How We Can Win the Second American Revolution Without Firing a Shot

A Tea Party Manifesto
by James Ostrowski


Ladies and Gentlemen.

I have news for you. Barack Obama is not the problem with America. He is merely the symptom. When big government failed, the people, not knowing what went wrong, went for the fresh face who promised that government would solve the problems the people didn’t know government caused in the first place.

America went off course many, many decades ago. Blaming Obama for our problems is like saying a 500 pound man is fat because he just ate three pizzas. Obama is the captain of the Titanic and his ship is speeding recklessly along, but he did not design the ship nor place that giant iceberg in its path.

The tragedy is that the American people do not know why the economy collapsed. They do not know the nature of the regime that runs the country. They do not know that this regime is not the regime for which the Founding Fathers fought. They do not know what the regime was that the Founders fought for. Finally, they do not know that the solution to our economic collapse is to restore that regime.

What were those Minute Men fighting for at Lexington and Concord? A republic of largely independent states. They weren’t fighting for the Constitution. There was no Constitution. They were fighting for a republic that would protect their natural right to liberty.

What is a republic? There’s much confusion about this. We must get this right. John Adams once complained that he “never understood” what the guarantee of republican government meant “and I believe no man ever did or will.” With apologies to John Adams, by “republican,” I mean a government exercising limited powers delegated to it by the people, whose officials are answerable to the people in regular, free elections.

Distinguishing between a republic and a democracy is critical. Both forms of government feature voting by the people to select officials. The difference between them is that while republican voting is done for the purpose of choosing officials to administer the government in the pursuit of its narrowly defined functions; democratic voting is done, not only to select officials but also to determine the functions and goals and powers of the government. The guiding principle of republics is that they exercise narrow powers delegated to them by the people, who themselves, as individuals, possess such powers. They cannot spring as they do in democracies, ex nihilo, from the mob’s collective whim.

Only a republican government can be truly limited. A republican government may only exercise powers delegated by the people that the people actually possess. The people do not have the right to steal from their neighbors so they cannot delegate to the government the power to create a welfare state. The people don’t have the right to counterfeit so they cannot delegate that power to the Federal Reserve. The people do not have the right to rule the world so they cannot delegate to the government the right to create a global military empire. You see where I am going with this? If we had a republic, we wouldn’t be in the bloody mess we are in.

In a democracy, there are no real limits to government power. If you object, you will always be told, hey, majority rules.

Long before Barack Obama was born, America traded in its decentralized libertarian republic for a centralized, democratic, corporate state with a global military empire. You can’t destroy a great country immediately. By the 1970’s, however, the corporate state, the welfare-warfare state started to cause economic stagnation and an endless series of domestic and foreign crises. Middle class living standards have been frozen in place for decades. Our standard of living was only maintained by smoke and mirrors: young mothers joining the workforce, parents working three jobs, credit card and mortgage debt, huge federal deficits, inflation and foreign borrowing. What is happening now is judgment day, the day of reckoning, the day the national Ponzi scheme collapsed. To con the people into thinking that all was well, our puppet masters created a lot of phony money and the bill is now due.

Now, the solution to all this is quite simple. Here’s what we need to do.

1. Liquidate the global military empire, ending the two Asian land wars that George Bush got us into and the Democrats and Obama helped pay for.

2. Take the savings, trillions, and liquidate the federal welfare state, buying out all Social Security recipients with lump sum payments.

3. Abolish all the unconstitutional departments and programs like Education, Energy, HUD, HHS, and Agriculture.

4. Then we can repeal the damned Income Tax Amendment, the worst thing that ever happened to this country, except for possibly–

5. The Federal Reserve–abolish it. Repeal the legal tender laws and gold and silver will automatically become market money.

6. Now, add a couple of amendments to bring the moribund Constitution back to life. Ban all corporate welfare so we never again have bankster heists and corporate bailouts. And, since true federalism was destroyed in the Civil War, let’s recognize what the Founders understood in 1776, that any republic has the right to withdraw from a union when it so chooses. That will guarantee that the federal government will never again turn into a monstrous, murderous, counterfeiting kleptocacy.

Now, that was easy, but if that platform was put up to a vote, it would lose, big-time.

So our real problem is how to put this plan into effect, how to restore the Republic, in short, how to win the Second American Revolution.

History—Pickett’s Charge; The Charge of the Light Brigade–shows what happens when a smaller army attacks a larger army in a heavily fortified position. They lose!

The sad truth is, though we want to restore the spirit of the American Revolution, we are outnumbered by Red Coats!

The vast majority of Americans now support Red Coat government: an arrogant King in a big castle, with a large court, ruling by edict from a distant capital, endless wars across the ocean for a global empire, and heavy taxes to pay for those wars. And we are now embroiled in two land wars in Asia in countries that previously expelled the British! That’s why Rudyard Kipling wrote:

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

Maybe the Loyalists who fled to Canada should come back home. After all, the British ultimately won the Revolutionary War. Their ideas prevailed. The Revolution is dead—unless the tea party movement can revive it.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that about ten percent of Americans are fed up and ready for radical change. That means that 90% are not. That’s a huge problem.

Remember that at Lexington, when the government gun controllers and tax collectors came up the road, the men of the town greeted them with muskets ready to fire. Today, if we did that, most of the men of the town would side with the federales.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in 1770 again, when there was a small number of radicals who wanted independence but most people wanted to stay with England.

Being outnumbered doesn’t mean we can’t win. History also teaches that a smaller, more dedicated army, with a just cause, can prevail against a larger, mercenary force. But we need to become more dedicated, more committed, and at the end of the day, we need to get larger. We need converts just as the Patriots did.

So, our first task is obvious: education. We need to educate ourselves before we can educate others. We need to study the history and principles of the American Revolution. We need to study war and peace. War is the health of the state. We need to study economics.

Let’s take a quick look at the American Revolution.

• England needed money for war.
• They taxed the Colonists.
• The Colonists didn’t want to pay.
• England sent troops and tax collectors armed with general warrants to find taxable stuff.
• The Colonists got angry and threatened resistance.
• The English decided to seize the Colonists’ guns.
• War broke out.

Lessons:
• War means high taxes.
• Taxes mean invasion of privacy.
• To steal your money and violate your privacy, the government must disarm you first.
• You have the natural right to resist tyranny.
• Gun control was the proximate cause of the American Revolution.
• America was born in an act of resistance to gun control!
***********
Economics. Did you know that if the American people understood one simple principle, that we could shrink the size of government by 90% in three months. What principle? All resources are scarce. If we could only understand that principle, which just happens to be the first law of economics, then all the politicians’ lies about adding new programs like the bailout and stimulus would be laughed at.

So, we need to teach ourselves economics at home school—the living room laptop or the desk top computer in the attic or basement.

What does the free market have to do with the Republic? Everything! Republican government exists to protect private property. The free market is the free exchange of private property. A true republic can only have a free market economy.
Why can’t a republic have a global military empire?

An empire is designed to rule other nations for their benefit or ours. If it’s the former, it violates the purpose of a republic as limited to protecting the rights of its own citizens, not the planet’s. If it’s the latter, then the republic violates its own premise, the natural rights of all human beings. Empires require huge armies and bureaucracies and oppressive taxes which violate our right to private property, the right to keep what we earn. Empires, as Washington taught us, invite retaliation and thus the government betrays its only true purpose by jeopardizing the lives and security of its citizens by pointlessly manufacturing foreign enemies.

Once we understand our own history, the dynamics of war and peace and the principles of market economics, we need to start making more Patriots. Start with your family and friends, then co-workers, customers, clients, neighbors and members of your church or your gym if fitness is your religion.

Can you all convert 25 Patriots this year? If not, we will lose this fight.
What else can we do?

Remember, a direct assault when you are outnumbered will fail.

But we do not have to wait till we make more coverts to move towards our goal.

Let me back up and discuss strategy generally. We neglect strategy at our peril. Keep in mind that no movement such as ours has succeeded in its goal since Jefferson’s day.

There are only three ways to change politics.

Violence, political activity and direct citizen action.

Violence is out of the question. That’s our adversary’s tactic. That’s why we are here today. We favor liberty over violence, peace over war. Liberty = Peace = Order. Pierre Proudhon was wrong. Liberty is not the “Mother of Order.”
Liberty is order.

What about politics—lobbying and elections? Politics is rigged. Most politicians are corrupt degenerates and couldn’t care less what we think. And the last time an election led to smaller government in America was—-guess—-1800!

I have been fighting the political machine for 35 years and I firmly believe that direct citizen action is the only way we can beat them.

What is direct citizen action? Instead of convincing some bought-and-paid-for politician to change his little mind, or spending all summer trying to beat them at a rigged game and get good people elected, you choose your own battle ground and you choose courses of action that are designed to achieve your goal.

Direct citizen action is hardly a new concept. Ever hear of the Boston Tea Party? And it’s what Gandhi used to topple the British Empire. It’s what Martin Luther King used to fight Jim Crow.

We need to think about the things we do every day and figure out how we can integrate our movement into those daily routines. One thing we do every day is spend money. We buy things. We buy services. We pay bills.

How do politicians win elections? By buying TV time. Where do they get the money? Much of it comes from private businesses or private persons who run or own business firms. We know who they are and so I say to you: stop slitting your own throats. Stop buying things from business firms that fund the political machine and fund the corporate state and fund big government.

Now you can go down to Congressman Higgins’ office and talk to his staff till you’re blue in the face about getting rid of the Federal Reserve. They will ignore you and, when you leave, they will have a good laugh at your expense. Or, you can stop giving your money to his bankrollers. One tactic is a complete waste of time. The other will hurt his ability to raise money. If he can’t raise money, we can beat him when our numbers grow.

Boycott the bankers of the political class. Starve the Red Coats and Loyalists!

Now, if you are boycotting those fat cats and their firms, you are going to have to spend your money elsewhere. Here too you can directly aid the movement with each purchase. If we have ten percent of the population on our side, we probably have twenty-five percent of small businesses. Small business owners are natural libertarians. You don’t have to tell them how taxes are oppressive and how government regulations can strangle them. They know it because they live that nightmare each day. So I say, buy from Patriots. They will return the favor later in too many ways to imagine now. To hell with Red Coat companies. In this country, money talks. In politics, it’s the only thing that does.

You want to win this fight? You want a free country? Buy it!

How do we know which businesses to patronize? Easy. Look for the Betsy Ross flag, the flag the Patriots flew.

We need to get people’s attention. We need a new symbol because the current symbols of patriotism have lost their meaning. What does the current flag stand for? Limited government? A true republic? Minding our own business in the world as Washington advised? Obviously not. In fact, the flag is used to glorify a regime that would make the Patriots sick to their stomachs.

So I propose that we use the Betsy Ross flag to symbolize our movement. Our adversaries have their symbols; we will have better ones.

There is a great symbol out there for the taking that is universally understood to stand for the old republic. I propose we bring it to life again as the symbol of our movement and, further, to use it as a battle flag. Battle flags serve the critical function of identifying allies during the chaos of battle. When we see that flag, wherever we are in the country, we know there will be a kindred spirit behind that door.

As this movement grows, these flags will start dominating the landscape and we will know that victory is near.

Here’s another form of direct citizen action you can take. The original Patriots did not trust government, including prosecutors or judges. They knew the only way to restrain the power of government was by external checks and balances. They gave us two: the right to bear arms and juries. Naturally, they have tried to take both of these rights away from us. The right to bear arms is safe for the moment but let’s talk about juries.

The original concept of a jury was that it could override the judge on matters of law. Call that jury nullification. Every prominent founder who was a lawyer stated explicitly that juries have the right to judge the law itself and whether it would be unjust to convict a defendant for violating that law under the circumstances.

Tyrannical judges have ruled otherwise, thus overruling the Constitution by judicial fiat.

The bottom line is this. The founders believed you have a constitutional right to judge the law in a criminal case and any judge who says otherwise hasn’t studied our constitutional history.

The purpose of republican government is to protect the individual’s right to life, liberty and property. The Founders created a jury system to ensure that no one was convicted of a crime unless they violated the life, liberty or property of a fellow citizen. If you get a jury notice, don’t grumble. Show up and assert your rights and keep in mind that no one can tell you how to cast your vote in that jury room.

Now, just for the record, I’m not saying jurors should violate the law and lie to judges about their willingness to follow their instructions on the law. What I’m saying is that judges should follow the law and should not lie to jurors!

So, there are things you can do yourself and right now to move toward restoration of the Republic.

Make a list of the people you know and who respect your opinion. Family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, clients, customers. Write them a letter and tell them you have joined a movement to restore the American Republic and save the nation from the Red Coats who have destroyed it. Invite them to do the same. Host a meeting at your home to discuss the matter further.

Before that meeting, educate yourself about the history of your country, about economics, about the Federal Reserve, the income tax and the true nature of the present regime. We have created a web page with all the resources you will need.

PoliticalClassDismissed.com/teaparty

Immunize yourself from the lies of politicians. If any politician tells you they will improve your life, they’re lying. Don’t believe them. How do know a politician is lying? Their lips are moving. Teach your children not to believe them either. A politician will tell you face to face he will do this or that for you, then, as soon as you turn your back on him, he will pick your pocket to pay for the same promise he made to your neighbor.

Tolstoy wrote the politician’s credo:

“I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.”

So, you need to withdraw your support for the corrupt regime the federal government has become. That’s easy. Just stop. Stop voting for those degenerates and don’t vote for their opponents either unless they are Patriots. Stop being silent when people talk about politics. State your opinion clearly. Tell people you’ve joined the Second American Revolution and urge them to do so as well.

You can also start to support the new media sites that are already fighting this battle. A website is no better than its traffic. If you patronize sites such as www.PoliticalClassDismissed.com, you make us more influential so we can fight harder for you. When you’re surfing the web, consider if the sites you frequent are part of the problem.

And stop supporting authors and magazines that led us astray in recent years. Stop funding organizations whose policies have failed. Stop supporting websites whose policies have failed. You need to go out and find those authors, groups, websites, books and magazines such as Ilana Mercer of World Net Daily who got it right the last ten years. We have created a page with those links.

Use the Betsy Ross flag; patronize business firms that fly or display the flag; stop patronizing Red Coat firms that take your money and hand it off to the political class. Stop slitting your owns throats. Stop giving your money to the bankers of the political class.

If you serve on a jury, educate yourself about your constitutional right to decide the case based on your conscience. No judge or fellow juror can tell you that you must convict someone of a victimless crime if you believe there is reasonable doubt.

To sum up, here’s a 12-step program for how you can start to restore the American Republic.

1. Decide that you’ve had enough. You want to do something to reverse America’s economic collapse. That something is nothing less than restoring the American republic. America’s problems of today were caused by the abandonment of that Republic slowly over a long period of time. Pledge allegiance to the principles of the American Revolution.
2. Write a letter to your family, friends and neighbors declaring your support for restoring the American Republic.
3. Invite them to a meeting.
4. Educate yourself on American history, politics and economics.
5. Hold the meeting and explain to them what you have learned and urge them to do the same and then hold their own meeting with their own social circle.
6. Display the symbol of the restoration of the republic, the Betsy Ross flag.
7. Patronize businesses that display this flag.
8. Boycott businesses that bankroll the political class.
9. Educate yourself on the rights of jurors. If you are called for jury duty, understand that the founding fathers designed the system as a check on government power. Remember that when you are in the jury room deliberating.
10. Patronize books, blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines, think tanks, and political groups that were right about the economic collapse. Mises.org., IlanaMercer.com and others. See our page for a complete list.
11. For political activism, join an existing Patriot group. Don’t reinvent the wheel. See our page for recommended groups. While I believe that politics is not our best field of battle at the moment, as our movement grows, we will soon be able to launch a successful frontal assault on the political class.
12. Follow these websites for continuing developments:

PoliticalClassDismissed.com
FreeNewYork.org
BuffaloLiberty.com

Will this plan succeed? I believe it will if it gets a good start. I believe if it gets started, it will be unstoppable, like an idea whose time has come—back.

But this I know for certain. If we do not try to spark a Second American Revolution, we will fail and you, and your children, and your grandchildren, will never know what it is like to live in the America that was supposed to be. And, with the government always strengthening its stranglehold on the schools, they won’t even have a historical memory of it.

George Washington, who led the fight in battle for the American Revolution, and knew a thing or two about adversity, about temporary defeat, about being outnumbered, about being accused of treason, and about being shot at by Red Coats, said, “Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”

So in closing I urge you make this pledge. I pledge allegiance to the principles of the American Revolution, stated by Jefferson, and for which the Minute Men and Washington’s Army fought: that government’s only purpose is to protect our natural rights to life, liberty, and property; that any government that does “more” than protect our natural rights must thereby violate those same rights and become a tyranny that the people have the right to alter or abolish. I pledge to resist that tyranny by peaceful means if at all possible.