Government Revision of History Debunked
By KrisAnne Hall, JD
The “vetted” history textbooks in our education systems of both K-12 and post-secondary are replete with vital omissions and intentional deceptions regarding the formation of America, our battle for independence and the creation of our Constitution. These errors have become so widespread and are taught with such “authority” that the majority of Americans, those who consider themselves conservative and liberal alike, have very little immediate access to information that speaks truth. Even former president Barack Obama used this errant teaching of history to justify the government’s dismantling of Americans’ 4th Amendment requirements. In a speech delivered regarding National Security Agency data collection programs, the Obama gave this twisted distortion of American history:
“At the dawn of our Republic, a small, secret surveillance committee, born out of the Sons of Liberty, was established in Boston. And the group’s members included Paul Revere. At night, they would patrol the streets, reporting any signs that the British were preparing raids against America’s early Patriots. Throughout American history, intelligence has helped secure our country and our freedoms.”
It is hard to believe that some speechwriter could so shamelessly coopt the fight for liberty to justify the modern surveillance state. On the other hand, given the progressive education that the majority of our citizens have been brainwashed to believe maybe he thought nobody would notice or even believed his own words to be truth. What do you say we shed the light of TRUTH on this mind-manipulating rewrite of American history?
The Revolutionary War Was Not A Battle Between The British And Americans
It was a battle between British Colonists and their government. It was a battle to win independence from government intrusion, denial of liberty, and government control. It was a civil war, not a foreign war.
The Sons Of Liberty Were Birthed By Colonists Who Were Fed Up With The Government’s Intrusion Upon Their Privacy, Property And Denial Of Their Rights
It all began in February 1761 when James Otis, Jr., a former government attorney, brought a lawsuit against the government for its blatant violations of the colonists’ rights to privacy and security of property from warrantless searches and seizures. Otis blew the cover off the British tool called “Writs of Assistance.” These Writs were authority given to government agents, by law, that permitted these agents to arbitrarily demand access to colonists’ homes and businesses to search and seized anything the government agents determined to be suspicious.
Otis had been in charge of the execution of these warrantless searches and prosecutions that resulted from the seizures. He began to realize just how tyrannical these Writs were. He called them, “The worst instruments of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English Liberty ever found in an English law book.” When Otis was approached by some colonists who were victims of this arbitrary power, he decided to resign his post and take up a legal battle to secure the Liberty of the Colonists.
The Colonists had a long established right to the security of their property and to due process rights. Otis was there to defend them.
Otis argued for five hours, fighting the government in their courtroom. He lost the legal fight but birthed a spirit of independence in the hearts and minds of the colonists. This is what John Adams said about that day in court.
“But Otis was a flame of fire! With a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glare of his eyes into (the future), and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him…American Independence was then and there born. The seeds of Patriots and Heroes – to defend the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an immense, crowded audience, appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take up arms against Writs of Assistance. Then, and there, was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain – then and there, the child of Independence was born. In fifteen years, namely in 1776, he grew up to man hood, and declared himself free.” (John Adams to William Tudor 29 March 1817);
Also in that courtroom that day were Samuel Adams and many of the other men who would become the founders of our Constitutional Republic. Sam Adams left that courtroom inspired to form the Committees of Correspondence, a citizen coalition group whose purpose was to connect the Liberty minded Colonists and help educate each other on the TRUTH in the face of government media propaganda.
The Sons of Liberty were the action group birthed out of the inspired members of the Committees of Correspondence.
The Sons Of Liberty Were Not A Government Surveillance Program
As a matter of fact, they were quite the opposite. The Sons of Liberty held rallies and protests against the government’s denial of their rights to privacy and due process. The protests took the form of mock hangings and mock funeral processions of government agents. They were engaged in ANTI-GOVERNMENT surveillance defending Liberty from a government who was refusing to abide by their Constitutional Charters.
Our Battle For Independence was NOT About a Tax on Tea
Perhaps one of the greatest manipulations of the people through errant education of our history is the fallacy that we went to civil war with our own government, neighbors, brothers, and sisters in 1776 because of a tax on tea. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the tea had become a symbol of a much greater and larger despotism. On January 1, 1774, founding mother Hannah Winthrop wrote to Mercy Otis Warren:
“Yonder, the destruction of the detestable weed, made so by cruel exaction, engages our attention. The virtuous and noble resolution of America’s sons, in defiance of threatened desolation and misery from arbitrary despots, demands our highest regard.”
Arbitrary despotism was the problem, not a tax on tea! Since the early 1700s, under the rule of George II, the American Colonists were experiencing a gradual and ever increasing infringement of their rights; legislation without representation, complete government control of commerce, private businesses, the market place, warrantless searches and seizures, denials of due process, and imposition of foreign law just to name a few. These blatant violations of the Rights of the colonists did not happen all at once, but so gradually that only a few noticed (Benjamin Franklin started writing about them in 1722). By the time the tea was cast into the harbor, the people were being subjected to complete and despotic martial law, not because of threat of foreign war, but because the PEOPLE were standing up and speaking out against the government’s violation of their Rights; Rights that had been codified in English Law since 1100 AD.
Yet our textbooks still teach that the battle for independence was about a 3% consumption tax. Perhaps if the people can be convinced that it was “high taxes” that caused us to fight for independence, then all the government needs to do to keep people pacified, complacent, and compliant is to make sure the taxes don’t get “too high.” Meanwhile an unsuspecting people, disarmed of the wisdom of history, happily cling to their paper currency while once again their liberties are eroded by government despotism without notice. If you are still skeptical about this truth, look at the Declaration of Independence; you will notice that taxation is the seventeenth grievance. If the taxation had been the cause, surely it would’ve made it to the top five.
Patrick Henry didn’t say, “Give me lower taxes or give me death.” Our founders were not trying to create a stronger economy. They were fighting for their lives to secure Liberty. John Adams said it very plainly in 1765:
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”
Those Who Do Not Know Their History Are Doomed To Repeat Its Mistakes
If those in power can rewrite our history to the point where Patriots fighting for Liberty become the very government oppressors they battled, we will become enslaved and never even know it. I am reminded of what Thomas Paine said about THEIR King in his dissertation called, “Common Sense”:
“He may accomplish by craft and subtlety in the long run, what he cannot do by force or violence in the short one.”
This blatant and ubiquitous distortion of reality has only one purpose – To convince the masses to submit to a level of government control that can only be equated to tyrannical Kings and Kingdoms. Our founders did not accept such tyrannical abuse of their God-given rights and we should not accept it now.
“I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all the instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other as this Writs of Assistance is.” James Otis, Jr.
What is the difference between this history and the history taught in today’s institutions of “education?” This one is based in fact and there’s is purely fiction.