Articles \ What Is A Tyrant? Are We Living Under A Tyranny?
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What Is A Tyrant? Are We Living Under A Tyranny?
Posted by Ben McClintock, Wednesday, 26 Jun 2024.
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Too often in political discourse individuals will engage in ad hominem attacks, resorting to name calling anyone that disagrees with their point of view. They’ll call someone a Nazi, homophobic, misogynist, etc. as a way to silence debate.
However, to build understanding, name calling cannot be a part of the discussion.
One word that is often used, but seen as hyperbole because it’s dictionary definition is so broad as to border on ambiguous is “Tyrant”. In today’s political climate though, it’s vital to know what words mean so as to use them appropriately and not be dismissed as simply engaging in ad hominiem attacks on those we disagree with.
The Founders did not call King George a tyrant hyperbolicly. They understood its meaning. One book written in the 1600’s clearly defined tyrant and was read by our Founding generation. Killing No Murder not only lays out what a tyrant is, but what a moral Christian responds to such an individual and the consequences for failing to act in such a Christian manner.
Please watch and share our report where I give a quick overview of these principles. You can buy your copy of Killing No Murder in our shop, now included as part if our book, Invasion: https://treeoflibertysociety.com/books/invasion
Learn more about standing up for liberty in our Learn section
https://treeoflibertysociety.com/resources/
TRANSCRIPT
Generated using A.I.; please forgive any mistakes.
A lot of times in political discussions, people just throw out just ambiguous terms with no meaning to try and silence you. Whether it's bigot, whether it's homophobe, whether it's Nazi, it's a way to silence you, but it has no basic basis in reality. And it's essential that we get away from this, that we don't use words without meaning behind them. And today the word I want to talk about is the word tyrant. Because tyrant is not simply a word that is used against those that you disagree with politically. It has meaning. It is not just someone that is doing as passing a law or is pushing for legislation that you just simply disagree with. A tyrant and tyranny are words that have meaning and that are important meanings for us to understand the definition of today on the Tree of Liberty Society program. So if a tyrant is not this ambiguous term for anyone that simply does something that you disagree with in government, what does it mean? Because the definitions in modern dictionaries leave a lot to want for, a lot to desire, to really understand concretely what a tyrant is.
When the founding fathers called King George a tyrant, it wasn't simply an ambiguous term to throw at somebody that they just didn't like. There was a specific meaning behind calling King George a tyrant. And in the book that is very unknown today, but is a book that was something that was well known by the founding fathers and the founding generation, and it used the scriptural definition of a tyrant, is the book Killing No Murder, which the Tree of Liberty Society now publishes. And I encourage you to go and pick up your copy at thetreeoflibertyssociety.com. It was published again back in the 1600s, and it was published anonymously. You can just imagine why that would be. But in that book, it uses the scriptures and defines the word tyranny in unmistakable, non-equivocable terms what a tyrant is. So let's go through that. It defines a tyrant in two different ways.
There are two different kinds of tyrants. One kind of tyrant is a tyrant that rules tyrannically, and another one is one that is an illegitimate ruler. They rule illegitimately. And so I'd like to go through both of those definitions. These are definitions, and so then you can apply these definitions. You can apply the word tyrant appropriately and accurately. And when you call somebody a tyrant, it will mean something, and people will know what you mean, especially if you are sharing this video and helping people understand the real definition of a tyrant. So let's go to the first definition of a tyrant. That is one that has no right to govern.
In the book, Killing No Murder, the author states, By the laws of God and nature, the care, defense, and support of the family lies upon every man whose it is. But several families uniting themselves together to make up one body of a commonwealth, and being independent one of another, without any natural superiority or obligation, nothing can introduce amongst them a disparity of rule and subjection, but some power that is over them. All men are just naturally equal. Which power? None can pretend to have, but God and themselves. So only God has power over us, and then someone we choose to be over us.
Wherefore, all power which is lawfully exercised over such a society of men, which from the end of its institution we call a commonwealth, must necessarily be derived either from the appointment of God Almighty, who is supreme lord of all and every part, or from the consent of the society itself. A legitimate ruler can only come from two places, God or the people. So if somebody hasn't been appointed by God or the people, they are by definition a tyrant. If the ruler is not appointed by God, nor by the people, he is not a ruler, but an invader.
So he should be seen as an outside source that has invaded your community. And those that are subject to that power of that tyrant are not governed, but they are oppressed. Whether he is a benevolent dictator, a benevolent tyrant, is irrelevant. He is an oppressor by mere definition of being an illegitimate ruler. And so this is an important distinction as we see today with election fraud, the inability for us to be able to verify who we voted for, meaning verify how our vote was counted, not that our vote was counted.
So with all of the obvious fraud that's going on, the inability to be able to verify how your vote is counted, and the fact that the computer ballots can be easily manipulated, there's just no way to know if our current elected officials at every single level of government are legitimate or are they tyrants. So if we don't know if they have been chosen by the people, can we say that they are not tyrants based on that alone? Let's just take a quick break for a second. And if you like what we're doing here at the Tree of Liberty Society, you can support this channel.
You can support our efforts by first going to thetreeoflibertysociety.com and becoming a member today. We have different levels of membership where you're supporting what we're doing all the way to having a business write-off because you're advertising through the Tree of Liberty Society. And then also you can take advantage of our weekly meetings where no matter where you are in the entire world, we have people from all over the world, Japan, Canada, all over the United States, coming on and joining live to have a discussion about things that are going on, about solutions, and about things that you don't hear about elsewhere.
So you go to the Tree of Liberty Society, you become a member that supports the channel. Also, if you go to our shop, we have tons of awesome content. We have our books, we have shirts, we have hats, we have mugs and stickers and things that you can help to spread the word. So this is a great way that you can help support the channel. Go to the Tree of Liberty Society dot com today. So now let's go into the second definition of what is a tyrant. It is one that governs tyrannically. And so what is governing tyrannically?
There are different things that a leader will do to make themselves appear to be legitimate to the people. There are different talking points and buzzwords that will be used by a tyrant. They make the people feel like they're legitimate and that they're a friend to the people. And some of those things are things like they pretend to defend liberty. They use the military. They use speeches where they'll talk about, you know, today they talk about the Constitution of the Founding Fathers or, you know, a lot of different warm and fuzzies and how they just support the troops, that kind of a thing. Another thing that a tyrant will rule tyrannically by is by rule by fraud more than by force. So they don't need to come at you with their jackbooted thugs. They can rule over you tyrannically through fraud.
So with cunning, plausible pretenses to impose upon men's understandings. And in the end, they master those that had so little wit as to rely upon their faith and integrity. And so they lie to you to get you to obey them. So, and a lie doesn't have to be just a straight out typical lie, but a deception, a way to get you to do something that you wouldn't do without that deception. Another thing that a tyrant will do to rule tyrannically is to fill the ranks slowly of the government and the military, get rid of getting rid of moral individuals, and then replace them with those that will go along with the program. And if we're dealing with a multi-generational conspiracy, it's not just individuals that will obey their current leader, but people that will obey the status quo, that will obey this diabolic and satanic conspiracy. The next thing that a tyrant will do to govern tyrannically is that they impoverish the people to make it more difficult to oppose them. With taxes, inflation, excise taxes, etc. Make it too expensive that they have to spend all of their time working to provide for themselves and their families where they no longer have time to oppose the tyrant.
So just, so again, all of these, you don't have to do all of these to be a tyrant. If you've done any of these things, you are a tyrant. So do we have inflation? Do we have high taxes? Is it very much burdensome upon us to be able to even fight back against tyrannical measures by the government because we are spending all of our time being able to provide for our families because of these taxes and inflation? Another way a tyrant acts or could act would be to make war to distract the people, to make the people busy, to get their money and to get new taxes. Because if you don't support this war, that means you support the enemy. If you don't support the war on terror, you support the terrorist. Whatever the war is, the trumped up war, and this is why it's important, why the founding fathers said that they didn't want a standing army, not just a national army but your local army, was because it is used to be able to, it is used by a tyrant.
And of course, another thing that a tyrant does not want the people to do is to gather together in groups. They will do things culturally, they will do things legislatively, they will pass down edicts to make sure that people do not get together and build relationships. Now, can you think of a time in recent history when the government said that you should not meet together in large groups of individuals? Now, not only that, but have they changed the culture? Where now, today, maybe you don't know your neighbors, even your direct neighbors, let alone your whole neighborhood. Whereas, 30, 40 years ago, block parties were very common. Everybody on the street knew each other.
They met together. They had, people would come over for snacks in the evening. It was something much more common than we see today, where today, we are isolated. We do not, you know, we're, we do not meet together as groups like we once did. We'd be sitting there on a Thursday night watching TV. Your doorbell rang, the whole family shot off the couch. Oh my God! Put the lights on! Somebody's here! We got people!
The whole family went to the door. The kids were in socks. They slid up to the door. Right? You just opened up the door. You were like, oh my God, look at this. Oh, come on in. We're gonna have some cake.
Your mother had a little Entenmann's. Maybe some Sarah Lee crumble cake. Just in case company came over. She made an announcement when she bought it. She's like, listen, nobody touch this cake. This is for company only. Those crap muffins, those are for you, Pete.
You better hope to God somebody comes over so we can cut the cake. Nobody had a cell phone back then. If your house phone did ring, your father stood up and said, nobody get that phone. We got company.
And you lost track of time. Two hours went by. You were like, we got to get out of here. That's okay. Next time we're going to come by you. Yeah, my door's always open. Now your doorbell rings? It's like, what the fuck?
All right, your own mother's crawling across the kitchen floor. Get down, my army crawl. Army crawl. Get in the closet.
Go get the sword in the living room. Somebody get the sword underneath the couch in the living room. There's a sword. Well, not only that, but not just the tyrant themselves, but those, a part of the apparatus of the tyranny, will use their influence to legitimize the tyrant. They will make the people that believe that the government is good, or perhaps that even the government has been chosen by God. Religion can be a powerful font of legitimacy and practical assistance in a time of crisis. Misinformation is a major obstacle in a health crisis. Faith communities can debunk rumors, calm fears, and facilitate accurate information.
Another thing a tyrant will do is that they will get a disposable person to do their dirty work for them. That way it's just a, it's not a criminal act, it's a scandal. Now that there was a scandal, aka a criminal act, they can just get rid of this guy that was sent to do the job, and now they are protected because they took care of the problem. And they're scot-free and nothing happens because it was just a, simply a scandal, and they were able to get rid of the disposable person that did their dirty work for them. And of course, as we see with every single politician, they will claim to be religious. They will hold their Bibles. They will be seen entering or coming out of a church.
They'll talk about their religious faith as they are acting as a tyrant. According to this author that the Founding Fathers read, these are the things that, again, guided the Founding Fathers to say, "Is King George a tyrant?" And these are concrete, measurable means to say, "Are we, today, ruled by a tyrant?" That way it's not just an obscure thing of, "Oh, he's doing something I don't like. Oh, that makes me uncomfortable. So he's a tyrant." We have clear, defined, we have clear definitions of what a tyrant is that we can apply to living individuals. So this isn't something to say, "Oh, back then this was what happened."
We have, today, a way to identify real-life, modern tyrants. And that's what we at the Tree of Liberty Society are doing. We're identifying tyrants. And we are organizing to be able to restore lost liberty. I invite you to be part of that. Join with us at the Tree of Liberty Society by going to thetreeoflibertysociety.com and becoming a member today. Make sure to like, subscribe, and share this video and be a part of the army that is working to build greater understanding of the principles of liberty and what we can do to restore it. I'm Ben McClintock, and I'll see you next time.
Comments
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Guest said:
Saturday, 02 Nov 2024 11:41 AM (MDT)
Great videos, then! Good definition of a tyrant. We are living it. Also love the comedic relief of Sebastian Maniscalco. That is one of my favorites skits of his.
Ben McClintock said:
Saturday, 02 Nov 2024 4:32 PM (MDT)
Glad you enjoyed it! God bless.