by Joe Eldred
Joe2001@KeepAndBearArms.com 

A friend asked me to write about what freedom and liberty means to me. Well, it just so happens that I recently had an experience that has prompted me to reflect on that very question. On Saturday July 14th, as the United Nations gathered to attempt to enact their vision for an unarmed and enslaved world, I joined over 500 members and friends of the Tyranny Response Team http://www.trt-co.org/ at the United Nations in New York, to exercise our God-given right to peaceably assemble, as Americans have always gathered to face a threat to her safety. 

It was a beautiful day as people from all walks of life and diverse ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds came together with the common purpose of demonstrating to the UN that we, the American people, are adamantly opposed to any attempts to infringe upon our right to keep and bear arms or our national sovereignty. It was moving to hear Rodi Bestider http://www.trt-ny.org/rodi's%20speach.html, Second Amendment Sister Chapter Coordinator for Lehigh Valley, PA, speak about her life growing up in communist country of Romania, where she could not own firearms nor worship God because she had informants in her own family employed by Ceausescu. Rodi posed a question that still reverberates in my mind, when she spoke about her upcoming oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution:

"How can someone swear to uphold an oath that is slowly being dismantled right in front of our eyes?"

One of the major institutions responsible for the dismantling of those rights is the wretched hive of scum and villainy we were there to protest. Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America www.gunowners.org addressed this point succinctly at the rally when he referenced the analysis of Dr. Herb Titus, a preeminent constitutional lawyer for the Liberty Committee http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/:

"The UN Charter violates the U.S. Constitution by delegating to the UN the power to declare war, a power specifically delegated to the U.S. Congress; it unconstitutionally delegates the power to levy taxes; and it violates the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution by assuming a whole gamut of state powers - health, welfare, education, crime, environment, reserved to the states."

We did not achieve our ultimate goal of removing the United States from the United Nations and driving the UN from US soil. But though the conference did reach an agreement, the final program was less tyrannical than it otherwise would have been, thanks to our resistance. At the end of the session, the delegates were forced to drop the two most contentious clauses in the agreement, including restricting civilian possession of small arms, in no small measure thanks to our opposition.

Although the U.N. global gun grab conference ended with a whimper instead of a bang. The international enemies of liberty are ever present. A case in point, is the Anti-Defamation League which has labeled the TRT anti-UN rally an "extremist event" and the TRT a "far-right extremist group," listing us in the same category as the KKK, Aryan Nations, and neo-Nazis; This despite the fact that Bob Glass, the founder of the Tyranny Response Team is himself Jewish and one of the featured speakers at the event was the GOA's Ralph Rubinek http://www.trt-ny.org/Ralphspeach.html, a second generation survivor of Nazi persecution of the Jewish people, who lead the invocation with a Jewish prayer. You would think that being Jewish would inoculate you from charges of anti-Semitism, but apparently not in these days of political correctness gone mad.

Consider the mission of the TRT:

"We believe in the fundamental rights of all human beings. Our rights do not come from a majority vote, from politicians, or even from the Constitution - and they are not subject to infringement by a government that ignores the Supreme Law of this land. 

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." 

"We pledge our commitment to the absolute restoration of our Bill of Rights, and further, to strict adherence to the legal and moral principles of the Declaration of Independence, upon which this nation was founded. We will rise against any assault on the unalienable rights granted by our Creator. 

"If you believe in Liberty, and in the Truths upon which this nation was founded, you are a member of the Tyranny Response Team."

Now I ask you, when the ADL labels a group with these principles as extremist, exactly who is it that is practicing defamation?

^ Professional Liars ^

In this instance the ADL is goose-stepping right along with the UN gestapo. At the rally I wore a Jewish Star of David with the message "Gun Owner" written inside the star. Many of us were not allowed to enter the UN building until we removed the stickers, yet we are the ones accused of anti-Semitism and extremism. The same is true of those wearing the trademark navy and gold TRT T-shirts. In fact, according to reports published prior to the rally, UN officials went so far as to investigate American citizens for nothing more than writing non-violent letters of protest regarding the disarmament conference. And now it appears that the ADL may yet be hoisted on their own petard: The United Nations which they were so quick to defend when it came to disarmament may now be preparing to label zionists as racists at the upcoming World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. 

So what has all this taught me about freedom and liberty? I've learned the importance of resisting the UN, the ADL and the other would-be Ceausescu's of the world. It is tempting to ignore these tyrants, to think that they will just go away. But history demonstrates that they never go away unless we, the eternally vigilant, make them. I urge readers to visit http://www.trt-ny.org, the sponsor of the rally, and judge for themselves whether this group belongs in the same category as the KKK, and then contact the ADL at http://www.adl.org/report_antisemitic/asirpt.html and firmly but politely let them know how you feel. As Rick Mase, a TRT member whose father fought to free the Jews from Nazi persecution reminded us in his speech at the rally: 

"Freedom is not negotiable!"