Blizzhackers

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Do you believe that this would ever hold true in today's day and age? Could you possibly for see an event that essentially is a coup of today's government?

If they repealed the second amendment.

Yes but only if the government did something blatantly unconstitutional like repeal the second amendment.

What do you call the Patriot Act?

The Patriot act is questionable at best but it would need to be something big to Joe six pack.

A better question is what do you think that quote means?

Too many people take it to mean that we must fight oppression with violence when such oppression takes hold of our government.



But where does it say that the people must spill the blood of tyrants to refresh the tree of liberty?

Instead shouldn't it be a reference to something the founding fathers likely knew, that the citizens of a stable government would become lazy, stagnant. That we would give up freedoms (Patriot Act, etc) because we have taken said freedoms for granted for so long that we cannot contemplate their absence and thus fail to realize as they're slowly taken away.

There is a reason the wise decry MTV culture, decry the constant updating of status' and etc. When people become used to having things done instantaneously they can easily lose sight of the long term and the power of slow change, which though not more powerful than fast change by itself becomes so when ignored.

If you wanted to put the quote to a modern context, it could be said that even now the tree of liberty is being refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants, that our state of constant war since WW2 is producing that blood, the blood of our soldiers and the blood of those we perceive as tyrants.
But if you take the quote to have a malicious (or evil) connotation then perhaps these wars are our wake-up call.

These kinds of colonial wars are not new, the same wars have been happening for centuries for the same reasons with the same tactics. It is not beyond reason that the founding fathers would have envisaged this outcome regardless of technology, basic human nature does not change so readily.

So perhaps these wars are the wake-up call, the call to rise out of stagnation not with weapons or violence but to get off our asses and pay attention to what is happening around us rather than what others say is happening.

It's a call to exercise our liberty, which means thinking for ourselves, which means forming our own opinions based on what we have actively gone out and learned from multiple sources. It means that tuning into the evening news should only be a small part of how we learn what is going on in our country, in the world, and most importantly how it relates to us as individuals. It means talking to each other and understanding what problems you have and how you can solve them, not just in the short term but what current events mean in the long term as well.

In my experience quotes such as this, from men such as they, never have a meaning so succinct as the quote itself.

I think it means what it sounds like... From time to time patriots must risk life and blood to fight a corrupt government with force.

It may be six months from now it may be 100 years from now but eventually people will give the government to much power and it will become corrupt and patriot's will have to overthrow it and the cycle go's round and round.

whats the 2nd amendment say?

too lazy to google it

The right to own guns

The government does blatantly unconstitutional things every day. Lets see... they just past the health care bill.

Short answer is no.

We have our beer and circus...

I LOVE AMERICA> IM SO GLAD WERE FREE> HONEY, WHEN'S GLADIATORS ON?



Are you fucking serious?
1. freedom of speech/press
2. A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
3. barring of quartering of soldiers in homes without home owners permission
4. right to privacy/right to be secure in ones persons, houses, papers, etc. guards against illegal searches/seizures
5. double jeopardy, trial only after a grand jury indicts you, guarantees due process of law, the right not to be forced to testify against one self "i.e. pleading the 5th" - prevents taking of property without just compensation
6. right to a speedy trial by jury in criminal cases + right to counsel + right to face your accuser
7. right to trial by jury in civil cases
8. right against cruel or unusual punishments and bars excessive bail/fine
9. The enumeration in the constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10. The powers not delegated to the US by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

9+10 are broken daily and are cornerstones of our constitution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0yn23wXtbw

no because this is america:

QFT

Except I'm not american, and I couildn't give a shit about your right to own a gun. But good job assuming I'm american.