Patriots Day 4/19, Reposted from elsewhere

Today is Patriot's Day.

Today, 231 years ago, a few dozen men and boys stood in a town square in Virginia, stared down the barrels of their own government's rifles, and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) that they'd rather die than allow them to take their military arms. A handful of them did die, and after the British had destroyed their arms depot, the militia extracted a terrible price from the British on their march out of town, killing well over a hundred them.

Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's illegal blockade of Southern ports, marking the beginning of the War Of Northern Aggression.

Today marks the anniversary of the final defense of the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. A handful of poorly armed men, women, and children- many barely older than the patrons of this message board - stared down the barrels of the rifles of the Nazi army and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) they would rather die fighting than be treated as a subhuman race. Most did die, but during their several-week defense of the ghetto, they killed dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of Nazi Germany's finest.

Today marks the anniversary of the final defense of the Branch Davidian Church in Waco, Texas. +80 men, women, and children stared down the barrels of their own government's rifles and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) that yes, they did have the right to possess military arms and use them in defense of their lives, property, and families, and that they were innocent of all charges against them. They were then burned to death in their own church/living quarters, the culmination of a siege starting with perjured warrant stating that the Branch Davidians were making methamphetamines in the church basement, and an illegal and intentionally lethal attack on the Branch Davidian homestead.

Today marks the anniversary of the detonation of the Murray Building in Oklahoma, City. Whoever is responsible for it (and we'll never know), it was a terrible tragedy, and it marked the beginning of the American government's crackdown on the legal groups it believes to be a threat to its power - civilian militias. Militias are defined as civilian soldiers, or all able-bodied civilians capable of bearing weapons in defense of their nation, state, city, or family.

The Virginians standing before the guns of the British military were a militia.
The Southerners standing before the guns of the Northern military were a militia.
The Jews standing before the guns of the Nazi military were a militia.
The Branch Davidians standing before the guns of the American military were a militia.

They were Patriots.