We’re surrounded by redcoats.
They might not be part of King George’s military, but their mindset, what they support and what they’re willing to impose, is everywhere. The founders didn’t just fight an army. They fought a long, bloody war to secede from a system built on a set of views they considered as a fate worse than death.
Here are 6 ways to spot a redcoat without ever seeing a uniform.
LOYALTY
The quickest way to spot a redcoat is one question: where does their loyalty lie?
Loyalty to a single person isn’t patriotism. It’s a complete rejection of the American Revolution. Decades before the War for Independence, Samuel Adams already warned again allegiance to one individual.
“It is a very great Mistake to imagine that the Object of Loyalty is the Authority and Interest of one individual Man, however dignified by the Applause or enriched by the Success of Popular Actions”
Adams knew this as a student of history: loyalty to one man leads to tyranny.
“This has led Millions into such a degree of Dependance and Submission that they have at length found themselves oblig’d to homage the Instruments of their Ruin, at the very Time they were at Work to effect it.”
John Adams saw the same kind of end game for those who bend the knee to a political party, and flat out refused to do it.
“I would quarrel with both parties, and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.”
Some founders, like Noah Webster, saw party-loyalty as the most dangerous of all.
“nothing is more dangerous to the cause of truth and liberty than a party-spirit.”
Loyalty to a person, a party, or even a nation: that’s a redcoat. The American view? According to Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson: it’s loyalty to liberty.
“our attachment to no Nation upon earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.”
Hellbound and Down 