The Moral Response to Tyranny

TRANSCRIPT

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Hey, it says I'm now live. Awesome, good to see you. And I'm gonna make this real quick. I'm actually getting ready to give a presentation and if you'd like to have me give a presentation to your group or some people in your home, just reach out to me at the Tree of Liberty website or just instant message me right here on Facebook. But, and also wanted to let you know that on March 30th, I'll be giving a all day presentation, several hour presentation down in St. George on the 30th.

And if you just go to Tree of Liberty Society, go to our events page, you'll find out about that.

And then on Saturday, this Saturday, I'll be doing a YouTube live and I'm gonna be covering a chapter of my book right here that you can have, that you can get on the website, Invasion Volume Two, and about Skull and Bones. There's been some talk out there that there's a difference between the Skull and Bones at the University of Utah and the one at Yale. And that's just, and so I wanna talk about that. What is the truth behind that?

What's the data tell us? Why do we know what we know? And things like that. I think you'll find it very interesting and very informative and it'll be, it'll help you be at least informed and be able to make your own decision based on the data and not on feelings. So the thing I really wanted to have a discussion with you, and nobody's come on just yet, but as people come on, I don't know if you'll be able to rewind and start from the beginning, but if you do, I'd love to hear any questions or comments that you might have as I do this for the next few minutes.

And it's about this book right here. It's called Killing No Murder. And this book was written in the 1600s. It was written in, if I remember correctly, 1657. And it's something, so I didn't write this, obviously, 1657. And the principles in this are principles that most people today that even consider themselves conservative, constitutionalist, liberty-minded, that frankly, they reject. And it's time that we understand these principles again.

And I wanna make this book popular again. And we need to get this information, I believe, into the hands of as many people as possible. These principles are, they're based on natural law. They are things, and if we don't understand what natural law is, that's a big problem because the founding fathers knew well what natural law was. And so, we've, the only, this is the only book I'm aware of in modern typeset.

There is one other book I saw on Amazon, reprint of this, and it's basically just a photocopy of a 200-year-old version of this book. And so, this version right here is, it has modern typeset, so it's much easier to read. And I have a, I gave an introduction to it, but I'd like to kind of just tell you a little bit more about this book. It was written anonymously because of the things that it talks about, what a moral Christian person does in response to a tyrant.

And it does it in three questions. So, what are those three questions that it answers? The first question is, what is a tyrant? What is a tyrant? That is something that today people say is subjective, and it's thrown around here and there to different individuals, and people say that one person's not a tyrant, while somebody else will say that same person is a tyrant. And so, we need to understand, we need to define words.

And if we don't think, if we think we can define words any way we want to, we're gonna be in a lot of trouble. And so, the word, what is a tyrant, is an important word to define and understand. Otherwise, where are we going to be? And the second question is, is it honorable to kill a tyrant? That's, wow, right? Pretty bold question. And then question number three, will the outcome of killing a tyrant be beneficial to the people?

Answers that question. And these questions have been asked and answered throughout time. In the book itself, it starts off quoting two books from the Old Testament, both from 2 Chronicles, one from chapter 23, and the other from chapter 25. I'll read both of those quotes from 2 Chronicles, but the book itself is filled with scriptural backing for these natural law principles to answer these three questions.

So 2 Chronicles 23, 21. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet, and after they had slain Athaliah with a sword. After they had done this, the city was quiet, and the people in the land rejoiced. Now we go to chapter 25, verse 27. It says, "Now after the time that Amaziah "did turn away from following the Lord, "they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, "that he fled to Lachish, "but they sent to Lachish after him and slew him."

He was a wicked king, and that was the response. He was a tyrant, according to the definition that we see that is laid out through here using the benefit of scripture and natural law to be able to understand that. So these ideas, these questions were things that the founding fathers considered and that they answered for themselves. And in fact, there's one of the most prolific writers that the founding fathers read as a group and that they quoted as they were defending their movement towards independence.

And that is Cato's Letters. And in volume one, on page 42, volume one, number 42. So they have been now today printed together. They were multiple different little pamphlets, and they were put together in two volumes that we have today. So this is in volume one of the modern printing, pages 292 to 293. And so this is something the founding fathers would have read, would have understood, would have implemented.

And it says, so this is what a God-fearing man's duty towards tyrants. Quote, "The law of nature does not allow us, "but oblige us to defend ourselves." So it's not just about, oh yes, you're allowed to, it's not gonna be a big deal. No, you're obliged to, you have a duty to defend yourself and your family. It is our duty not only to ourselves, but to the society.

It's a duty to defend society. If we suffer tamelessly, a lawless attack upon our property and fortunes, we encourage it. Wow, that's huge, right? Tamely, if we suffer, if we allow tamely, if we just like whatever, just allow it to move forward without any kind of resistance, we actually encourage that lawlessness by government and involve others in our doom. By not doing something about it, we are actually allowing others, we're involving others in our doom.

And Cicero says, "He who does not resist mischief "when he may," so if you can and you don't, "is guilty of the same crime, "as if he had deserted his parents, "his friends, and his country." If you can do something and you don't do something, you are equal, you are guilty of the same crime that you should have stopped. "When men begin to be wicked, "we cannot tell where that wickedness will end.

"We have reason to fear the worst and provide against it." Let me read that again. "When men begin to be wicked, "we cannot tell where the wickedness will end." We don't know how far that's going to go. Is this when it begins? Is it just gonna keep on going? Is it gonna stop here? So we have reason to fear the worst, right? If they're gonna become wicked, we have to assume that it's going to continue and it's going to expand.

And so we have to fear the worst and we have to provide against it. So these are the questions, these are the principles of what a good moral person does when dealing with a tyrant. Now, this is something that my enemies are going to just can really grasp onto, grab onto, and try to attack me further and use it as another excuse to stop me. But what they're doing is they're telling on themselves because this book, it just says what is a tyrant and what to do with the tyrant.

So if you're not a tyrant, you have nothing to fear from this. But if you are, you should fear, absolutely. You should repent and you should fear God and you should turn from your wicked ways. And if you know what a tyrant is and you know that tyranny is happening and you do nothing about it, you need to repent. Otherwise, you are just as guilty as the tyrant. So this is what I wanted to just kind of sit down and share with you, some of these things, encourage you to get the book and to learn and just kind of go through the details.

What is it that the founding fathers understood about these principles and how did they apply them? Why did they apply them? When did they apply them? So that now we can actually shed ourselves of the false traditions of our fathers and start to adopt true principles that the Lord will be pleased with us when we apply. So hope to talk to you soon and I'll see you next time.