“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.” —Thomas Jefferson (1775)
There are three reasons that September 17 is an important day on my calendar.
First and foremost, it’s the birthday of the oldest of our children, our first son. I am so grateful to God for the gift of our family.
The second reason: The 17th is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the 1787 signing of our Republic’s founding contract by the Constitutional Convention delegates in Philadelphia. That codified under Rule of Law the American Liberty affirmed in our Declaration of Independence.
And the third reason...
It is no coincidence that on Constitution Day in 1996, 30 years ago, we launched PatriotPost.US. And we are humbled to share this anniversary in the year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Liberty.
It is with a deep debt of gratitude that I thank you for supporting our First Amendment platform — which is more critical now than ever.
For 30 years, our readers have been on the frontlines of Liberty, and our shared legacy of Freedom is in your good hands!
Our Patriot Post mission and operations are devoted to the Liberty bequeathed to us by generations past. From our inception, The Patriot Post has been steadfast in advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense, and traditional American values.
It is a privilege working with our great team of editors, technical and creative staff, and support personnel. They are mostly younger Patriots, those who will carry the banner of Liberty forward to the next generation. And thanks to you and our team, we are now the oldest news and policy digest on the Web.
How did we get here?
I am a lifelong antiquarian, a collector of mostly historic books and pamphlets from the Revolutionary Era, texts that surround my workspace as I write this. Thus, it was something of a leap 30 years ago to launch a publication beyond paper into the untested ether of the Web, becoming one of the first online publications. But leap we did.
Rush Limbaugh had been leading the conservative charge on talk radio for several years, and an upstart cable channel called Fox News was charting new territory for conservative perspective on television. But the Web was waiting for Liberty’s voice to break through.
National Review and The Heritage Foundation were launching online forums, and sage advice from conservative icons William F. Buckley (National Review, Emeritus) and Ed Feulner (Heritage Foundation, Emeritus), and from our National Advisory Committee, helped us get off the ground.
The greatest political mentoring influence in my life was Ronald Reagan, under whose administration I held an executive appointment. His influence informs everything we do.
A motivating factor in our launch was an estimation that Bill Clinton would be reelected and an understanding that we had to dislodge the chokehold that the Leftmedia had on public opinion. We thought the Web would be the fastest and most cost-effective means of publishing to a very large audience — it was and remains so.
Many of our young readers don’t remember a time when the Internet was not the dominant platform for information and commerce; when social media, texting, and smartphones were not the primary means of communication; and when entertainment was not streamed to a laptop or loaded on mobile devices. But the Web was just a fraction of its future self in 1996, when we began posting our weekly publication content online, along with other resources.
Initially, in test-marketing our concept, we faxed — FAXED — our publication to several hundred people overnight before transitioning to email.
By the end of our first year, not knowing if we would still be afloat, we had almost 5,000 subscribers. Given the rudimentary nature of the Internet and email, that was promising. At the close of our second year, we were operating in the black and growing at a healthy pace.
It did not take long for our success to be recognized. Harvard Political Review noted at the time that we were “leading a surprisingly well-organized charge into the world of Internet politics.”
Then, as today, our national editorial team produced hard-hitting rebuttals to contemporary political, social, and mainstream-media protagonists on the Left. Our digest format provided a brief, informative, and entertaining analysis of the week’s most significant news, policy, and opinion. The result was, and remains, a comprehensive digest of reliable information drawn from reputable media, research, and advocacy organizations. We went from weekly to two days, three days, and then five days, adding a humor edition on Monday, my column on Wednesday, and our Week in Review on Saturday.
Notably, over the last five years, we have faced enormous challenges from the Left, the biggest being the systemic suppression of free speech. But we know that taking flak means we are over the target.
We did not attain this success by following a conventional business model for publishing. In fact, though our business practices are very refined, our business model is “unique” in three ways.
First, we chose to be donor supported, though we did not elect nonprofit status in order to prevent the IRS from dictating the nature of our editorial content. We chose to rely solely on donations from our readers so that we could reach a large audience, particularly students and conservative influencers in communities across the nation.
Second, long before Big Tech and social media giants existed, I recognized the invisible but powerful influence that advertisers have over editorial content. That’s why, since our first edition, The Patriot Post website and email editions have remained completely ad-free.
And third, we are not sustained by any political or special-interest groups, for much the same reason that we refused the editorial constraints created by advertisers.
As with most entrepreneurial startups, our first few years of operation were characterized mostly by long hours and technical challenges. But we persevered, and in the years that followed, our readership grew faster than we anticipated and, fortunately, our donor support kept pace so we could add editors and staff.
Thanks to our devoted Patriot team and our fellow Patriots across the nation, The Patriot Post has grown from its humble beginnings into a highly acclaimed touchstone of Liberty for conservative leaders across our nation — and the leading online resource guided by our nation’s First Principles.
Approaching our 30th anniversary, we have devoted the last 12 months to substantial technical updates to our platform and improvements to our website and publications that will keep us strong moving forward.
Our objective remains to equip the current generation of American Patriots with the right information to more effectively “Support and Defend” the unalienable Rights of Man, as enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in our Republic’s Constitution.
Our mission and objectives rest on the foundation of this essential affirmation: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” We believe that all people are created with equal value and dignity, and that the Judeo-Christian faith is both the foundation upon which this affirmation rests and its eternal guardian.
Our advocacy is framed by our commitment to Liberty over tyranny. Above all, we are devoted to the Gospel framework for Liberty, irrevocably endowed by our Creator.
The most important guiding principles, the timeless wisdom that has motivated and stewarded our mission, would be these words from Jesus of Nazareth in John 8:31–32: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The last of those words is captured in our motto, Veritas vos Liberabit.
In addition to those guiding words would be these from George Washington during the American Revolution. Regarding the fight for Liberty, he wrote, “Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” As it was then, is to this day, and will forever be.
Since our first day in circulation, The Patriot Post has been an indispensable resource for the force multipliers in our ranks, who have enlisted many others in the eternal cause of Liberty.
As the current generation of American Patriots, we have been blessed beyond calculation. We are 100% funded by the goodwill and generosity of Patriots like you to keep our mission strong.
On behalf of our editorial team and National Advisory Committee, I thank you for allowing us to serve you. With a heart of gratitude, I am humbled to count you among our Patriot ranks.
God bless each and every one of you, and God bless our great nation.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of American Liberty, and for our nation’s Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic’s Founding Principle of Liberty, in order to ignite the fires of freedom in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.
Thank you for supporting our nation’s premier online journal of Liberty.
