PHOTO: 60,000 square feet of new shooting ranges at the Patriot Academy Campus in Texas.
Howdy Patriots!
2023 has been an incredible year for Patriot Academy as an organization. Specifically it has been an incredible whirlwind of a ride for our new campus outside of Fredericksburg, TX.
In just 8 short months the Patriot Academy Campus has gone from 178 acres of raw land, to a facility with 60,000 SQ FT of shooting ranges… Additionally, we are in the process of building our permanent shade structures on the ranges – which will be the icing on the cake for creating a comfortable experience for all attendees!
— from the ‘Patriot Academy’ website.
I always enjoy reading the advertisements in our local newspaper. Some people probably think the news articles in the paper are the important part, but I know better. If you want to understand the life and culture of Pagosa Springs, you should be reading the ads. Especially, the classified ads. But also the display ads.
I was delighted to see, last Thursday, that one of our local churches is sponsoring a FREE 10-week course on the importance of the U.S. Constitution, led by a couple of key teachers from the Patriot Academy, Rick Green and David Barton. Rick Green is also known as “America’s Constitution Coach.”
The two features I feel most excited about:
Gaining more Constitutional knowledge than 99% of Americans.
Learning Tangible Action Steps for Preserving Liberty.
I’m also excited that the course is being offered by a Christian Church, conveniently located on Park Avenue, uptown. Really, doesn’t Liberty and Freedom come down to the Liberty and Freedom to kill people you disagree with? And isn’t that mostly what the Old Testament is about? Righteously killing your enemies?
Then we have all that talk about loving your neighbor, in the New Testament. But what is love, anyway? I don’t think it’s sufficiently defined.
Not that I have time to attend the Patriot Academy classes, myself. Like most Americans — the 99% — I’m generally too busy enjoying my freedoms to learn more about the Constitution. I already know about the Second Amendment. So that makes me feel pretty safe. But it also makes me avoid crowded gatherings, where someone might show up with a gun.
Some people get confused about what is entailed in preserving Liberty and Freedom. Back in 1787 — four years after the Continental Army had somehow defeated the British Army — the newly-formed United States tried to pay off its war debts by imposing high taxes on struggling farmers and tradesmen, and some folks in western Massachusetts decided to rebel. Many of those same farmers and tradesmen had fought in the war and still hadn’t been paid for their service, as promised.
One farmer wrote:
I have been greatly abused, have been obliged to do more than my part in the war, been loaded with class rates, town rates, province rates, Continental rates, and all rates … been pulled and hauled by sheriffs, constables, and collectors, and had my cattle sold for less than they were worth … The great men are going to get all we have and I think it is time for us to rise and put a stop to it, and have no more courts, nor sheriffs, nor collectors nor lawyers.
The term “great men” didn’t mean what it means now, like when we say, “Make America Great Again”. The term “great men” meant “the rich and powerful who are screwing over the rest of us, as usual.” (Actually, maybe it does still mean the same thing.)
The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was in France at the time of Shays’ Rebellion, and he thought it was not necessarily a bad thing to have an occasional rebellion now and again. Maybe a few people get killed? But it sends a message to the “great men” that they need to pay attention to the 99%.
Jefferson wrote, in a letter:
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them.
It looks like the Patriot Academy is taking Jefferson’s advice to heart, and teaching people how to shoot.
Wrong remedy. The right remedy is to set them right as to facts.
I have a few friends who I’d like to set right… as to facts! I would also gladly pardon and pacify them.
But likely, if I did that, they would no longer be my friends.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.