A Mirror Held to a Nation: Defiance, History, and the Call for Rebirth
To America, The Elbert County Sheriff’s Office, and the lawyers representing Alliant Credit Union:
I wrote this to inform you what to expect during the eviction process planned for a few days. Even now I am still preparing you for the anagnorisis (recognition) moment we all must face when the tyrant realizes that he and she are the villains they claim to oppose. In that moment, I want you to know there is mercy, forgiveness, and hope.
A Mirror Held to a Nation: Defiance, History, and the Call for Rebirth
America has long called itself a "city on a hill," a beacon of freedom and justice, a land governed by laws designed to protect life, liberty, and property. But as I stand on the verge of eviction, facing harassment from institutions that claim to protect these ideals, I am forced to ask: Is America truly what it claims to be? Or has it been fooling itself, mistaking the reflection in its mirror for the truth?
This is not merely a personal story—it is a continuation of America’s long history of self-deception and avoidance. It is the story of a nation unwilling to confront its original sins, a people who built their identity on ideals they refused to fully embody.
The Roots of a Nation’s Self-Deception
From its founding, America was a paradox. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that "all men are created equal" while its signers owned human beings as property. The Constitution spoke of justice and liberty, while entire cities were built atop the mass graves of Native Americans. The wealth of the young republic was made possible by the stolen labor of enslaved Africans.
This tension—between a noble self-image and the brutal reality beneath—created a narrative Americans wanted to believe: a nation of moral people governed by objective laws. But the cities built on mass graves and the plantations powered by stolen labor revealed the truth. America was not a good country; it was a hypocritical one, feeding on the lifeless bodies of its mythology while refusing to live up to its promise.
The Civil War was the first great reckoning, a mirror held up to expose the rot. The struggle over slavery revealed the moral contradictions at America’s core. Yet, even as the war ended slavery on paper, the nation failed to purge the spirit of exploitation. The banks, which thrived on usury and fraud, took the place of plantation owners. The Federal Reserve, established in 1913, institutionalized the power of private financial interests to create money from nothing and enslave the public through perpetual debt.
This systemic rot deepened in the 20th century. The Great Depression exposed the fragility of the financial system, and yet the response was not reform but reinvention. The New Deal painted over the cracks with programs that preserved the illusion of prosperity while leaving the underlying corruption intact. America dropped atomic bombs on Asian cities, waged wars in Korea and Vietnam, and then, on August 15, 1971, abandoned the gold standard, defaulting on its promise to back its currency with real value.
These actions were not the behavior of a virtuous nation. They were the behavior of a nation clinging to the illusion of virtue while avoiding the hard work of self-reflection and reform.
The Reflection of Today
This brings us to today, where I stand as one man confronting this system of lies. My decision to default on debt was not an act of irresponsibility but an act of truth-telling. The financial system, built on fiat currency and usury, is a house of cards designed to exploit rather than empower. My default was a declaration: I refuse to participate in this fraud.
For this, I have been celebrated by some and condemned by many and joined intentionally by very very few. I have been harassed by banks, debt collectors, lawyers, and law enforcement, ignored by media institutions, rejected by civil rights law firms, and now face eviction after January 19th. My wife, my three-week-old son, and myself and are threatened to be forced out of our home in the Colorado cold by officers carrying out the orders of an unjust system. They are “just doing their job” never seeming to answer why their job is just or why they themselves think it is worth doing.
But my response will not be violence. Nor will it be submission. I will practice peaceful, intelligent, and defiant non-compliance. When the sheriff’s deputies arrive, they will have to break a half a dozen laws while “just doing their job”. When they cross the boundary between the road and my driveway, they will be guilty of trespassing, since I have told them repeatedly that they are not welcome. As they stare at a locked door they will have to commit the crime of breaking and entering. If they touch me, they will be guilty of assault. If they are armed, that assault will be assault with a deadly weapon. If they remove me from my home, they will be guilty of unlawfully dispossessing an innocent man of his property and if they take anything from my property, they will become common burglars. These men, bonded to their oath to uphold the constitution and their duty to defend the highest law in the land, the life, liberty, and property of the people occupying it, will have to carry out orders that violate this oath in full view of their own hypocricy. As they approach my house, they will see several symbols. They will see the flag of Palestine, representing at least 15 months of a live streamed genocide funded by fiat currency and executed by America’s ally Israel. Those men, in uniform, doing their job, will have to ask who will come to their defense if such reckless mindless hate starts bombing Denver Colorado and the surrounding area. They will pass the Christian flag, a symbol of the faith Americans claim to profess, a religion founded on the unjust execution of an innocent man at the hands of soldiers who were just doing their jobs. And they will have to pass by flags symbolizing the spirit of the American Revolution, forcing many of them to ask what exactly is it that America stands for. They will be forced to confront the contradiction between their actions and the values they pretend to defend.
The Role of Image and the Work of Rebirth
What I have done is hold a mirror up to America. I have exposed not just the financial rot of the Federal Reserve system but the moral rot of a nation that tolerates it. The excitement people feel about the Zachary Moore v. Alliant Credit Union mock Supreme Court ruling case reveals their yearning to see justice reflected in the mirror. But too many are like the man who wishes to see abs without changing his diet—they want the image of justice without doing the hard work to achieve it.
Changing the mirror—whether through courts, legislation, or propaganda—without changing the reality it reflects is foolishness. A mirror does not lie, but it can be distorted, covered, or ignored. What America needs is not a better image but a better reality. Americans must reject the fraud in their own lives—defaulting on unjust debts, suing banks and courts that enforce these false contracts, and refusing to participate in systems that violate natural law.
This is the only path to societal health. Like the man who sheds weight through discipline, Americans must shed the hypocrisy and cowardice that keep them enslaved. They must embrace the hard truth of who they are, humble themselves, and do the work to become what they wish to see in the mirror.
A Moment of Anagnorisis
The system we face thrives on self-deception. Lawyers, legislators, judges, and police officers claim to be "just doing their job" as they enforce laws that harm the innocent. This is not justice—it is complicity in a lie. My eviction will force these individuals to confront the emptiness of their souls, the dissonance between their actions and the image they wish to project.
In Greek, the moment of self-awareness is called anagnorisis. It is were we get our word recognition from, which means to turn back on one’s own cognition, or to see something which was previously hidden by the choice to refuse to see it. It is the turning point in tragedy when the villain recognizes their own guilt. This is the power of peaceful defiance. By refusing to fight or comply, I will reflect back to these men the truth of who they are. For some, this realization will lead to repentance, as in Les Misérables when Jean Valjean is redeemed. For others, it will lead to despair, as in the suicide of Javert. Such a moment of anagnorisis comes in my favorite movie The Field of Dreams, when the brother of Annie, a man who works for a bank and begs Ray to sell their land, finally sees the players who had been hidden from him the whole time. If you’d like to watch this scene, check it out here:
The Call to Act
To my fellow Americans, I say: Look in the mirror. What do you see? Do you live by the principles you claim to believe? Do you defend those who don’t just claim to believe them but actually live by those same principles? Do you reject fraud, or do you tolerate it for convenience?
Do not wait for others to act. Do not wait for the courts, the Congress, or the President to declare a jubilee. They are waiting for you. The mirror of law and governance will only reflect what you practice in your daily life. Default on lies. Reject fraudulent systems. Live by truth, even when it costs you everything.
Let us become what we are: a nation of free men and women, governed by justice and truth. Only then will we see in the mirror a reflection worth preserving.
I know your pain. The bank and the homeowners association squeezed us until the turnip was dry. When we tried loan modification, the sheisters gave us the wrong routing number to send our first payment to them. Not knowing that possession is 9/10ths the law or that the sheriff has no jurisdiction in this civil matter and is only there by request of the bank we vacated. I almost felt like I would have left them a pile of ashes if it weren't for the fact this was a townhome attached to other family's homes, I might have done it. But I was still scared that the man would take my liberty when in actuality it was long gone. The shame you feel when a bright red eviction notice is on your house for all to see is a sickening feeling. There was never any way out from under that loan. They knew all along. So I take great joy these many years later of reminding the smug bankers that commit fraud and counterfeit. Most are so uneducated in banking to have realized it for themselves. I wish so badly I could "put money where my mouth is" and stand by you and your family. But I would exercise my right to meet any force they put up on me if I'm unlawfully being detained and in fear for my life. If not man's law, it will be God's law that judges them. That should be their greatest reason for not carrying out this eviction... America you ashamed me. How can we "Make America Great Again" when we've never quite been there. Mr Trump that is directed straight at you sir! Don't let this man be another anecdote in the Great American Hypocrisy
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