By this year, 2021, the Jewetts have been in this country for nearly four centuries. Two brothers and their
wives sailing from Hull, England in 1638 and landing in Massachusetts Bay Colony. By the time of the
Revolution, our forebears had already been in New England for six generations. A Jewett provided guns
and grain to George Washington during the Revolution, another was the first Librarian of the
Smithsonian, yet another published “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” – in other words, typical Americans.
 

Jewetts have generally been salt-of-the-earth types – clothiers, farmers, loggers, policemen, firemen,
soldiers and, more recently, architects, builders, designers and pilots. These were some of the earliest
patriots who helped birth the nation and contribute to its growth and success for over three hundred
years. Loyal Americans before there was a United States of America.
 

The genetics that I inherited from this bloodline compel me to a conservative, patriotic point of view.
From a line of ancestors that were Minutemen, Continental Army provisioners and Patriot Women, how
could I be otherwise? Catholic schools and the Jesuits have served to moderate my center-right positions
more toward the Libertarian view. I recommend their brand of education.
 

During a year that saw the confluence of unfortunate streams flood my country, our country, I cannot
help but feel a sense of existential danger to the Great Experiment that is American Democracy.
Pandemic, global threats from foreign bad actors, civil unrest and anarchy, grand political corruption –
it’s a long list. My “little voice” was growing louder – the time for action in defense of America was
growing near. The opportunity to rise to this challenge was looming, but what to do?
 

To answer that question, I felt it necessary to understand more thoroughly the underlying foundation of
our American society back to its roots. How did we get here? How did I get here? Were my instinctual
tendencies to take up the fight against the enemies-at-the-gate justified? Which enemies would I engage
and how? These answers would surely lead me to the place to join the struggle against the forces of
tyranny, whether foreign or domestic.
 

What began as an academic exercise in self-awareness soon evolved to a clarion call to the protection of
the American Spirit. Deeper knowledge of the founding of our country, the original patriots, and those
that followed revealed a system and a people worthy of a vigorous defense. The miracle that is America,
that has given so much to so many, needs now to be defended and nourished lest it yield to the sinister
forces that encroach, and lose its formula and power for magic and light. Darkness and dragons occupy
the space beyond the American horizon, often clad in warm and welcome lies.
 

This “Manifesto for the Modern American Patriot” provides both reason and means for the forceful
engagement against the enemies of Freedom – the anarchists, the collectivists, the zealots and those that
would be king - anyone who might dare to extinguish the inherent rights of Individualism and a free
people. It has provided me the introspection and appreciation to commit, un-conflicted, to the enduring
cause of Liberty and our Natural Rights. We all need to choose our battles carefully and fully understand
the reasons and the goals of the struggle, for it likely comes at a very dear cost to those who engage.

Once decided by informed choice, we must run to the fight.