The Tree of Liberty

T.REX TALK

T.REX ARMS

Technology

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As Independence Day approaches, we reflect on the Tree of Liberty. It's a pretty long metaphorical exploration, but it goes over the different branches on the Tree, some very recent Supreme Court Rulings, and ways that different trees have in the past been refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants with very different results.

Additional Reading:

The Origin and Principles of the American Revolution
By Friederich Gentz

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another T-Rex talk. This one is going to be talking about the Tree of Liberty.
0:05.8	As we get closer to Independence Day, July 4th, I thought this would be a pretty good topic.
0:12.1	And I've been thinking about a bunch of different aspects of this. And I'm recording this outside,
0:17.3	in the shade of actual trees. So hopefully the insect noise isn't too bad.
0:22.5	Because you guys already have seen the title and heard me mention that this is going to be
0:26.2	about the tree of liberty, I know that some of you in the back are already asking,
0:31.5	tell us how the tree is refreshed. Tell us how the tree is refreshed. We'll get there.
0:35.9	We'll get to the refreshment of the tree of liberty.
0:38.9	Because of course this phrase, the tree of liberty, it comes from a famous letter, or at least
0:44.2	part of this letter is famous for Thomas Jefferson saying, the tree of liberty must be refreshed
0:49.2	from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Usually people don't
0:56.0	quote that last part. But the context of the letter is very interesting because he was complaining
1:00.8	about the English and overall European sentiment of the time. America was seen as a nation of
1:06.8	anarchists in a state of anarchy because of the war for American independence, but also
1:12.7	the Massachusetts rebellion. And he was arguing against anarchy, but he was arguing that there
1:19.6	should be liberty. And when there is liberty, the people actually have the capability of
1:24.4	resisting their governments in ways that are not anarchical. But we'll get there.
1:30.5	As near as I can tell, this does not seem to be a common metaphor. There isn't a lot of conversation
1:35.5	about the Tree of Liberty in the literature, letters of that time. This one particular quote of
1:40.8	Jefferson's seems like the main one, and it's obviously very captivating,
1:46.0	so that's the one that's mostly talked about. Now, there was a Liberty Tree in Boston that used
1:51.6	to be used as a rallying point for, well, insurrectionists mainly. And the Red Codes cut it down
	...

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