POST-GAZETTE - Res Publica

A Cry of Defiance, and Not of Fear

by David Trumbull -- April 12, 2013

Monday I'll be in Washington, D.C., far away from Patriots' Day commemorations here in Massachusetts. If Boston makes it to the national television news that day, it'll be for the Boston Marathon, and not the midnight rides of Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott and the resistance, on the morning of April 19, 1775, of the colonist at Concord and Lexington to an over-reaching central government treading on the rights of the people.

Or perhaps, some commentator -- surely at least Fox News will make the connection -- will observe that history is repeating itself. Let's hope someone notes that while the colonists had remonstrated in speeches and in print and had even engaged in destruction of property (the Boston Tea Party) in their quest to end unjust taxation, it was the redcoats marching on them to seize their guns that forced the Americans to take up those guns against a government that, through oppression of the king's subjects, had lost its legitimacy. Let's hope that someone with a national audience points out that "the shot heard 'round the world" was fired to squash the government's latest gun control initiative.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British regulars fired and fled, —
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

While I cannot be in Boston (or Concord or Lexington) for Patriots' Day, I do plan to join 2,000 patriots on the Boston Common, at the Parkman Bandstand, on Saturday, April 13th, from 1:00 to 3:00 for the Greater Boston Tea Party Rally. The keynote speaker at this important event will be Grover Norquist, who will be joined by Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow and an impressive list of inspiring speakers.

I hope to see you there. A huge turnout on historic Boston Common will show that the conservative movement is not only alive and well, it is ratcheting up its efforts to do whatever is necessary to slash government spending, reduce the federal debt and “Unburden the Next Generation”. At this rally conservative groups throughout the Commonwealth – all the major Tea Parties, gun owners, Libertarians, Republicans and Independents – are joining together to synergistically support and promote a singular project.

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