Sipsey Street Irregulars: I was selfish today.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

I was selfish today.

I went to Gunston Hall this morning, home of my one of favorite Founders, George Mason. I had never been there before, though I always wanted to go. Previously, events never seemed to work out. Not only did I get to tour the house and grounds but I blundered into an archaeological symposium, Mason Neck Underground, and ended up staying most of the day. Great stuff. Fascinating. Bought a book on the Anti-Federalists. Shamefully selfish, but I'm darn glad I went. Back to plotting blows against the Empire this evening.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...: enjoy yourself, and thanks; January 28, 2012 at 3:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Have you seen this? Might brighten your day a little: http://www.breitbart.tv/who-is-rachel-maddow/; January 28, 2012 at 4:06 PM
Jim Klein said...: Good on you. It's not like you haven't worked hard enough, eh? Everything is better when it's earned.

"I'm darn glad I went." That's how you can tell it was right and proper. As soon as "shamefully" becomes "shamelessly," we'll be home free.

Literally: free. Nice job, Mike.; January 28, 2012 at 4:13 PM
Dennis O'H said...: I's just up the river, but it's still Gunston Hall. Not Gunton...; January 28, 2012 at 4:39 PM
BadCyborg said...: Congratulations! Glad you got to do something you enjoyed. You deserve a bit of enjoyment. Anything you can do to lift your spirits is worth it. Nothing wrong with a bit of "me" time, Mike. All work and no play makes Mike V a dull read.; January 28, 2012 at 5:45 PM
Eric III said...: It's always good to get out and do what you want to relax once in a while.; January 28, 2012 at 7:08 PM
rdf67 said...: George Mason wouldn't sign the Constitution because it left out a Bill of Rights. He put the Bill of Rights into the VA Constitution and then that was the basis for the one added years later. You have found a great one to follow - and we follow you as a result. Keep up the great work, Mike.
PS my son won the American Legion contest in WI a couple of years ago and learned all about G Mason and the rest of the founders; January 28, 2012 at 8:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Anon @ 2:06, THAT MADE MY DAY!!!!!

The comments were great too!

Glad you got to have some leisure time there Mike, you deserve it.; January 28, 2012 at 8:30 PM
Skip said...: Soldier on son.; January 28, 2012 at 10:34 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr. V.,
That is so cool. I just got home from a 'meeting' of like minded folks just down on Gunston Rd. It is a rather inspirational area. I think you have way more friends than they know.

Glad your OK. Blessing to you and yours.

One Hundred Heads Insurance Co. LLC
III; January 28, 2012 at 11:09 PM
drjim said...: You're not being "selfish", Mike.
It was a "Research Opportunity" that you simply couldn't pass!; January 30, 2012 at 11:53 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Saturday, January 28, 2012

I was selfish today.

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