Remembering The Alamo

By Chuck Baldwin   

Yesterday, March 6, marks the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo outside of San Antonio, Texas, back in 1836. For more than 13 days, 186 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna’s seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet, they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans.

It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally-known frontiersman and former congressman), Will Travis (only 26 years old with a little baby at home), and Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. However, there was something different about them. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort.
Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom involves much more than financial gain or personal pleasure. Accompanying Freedom is her constant and unattractive companion, Responsibility. Neither is she an only child. Patriotism and Morality are her sisters. They are inseparable: destroy one and all will die.

Early in the siege, Travis wrote these words to the people of Texas: “Fellow Citizens & Compatriots: I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna…The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword… I have answered the demand with a cannon shot & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat… VICTORY OR DEATH! P.S. The Lord is on our side…”
As you read those words, remember that Travis and the others did not have the National Education Association (NEA) telling them how intolerant and narrow-minded their notions of honor and patriotism were. They didn’t have the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) telling them they were a hate group. A hostile media did not constantly castigate them as a bunch of wild-eyed extremists. As schoolchildren, they were not taught that their forefathers were nothing more than racist jerks. The TSA didn’t have them on a terrorist watch list. Neither did they have pastors constantly filling their hearts and minds with this imbecilic “Obey-the-government-no-matter-what” misinterpretation of Romans chapter 13.
The brave men at the Alamo labored under the belief that America (and Texas) really was “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” They believed God was on their side and the freedom of future generations depended on their courage and resolve. They further believed their posterity would remember their sacrifice as an act of love and devotion. It all looks pale now.

By today’s standards, the gallant men of the Alamo appear rather foolish. After all, they had no chance of winning–none. Yet, the call for pragmatism and compromise was never sounded. Instead, they answered the clarion call, “Victory or death!”
Please try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch our gutless political, corporate, and religious leaders surrender to globalism, corporatism, socialism, and political correctness. Try to recall the time in this country when ordinary men and women had the courage of their convictions and were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom and independence.
One thing is certain: those courageous champions at the Alamo did not fight and die for a political party or for some lesser of two evils mantra. They fought and died for a principle–and that principle was liberty and independence.

On this day in 1836, those 186 defenders of the Alamo joined the ranks of the world’s greatest freedom fighters. Patriots such as the 70 Christian men from the Church of Lexington who stood against 800 British troops on April 19, 1775, at Lexington Green and the hundreds more who joined them at the Concord Bridge; men such as the great Scottish freedom fighter, William Wallace, and his band of 2,000 men who stood against an English force of over 13,000 men at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297, and again on July 22, 1298, when Wallace and 5,000 Scots went up against an English force of over 15,000 men at the Battle of Falkirk; and let’s not forget the single greatest example of men who chose to fight for liberty against the greatest of odds: the 300 Spartans who squared off against more than 100,000 Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae in August or September of 480 B.C. These stories–and hundreds like them–are the heritage of free men everywhere. And the willingness to stand against overwhelming odds for the cause of liberty is certainly America’s heritage.
Today, however, our national leaders are in the process of turning the greatest free nation to ever exist, the United States of America, over to the very forces that the Alamo defenders–and America’s Founding Fathers–gave their lives resisting. And, for the most part, the vast majority of Americans seem completely apathetic to the fetters being fastened around their necks.
On second thought, do Travis, Bowie, and Crockett look foolish, or do we?