From Bill M. we now have a "Leave Us the Hell Alone" Anthem. I like it.
Here is a marching song for LUTHAs that I adapted from the original. It is to the tune of Civil War era “The Bonnie Blue Flag”. I attached a midi file with the music. It works better if you play the midi as you read the lyrics.
Please let me know what you think.
Regards,
Bill
LUTHA Marching Song
We are a band of brothers,
Together stand or fall.
We only want the rights
The Constitution grants to all.
And when those rights are threatened,
By enemies at home
We say to all the do-gooders
Leave Us The Hell Alone!
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
Go bother someone else for now,
Leave us the hell alone!
As long as the Gov’ment
Was faithful to its trust,
Like good and faithful citizens,
We served it as we must.
But now, when Lib’ral treachery
Would take our rights away,
We bring our guns to readiness
And to the Lib’rals say,
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
Our lives are fine just as they are,
Leave us the hell alone!
All men of honor gather round
Prepare to join the fight,
We’ll hold the constitution high
To hold on to our rights;
And though the SWAT teams come for us
Attack us in our homes
We’ll shout as we return their fire
Leave us the hell alone!
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
We are not buying what you sell
Leave us the hell alone!
Then here's to our sweet brotherhood
For strong we are and brave,
Like patriots of old we'll fight,
Our heritage to save.
And rather than submit to fear,
To die we would prefer
We’ll take the fight to liberals
Until they call us “Sir”.
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
Just go away and don’t come back
Leave us the hell alone!
12 comments:
I like it too, but there is one issue he needs to fix:
"We only want the rights
The Constitution grants to all.
And when those rights are threatened,"
The Constitution does not "grant" any rights - it only protects our natural rights, that are ours at birth, by virtue of nature and nature's God - as our Declaration of Independence makes clear.
The Bill of Rights really is misnamed, since it is really a bill of PROTECTIONS of rights.
Rights come first, and then we, the people, create government to protect our rights (what fools we often are!).
There was no Second Amendment on April 19, 1775 - those men at Concord bridge fought to protect their natural rights, the rulings of the English courts and the pronouncements of General Gage be damned.
Mike, I wrote an article about this issue for SWAT Magazine that is also published online (with permission from SWAT) here:
http://www.futureofliberty.org/pages/articles.html
There is another article there on how the Bill of Rights is a guide to constitutional interpretation.
If you find either of them useful, you have my consent to copy and paste/post them on your blog (just note that it was originally published in SWAT Magazine - they are good folks).
Stewart Rhodes
I would also suggest that 'liberals' are not the only enemies of the Constitution.
Conservatives have demonstrated a pretty thick streak of Statism, as well.
BIG GOVERNMENT Statism is the enemy of the Constitution, be they of the 'liberal' or 'conservative' branch.
I was getting ready to point out the same things these gents pointed out:
1. The Constitution doesn't give us any rights. None. The men who wrote it and the Bill of Rights knew that. They said it. That kind of thinking is why they did not want to include the Bill of Rights in the first place.
All our rights all come from from God. Other lesser rights can come from mutual, voluntary agreement between individuals. There is no such damnable thing as a "social contract."
Statists are the real enemy: a statist is anyone who forces you to subsidize his plans, or forces you into living a certain way, when telling you how to live has absolutely nothing to do with, "You may not violate the life or property of other human beings."
Next, rights can never be "taken away," "destroyed," or anything of the sort. They may be denied, they may be infringed, but never "taken" or "destroyed." God gave us our rights. No man can take them from us.
Lastly, this is a disturbing line: "We’ll take the fight to liberals
Until they call us “Sir”." Really? Your solution is to become like them? Using violence to become their betters? Using violence to "convince" them? Violence can only be morally used in defense of oneself or one's neighbor, and in extreme cases, one's property, from an actual, immediate threat. Ideas convince. Violence coerces. Convincing stops where coercion begins. If you have to coerce other people to do your will, you have no right to an existence. Preventing others from violently imposing their wills on your peaceful life is an entirely different story.
Violence can morally be used to protect yourself from infringements upon your rights, period. It cannot create an order. The idea that one can morally use violence to create an order is a symptom of the mental illness of statism.
-Sans Authoritas
I suggest the following change
"The Constitution guarantees to all"
Dr.D
Statists call themselves "liberals", "progressives", "conservatives, "environmentalists", and other things.
I'm not interested in straining semantic gnats with you. Are those "conservatives" on the ascendancy TODAY and threatening universal socialized medicine and nationalizing the automobile industry? EH?
You are getting distracted like an old senile setter I once had.
Look at the ball, boy!
Get the ball! Get it! Get it! Chase the Conservative, boy!
Is it smarter to try to get through to conservatives who feel betrayed by the Republican party, or do you feel there is a rich vein of libertarians ready to be drafted for the next elections?
I want conservatives to help throw out the Socialists.... and I don't think we'll attract them by pushing legalized dope and abortion-on-demand.
Those issues just are not as pressing as another gun ban, mandatory registration and gun-owner licensing, and a predictable civil war.
I saw the comments. I’m not sure how to fix it and stay even somewhat true to scansion and rhyme scheme. Even a completely original poem is something of a compromise. I’ve written a few lines of what some folks consider to be pretty decent poetry and I can tell you that seldom is every line perfect. Most often they are the best compromise I can come up with. Plus when one is adapting from an existing work there are even more restrictions.
As for Mr Wetzel's comment, I picked liberals because to me they are the biggest enemies of liberty. Sure there are others but no matter how many I put in somebody’d bitch I left one out.
To Mr. Rhodes, I say; in a sense the Constitution DOES grant the rights. Whatever natural rights the guys at Concord Bridge fought for, when the Bill of Rights was created it codified and in a sense defined the rights that we Americans believe are due free men. The 14th amendment did not merely recognize the rights of blacks, it gave those rights to people who had not before been considered to have them.
I don’t know why I bother. Nobody – myself included – is ever going consider it a completely unblemished work.
How about “We only want the rights the Constitution lists for all”?
Folks, this is a marching song, not a treatise on Constitutional Law. Would you prefer I had never taken the (not inconsiderable) time to compose the work and send it to Mike? Would you be happier if I just asked Mike to take the work down? Mr. Stewart, I know not how many times you've been published but I have been writing prose and poetry since the 4th grade. I have had works of poetry and fiction published. I can probebly dig up the PDF of an article I was invited to write for Software Testing An Qhality Engineering Magazine. If not I am pretty sure I have a few copies of the Magazine itself lying around.
But the original lyrics to "The Bonnie Blue Flag" are availabe on the internet. You are welcome to submit your version. But you may not use any of the lines I wrote. If you look at the original you'll see I did a lot.
Cyborg Bill Mullins
Bill, please don't take my comment as being critical of your talents, and of course I don't want you to take it down. As I said, I liked it too.
I have written two poems (not that I claim to be a poet), and I have no doubt I would be just as defensive if people criticized those.
But please take my comments in the spirit they were given - as help, not flip criticism.
I was just pointing out an important, core truth that we all need to keep in mind. That's all.
Your world is writing poetry.
My world is teaching people about the fundamental principles of our Republic.
And one of those principles is that ours is a natural rights Republic, born in the fires of a desperate, amazingly brave war to defend those natural rights, and the core principle in our birth certificate - the Declaration - is that the government is our creation, crafted by us to better secure our rights. The rights came first. That is an important principle that all too often we forget.
The Bill of Rights certainly is important, as you said. It does indeed codify those rights considered most important - what are meant to serve as both a shield and as a sword of our liberty (which our enemies may soon learn), and perhaps most important, as the lines in the sand we will not give in on and which we can look to as a barometer of encroaching tyranny.
But the Ninth Amendment also makes very, very clear that our rights go far beyond what are listed. Our rights are like stars in the sky, or grains of sand on the beach.
I think that is very important - and important enough to point out even to a poet.
I would not have commented on anything else in your poem even if I thought it could be improved, out of good manners. But that concept of rights not coming from the Constitution is too important to overlook.
No, it is not a treatise on constitutional law, but every poem, every song, every story teaches.
Best,
Stewart
Over on KABA, Jim@NoSpam left this:
I suggest changing:
"We only want the rights
The Constitution grants to all."
- to -
"We only want the rights
The Constitution guards for us all."
MBV continues: Now, for it to flow as the original it would need to be:
"The Constitution guards for all" dropping the us.
What do you think, Bill? Guys?
Way to kill the enthusiasm, fellas.
Now I understand what the post above this is about.
OK, I made some changes. For Stewart and the others, the Constitution now guards the rights
of all.
For Mr. Wetzel reference to liberals have been replaced with "Statists".
To Sans Authoritas, it is true that, in a theoretical sense, rights cannot be taken away. But though I write poetry sometimes - although I also shoot, knock heads together, and often scare the piss outta people when I am not smiling - I also build and design things. In truth I am very much a shadetree engineer. Like most engineers, I am far less interested in the theoretical than the practical. From my perspetive there is very little difference in a right I cannot lawfully exercise and one I do not have. According to Jefferson we each have a right to liberty but I can take away your liberty in short order. Likewise our right to life can be permanently abriged in a couple of heartbeats by the simple expediency of a larg caliber hollowpoint projectile. I would submit that corpses have no rights at all.
Anyhow, here is the redacted text. You boys want to argue semantics and fine points of
theoretical constitutional law in the future, don't use MY work as a jumping off point.
LUTHA Marching Song
We are a band of brothers,
Together stand or fall.
We only want the rights
The Constitution guards for all.
And when those rights are threatened,
By enemies at home
We say to all the Statists just
Leave Us The Hell Alone!
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
Go bother someone else for now,
Leave us the hell alone!
As long as the Government
Was faithful to its trust,
Like good and faithful citizens,
We served it as we must
But now, when Statist treachery
Would take our rights away,
We bring our guns to readiness
And to the Statists say,
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
Our lives are fine just as they are,
Leave us the hell alone!
All men of honor gather round
Prepare to join the fight,
We’ll hold the constitution high
To hold on to our rights;
And though the SWAT teams come for us
Attack us in our homes
We’ll shout as we return their fire
Leave us the hell alone!
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
We are not buying what you sell
Leave us the hell alone!
Then here's to our sweet brotherhood
For strong we are and brave,
Like patriots of old we'll fight,
Our liberties to save.
And rather than submit to fear,
To die we would prefer
We’ll fight on for our liberties
Keep them all secure!
Go ‘way! Go ‘way!
Leave us the hell alone!
Just go away and don’t come back
Leave us the hell alone!
Oh, and guys, remember what a marching song is about. It ain't about teaching but building up enthusiasm and esprit de corps. This is MY articulation of MY PERSONAL understanding of things. Hello? Poetic License? If you cannot agree to simply shut up and march to a catchy tune with thought provoking lyrics you got a snowball's chance in hell of hanging together to defeat the Liberals/Statists/whomevers when the shit hits the fan.
By the way, my price for another adaptation will be one fossilized snowflake - minimum 80% intact.
"By the way, my price for another adaptation will be one fossilized snowflake - minimum 80% intact."
+1
L. Neil Smith is fond of saying that abortion is the issue the Left use to divide us. Well there are certainly others -- drugs and sex workers come to mind -- but a song? Jeez people. A song is not a scholarly dissertation. It is poetry put to music and intended to reach the emotions that they might better serve your reason.
If you are listening Mr. Mullins, I think it's a fine effort.
Wauw.. it's interesting for me.. thanx :)
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