Dear Editor,

A question has haunted me since Tuesday September 11, 2001. Our answer to it is critical to the life of every individual in the United States of America. Can a nation be bombed or terrorized into patriotism?

On Monday September 10, 2001 my ancestors and I were regarded by many as immoral racists who, even now, have no hope of becoming non-racists. How has the destruction of the World Trade Center changed that? Has the character of my forefathers and I been redeemed by a terrorist? If so - thank you bin Laden! Has a Mexican national crawling under a fence on September 11th become a patriot? What is a patriot anyway? Is a patriot a young man that rushes down to the recruitment station or a person who buys a flag and sticks it

on the antenna of their car?

How many of you rushed out and bought a bunch of books on the forefathers when you heard about the attack? How many of you rushed to the library to check out John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government? The reason I ask is critical to your security as an individual and as a nation. It is obvious from these simple questions that no individual or nation can be bombed or terrorized into knowledge. And you ask; "What has that got to do with this colossal evil event?" My answer was stated by a real patriot, Thomas Jefferson: "A nation which expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be."

How many of you, right now, can give a definition of tyranny? How many of you can explain the difference between usurpation and tyranny? How many of you could tell anyone the Sole Purpose of Government? How many of you even know there is only one purpose of government? How many of you can recite the one sentence Law of Delegated Authority? How many of you could tell their neighbor what the three types of property are? Can you really call yourself a "patriot" and not know the answers to these most fundamental questions? Every Continental Soldier in 1776 knew the answers to these questions!

Now we think, even for one moment, that we are going to deliver ourselves from tyranny and terrorism? We neither know the enemy nor his strength! We don't even have a vocabulary of liberty much less an ability to sense its presence! How can we procure liberty for another if we don't possess it ourselves? Even our modern "lawyers" cannot answer these questions that were the everyday discussion of those so-called decadent forefathers that our schools castigate daily. Let's not even get into the Constitution because we can't discern one word of it without our master interpreting it for us!

Ronald F. Avery