves we made but by the principles we refused to abandon.

You are witnessing the rise of The Resistance. We are your neighbors, your students, your sons and daughters and our ranks are swelling. You see us and you know us not but for the smiles we carry, for we are at peace with our principles. In the days that come you will come to understand that we seek not for power but to pull it down. We employ no violence in our methods. We have no general, no organization, no weapons; but we are an army. Our members carry conviction in their hearts as they live by the motto: “I do not consent. I am The Resistance.”

Let Freedom Ring,

The Resistance

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Let The Love of Death Wash Over You

How far have we fallen? How degraded have we become? We have become the very thing we were taught to fight against. We love death more than life. Please stop...

How far have we fallen? How degraded have we become? We have become the very thing we were taught to fight against. We love death more than life. Please stop celebrating the death of bin Laden. It only shows your hate. Mourn with those who have lost love ones, pray that our leaders will end this war, and send greater love to our Muslim friends. But do not cheer the death of another man.

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Moderating Moderation

Honestly, do I live in a world where reason has been cast aside? Do I walk through life’s misty valleys alone in the firm conviction that man exists and still...

Honestly, do I live in a world where reason has been cast aside? Do I walk through life’s misty valleys alone in the firm conviction that man exists and still evolves by passion alone? Was it not the fervent rejection of sudden death in the face of eminent danger that drove our ancestors to beat back the elements, to tame the wild? Was in not a single-minded dedication to uncover the mysteries of worlds both sacred and secular that gave birth to the Reformation and the Renaissance? When in the concurrent social ebbs and flows of civilized history did passion cease to be marked among the virtues?

Men are morally obliged to withhold gratuitous conjecture; else, at best, redress may be found in passionate refutation, at worst, in apathy. It is one thing to hate the opinion of a peer, it is quite another to nothing it. This evening I found myself struggling to find worth in the opinion of a friend. I would have settled for nothing more than a hint of value, but such satisfaction evaded me. I guess the sage of Rock and Roll, Mick Jagger, was right, “you can’t always get what you want.” In truth, I would be amiss if I were to say that his opinion fell on deaf ears. For I find myself still pondering his assertions. I am guilty, so he alleges of viewing life too personally, too seriously, and too literally.

Is this not a quintessential display of paradox? For if on the one hand he is correct, his advice would be to not take his own critique personally, seriously, or literally, thus rendering his conjecture valueless. However, even if his assertions are false in the long run, I must make them true in the short run. To establish the false nature of the assertions, I must, in effect make them true by taking personally, seriously and literally the very proposition that I take things personally, seriously and literally.

But what of it if it is true? Is that not simply a display of passion? I stand by the conviction that the majority of my mortal experiences fall somewhere between apathy and mild amusement in my how-much-do-I-give-a-damn spectrum. But I am not cast to and fro with every wind of doctrine, as he contends. I choose, with intense deliberation, the doctrines I adopt. And I am ever aware of the direction those winds blow.

That being said, the doctrines I choose, both sacred and secular, I defend with fierceness and only a select few of those doctrines are canonized into a personal ethical, emotional, and logical foundation upon which I am constantly remodeling the superstructure of my life. It is these few doctrines that I unapologetically take very personally, very seriously, and very literally.

I am told to be moderate in all things, but I believe that we must be moderate in the moderation of all things, for moderation can be the death knell of progress. It is toward these few core doctrines that I harness a passionate loyalty. They are universal.

  • God is my dad, and he loves me because I am his son.
  • My objective in mortality is the acquisition of virtue.
  • The grace of Christ empowers me to shed vice.
  • Absolute virtue can only be practiced in absolute liberty.

All other approaches, perspectives, or paradigms that are evident in the expressive construct of my life, are simply appendages of those four core principles. I am forever engaged in the acquisition of new ideas. I filter them through the prism of that canon. Only with that tool can I discern eternal truths from the sophistries and false philosophies of men. But mastering that canonical prism, learning to separate that truth from friction, requires a deliberate and skillful application both objective and subjective reasoning.

Perhaps my friend, observing my oafish, unskillful blundering with regards to this reasoned experimentation, extrapolates that I am being buffeted by Satan’s zephyrous pomp, like tumble weed bounding forth, enslaved by the dictates of the wind. Though I would never be so bold as to proclaim that Satan has no influence upon me, I do believe we give him far too much credit. I realize that my greatest enemy is my own human nature, not the threat of demonic temptation or possession. To that end, I am thankful for those four principles and my habitually moderate approach to the moderation of the passion I feel for them. That personal, serious, and literal passion that bleeds from every pour will one day lead me back home to live with my dad.

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Skousen, W. Cleon. “5000 Year Leap”

“The Five Thousand Year Leap,” first published in 1981 by the late Cleon Skousen, provides an essential introduction to the Founding of our Nation. Mr. Skousen approaches the Founding as...

“The Five Thousand Year Leap,” first published in 1981 by the late Cleon Skousen, provides an essential introduction to the Founding of our Nation. Mr. Skousen approaches the Founding as a miracle, not unlike the Moses’ parting of the Red Sea or Jesus’ healing. Indeed, he declares that Heaven was intimately involved in the unfurling of a system of government, that in its original state set the stage for the emancipation of human virtue.

The author adroitly condenses the Founders’ intentions into 27 principles. Examining each principle, he dives into a canon of American dogma. The weightier concepts include Natural Law, Public Virtue, religion, equality of rights, inalienable rights, divine law, sovereignty, republican democracy, property rights, free markets, checks and balances, public education, foreign alliances, national debt, and American Exceptionalism.

This is a great book for anyone hoping to find an introduction to the founding history of our nation and the role that Christianity played. It is a subject that has been prostituted by the political class for nearly 100 years. There was a time when Americans treated Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin with reverent awe. Today they are relegated to history’s trash heap, labeled as racists, sexists, and narcisists. Although it isn’t biographical in approach, this book restores the principles that motivated those Founding Fathers to build a nation that altered 5000 years of human history and launched it into the modern era.