In January 1776, a relative nobody named Thomas Paine penned a pamphlet named Common Sense. No one had really heard of him or his little book, but it spread like fire in a dry field, alighting the spark of liberty in the hearts of men — and women — all over the colonies. Before the year would close, Paine would pick up his pen again, this time to try and inspire a rag-tag bunch of rebels who were starving, freezing, and disheartened by defeat after costly defeat. He called his next work The American Crisis.

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” wrote Paine, which may not have sounded much like encouragement to men trying to find the will to go on.

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” he continued, striking to the core of it all. Your souls are being taken to their absolute limit of strength and fear and even belief in this crazy idea that we can be free. I hear you, he told them. This is going to be hard. It’s going to take everything you have, and many of your fellow countrymen will not find the will to stand. But you must. 

General George Washington had Paine’s missive read to his men on the eve of the Battle of Trenton. In perhaps one of the most legendary engagements of all time, American fighting men marched for miles, starving, many of them shoeless, mentally at their limit. Crossing a frozen, slushy river in boats — during a blizzard, mind you — they dug for the last bit of grit they possessed, way down deep where the Best Stuff We Have lives. Those men, those American men, won that battle and others, and a few years later they won their freedom. In doing so, they won ours, too.

Tuesday morning of this week, two hundred and forty-five years later, we went to bed as Americans. Embattled, sure. Broken and angry and upset, but still Americans. Yesterday morning, however, we woke up in a country where we are expected to become something else. Woke, enlightened citizens of a new age, where Science Is Whatever We Say It Is, and You Must Think Like Us, otherwise You Are A Racist Domestic Terrorist And Someone Should Put You In A Camp Or Just Kill You. Any association you have ever had is now suspect; every meme you’ve ever shared is fodder for judging your usefulness as a human being — and make no mistake, that is exactly what you’re being judged on.

There is something surreal about being told that you are a domestic terrorist because you are a “Constitutionalist,” and therefore you are considered anti-government. There is a logical question that follows: If being a student and adherent of the Constitution — the highest law of our land — results in your being classified as anti-government, what does that make your government?

No one seems to be able to answer that, but never mind, they say. Comply or die.

A long list of varying degrees of horror await those who choose to say no to being assimilated by what surely MUST be obvious to anyone with more than a pair of brain cells to rub together. The hydra of Communism has found the mighty USA, and you never saw it coming because you were probably barred from actually studying it in school, and maybe didn’t care enough to pay attention anyway. Don’t worry; you’ll get to see it up close and personal soon.

So what is to be done now? Should you quietly attempt to be a “good German,” complying in every way possible, praying the Woke Eye of Sauron doesn’t see you? Sure, if you don’t mind being the “miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” Wrong, too, is the other end of the spectrum, where wanton violence is considered just; no true liberty-loving patriot seeks to destroy, burn, loot, or otherwise act like a rabid animal in the streets. Those who would rule us know that, of course, which is why they are working so hard to ensure to convince the other half of the country that we are positively drooling at the chance to wreak havoc. In order to dehumanize us, of course, they must first make us a threat, something to be afraid of. It’s easier to shrug your shoulders about genocide when you believe the people being killed are a threat to you; just ask all those good Germans.

There are those hanging on to hope that someone else will rise up and save us; the 4D — nay, 5D — chess player himself will expose so much truth that the villains in this story will have no possible recourse. Tuesday’s farewell speech, however, was not that of someone holding the ace, and those who wish to be intellectually honest with themselves need to wrap their heads around a basic fact: No one is coming to save you. We are 2021’s Continental Army, except we are fat, complacent, and trying desperately to figure out how we got here if we were so faithful to the GOP. The answer to that question is an article of its own, but it has something to do with corruption and the price of the political game in human capital terms. That’s what the upper echelons deal in, you know. We’ve all known that for a while, but there’s not much we can do about it. That’s why the concept of Jeffrey Epstein having been murdered instead of killing himself is a joke and not a cause for deep, visceral outrage.

The situation seems dire when put this way and it is. That’s not hyperbole. It may seem that we are pinned down. Maybe you missed the signal lights…one if by land, two if by sea…and now you’re seeing an ocean of ships and wondering how they got there so fast. Maybe you’re Rip Van Winkle, awakening to find that everything you thought you knew is gone. Maybe you’ve actually been the lone voice in the wilderness for years, holding up your sign saying THE END IS NEAR and getting laughed at by everyone who said you were crazy…and now are scrambling to catch up. For those of us who were that annoying voice, the sudden awakening of so many seems bittersweet. Welcome to the party, pal. Nice of you to show up.

But whether you’re one of the party organizers or you’re the guy who showed up late and didn’t bring a dish, we’re all here now. “We must all hang together or we will most assuredly all hang separately,” as Ben Franklin wrote, and a century and a half later, Winston Churchill laid out the path before us.

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

These are the times that try men’s souls, indeed; the words of American Crisis are true now just as they were in 1776. We are surrounded on all sides; in every facet of society, we are considered persona non grata. Now, with the unholy matrimony of Antifa/BLM and state sanctioning of their violence against society by the Biden “administration” while you are deemed a terrorist, there is nothing stopping them from a Bolshevik-style purge that will make the fate of the Romanovs look like a regular Tuesday. In fact, now that power has been consolidated, there is little they cannot do to you, and even less that they are not willing to do.

There’s just one problem for them. We’re Americans, and we love nothing more than a good dose of defiance, even if we know it’ll cost us. Why? Because that’s what liberty is — the choice to live in potentially dangerous risks of your own taking, balanced by the morality and responsibility required by such self-ruling autonomy.

Decide for yourselves who you are. The resistance worker, waving to their would-be rulers with one hand while secretly defying them with the other? The silent partner, willing to quietly fund such efforts behind the scenes? The joker who cleverly mocks the naked emperor in word and image? The off-grid pioneer raising the next generation of patriots away from the prying eyes of the State and its many medications to keep you and your kids compliant? The techie, using his or her powers for good to help protect Americans from the relentless violation by the government and its Antifa goons? The writer who keeps people informed and inspired? The trainer who ensures that his or her skills are spread to many others?

There are a million effective and non-violent ways to show your defiance. Today they are still legal. Tomorrow they may not be.

Remember: If you do not fight for right now, when all the odds are against you and you only have a precarious chance of survival, then we will all have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Comply or die? Absolutely not.

We’re Americans. We’ll defy, thank you very much.