The Left has taken it upon themselves of late to assign titles to people on the Right. Many of these are drawn up in such a way as to show contempt. Rather than label them, I will label myself and tell you why. I may also fit into some of theirs, but the one I have chosen for myself has personal meaning to me, and you are welcome to join me in the title of 76er.
Among the titles used by others, almost all are denigrating. Leftists refer to those who demanded Obama's birth certificate as 'birthers', to those who emphasise states' rights as 'tenthers' (tenth amendment), and to most Americans interested in politics as 'tea partiers'. There was value in all of those political stands, and I am as interested in the disposition of those movements as well. There is however a movement that is much more important and that appears to me to be much more lacking.
Early in the morning on 19 April 1775, the drummer beat to order the men of the Lexington, MA, militia to gather on the green. Captain Parker dressed them in lines, ordered those who needed it to resupply, and asked some visitors, one from as far away as Connecticut, if they would stand with the company. By the time the British Regulars column appeared on the road, there were 76 men standing on the green with Parker, according to the research at present as of the time I visited in September 2009. The British marched to within three rods (less than 25 yards) and drew up their lines for battle. When the British withdrew, nine men lay dead, all Minutemen, some on the green, and others on the doorways of nearby houses, some of which still stand adjacent to the green.
I am a 76er. When I visited Lexington, I signed the Minuteman register, but it's not enough to me to be just a Minuteman. Not all the Minutemen were there. The ones who went to the green, who dressed their lines, who followed orders, and who steadfastly and resolutely took that spot to prevent the Tyrant from taking something from their town to which he had no right, those are the men among whose number I would like to be counted.
We have lots of men in this nation and this world who mean well. Some of them do less than they can in order to protect their homes, their jobs, their wives, their children, or themselves. I cannot fault them their choice, because I do not know exactly why they do what they do. However, I do not wish to be an inactive spectator. I will go to the green.
Name me whatever you will. I am sure it will be a derrogatory term. I am equally sure that the Irish conscripts who fired into that body of men that bloody April day thought of their targets as you may of me. I know the officer referred to them as "damned rebels". Well, I'm proud to be a damned rebel if that's what it means to be one- to resist a tyrant. I am a 76er, and God is my Captain.
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