Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Andrew Kehoe: An Overlooked Conservative Martyr?

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shootings here is an ode to an unsung hero, an overlooked martyr of American conservatism named Andrew Kehoe.  Mr. Kehoe, like so many Americans today, was a man who had had enough and was prepared to tell the world, in the most dramatic fashion, that he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Andrew Kehoe lived on a farm outside the small town of Bath, Michigan in the late 1920s.  A civically minded sort, Kehoe served as a member of the Bath school board and had been the town clerk for a spell.  While in office, Kehoe pursued a single-issue agenda.  Specifically, he believed he was paying too much in school taxes.  Why, he didn’t even have kids!  Accordingly, Kehoe defined himself as a public servant by insisting on strict fiscal discipline. 

Kehoe’s desire not to waste the people’s taxes on such frivolities as books, facility maintenance, and teachers’ salaries brought him into bitter conflict with the profligate district superintendent, one Mr. Huyck.  Contributing to Kehoe’s ire was the fact that the prohibitive school taxes he was paying were breaking his finances.  He was so financially pressed he stopped paying the note on his farm and let his homeowner’s insurance lapse.  The bank soon informed Kehoe that it planned to foreclose, threatening his rightful stake in the “ownership society.”        

Driven to despair by the great liberal conspiracy to destroy the productive classes, Andrew Kehoe decided to push back against high taxes and oppressive government.  In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” and Kehoe was just the sort of patriot to act upon that little nugget of wisdom handed down by one of the founders of our great republic.

A skilled electrician, Kehoe supplemented his slender income by doing maintenance work in the Bath schoolhouse.  (No contradiction here—getting a government paycheck is okay when you do it.  It’s only wrong when someone else does it.)   While puttering in the basement, Kehoe assembled a cache of dynamite and surplus military explosives.  Wired to an alarm clock, it made a pretty good time bomb. 

Andrew Kehoe knew he had to spare Bath’s schoolchildren from a bleak future living under the heel of a tyrannical government.  Worse, they might grow up to live unproductive lives earning so little as to not shoulder their fair share of the tax burden.  Kehoe also knew his wife couldn’t bear to face life without him, so he compassionately bludgeoned her to death and set fire to their house before heading into town to go out in a blaze of glory. 

Kehoe arrived in Bath just in time to see his plan come to fruition.  The bomb detonated with a ferocious blast.  In the confusion, Kehoe called Superintendent Huyck over to his truck.  As Huyck approached, Kehoe lifted up the .30 caliber rifle he purchased exercising his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.  He fired a shot into the cab’s interior, having had the foresight to rig a bomb in the truck for just such an opportunity.  The rifle shot set off the truck bomb, killing both Kehoe and the oppressor bureaucrat Huyck.  The bomb also sent flying the scrap metal with which Kehoe had so thoughtfully loaded the truck, relieving a few more people of their lives in the process. 

The toll of Andrew Kehoe’s handiwork came to 45 deaths, most of them children between the ages of 7 and 12.  But when you think about it, wasn’t that a small price to pay when you’re striking a blow to preserve liberty in this great country of ours? 

Lord knows we need someone like Andrew Kehoe today.  You see, the problem with people like Adam Lanza is that they don’t act on principle.  Because the one thing that distinguishes a patriot from a lone nut is principle.  Because someone has to defend America from that Kenyan Muslim usurper in the White House, big government tax-and-spend politicians, limousine liberals, welfare queens, abortionists, Hollywood activists, the ACLU, atheists, feminists, queers, illegals, terrorists, tree huggers, peaceniks, labor unions, community organizers, and those Occupy freaks…oh, wait.  Never mind…

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar


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