Stronghold of the Enemy

By D. R. McFadden

"A good read. Intense." - Richie W.

 

Stronghold of the Enemy is both a warning and a possible road map to education freedom. Battling the government education system and the sinister forces that support it, Andrew and his fellow teen friends challenge one of Satan's biggest and oldest strongholds in America. Initially using his natural gifts of a keen intellect and persuasive arguments, he later turns to the supernatural to fight forces beyond the temporal world that have enslaved millions of young minds and bodies.

 

"The author was able to weave complex research into a fictional story in a way that actually expressed the research, but not in a boring, need-to-be-an-expert way. Very nicely done." - Jeff G.

 

Andrew Hayes is a high school senior who comes to the conclusion that government schools and compulsory schooling in general crushes the dreams and imaginations of students. He sees that the system ultimately ruins their natural love of learning and condemns many of them to living a life far below their potential. Finding Andrew too effective in his quest to slay the schooling beast, shadowy government operatives fight him and his message through kidnappings, threats and violence in order to stop his mission from succeeding. Andrew lives out the Marines' motto of Improvise, Adapt and Overcome. But he soon discovers that human effort alone is insufficient to bring down this stronghold of the enemy. His seemingly eccentric Grandma guides him into the knowledge and relationships that he needs in order to fulfill his destiny. Will that be enough to bring down this evil empire?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: PottedPlant Publishing
• Release date: Aug 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393011880

D. R. McFadden

An interest in Christian apologetics and political science led D. R. McFadden to the works of the late John Taylor Gatto and many others involved in the field of education. That research led to his Forced Government Schooling blog and ultimately to the novel Stronghold of the Enemy. He hopes that it will inspire students to resist the dream killing system and persuade parents to free their children from the education gulag. His research was often accomplished during his long flights around the country when he pursued a career in corporate finance and institutional money management. In addition to his obsession about learning, one of his passions is downhill mountain biking in the Southern Rockies.

Book preview

Violence: the foundation of the empire

It started as a typical Friday morning in the Hayes' family household. I was upstairs in my bedroom organizing my backpack for school while my mom was booting up her computer in her home office, and my dad was packing his laptop case in the kitchen. Suddenly we heard our front door being shattered by a heavy object. As the door flew open, I heard a couple of men yelling, Police! Get on the floor! Get on the floor! Then I heard another voice shout, Where's Andrew Hayes?! Followed by, Where are the guns?!

Once I heard the front door breaking and cops bellowing, I instantly knew from all the police shows on TV that a SWAT team was invading our home. I looked out my window and could see a huge armored vehicle, numerous police cars, officers and the Child Protective Services (CPS) woman that had been harassing us. I could see a faint, dark mist swirling around our oppressors. This was a disturbing phenomenon that I had seen before but did not yet understand.

Then the noise of violence downstairs pulled me back to the reality of the home invasion. There was no way I was going to be forced into some Bates Motel foster home. So I grabbed my school backpack, dumped out the textbooks and homework, stuffed in my notebook computer, a sweater and jacket before sprinting to my parent's bedroom balcony. I swung myself over the railing and grabbed the branches of a tall oak tree that stood between the neighbor's house and ours. Having climbed the tree many times when I was younger, the practice had an unplanned payoff. I dropped off the tree to the top rail of the neighbor's sturdy, wooden fence then jumped over. After scaling one more fence, I was soon cautiously jogging down the next street. A couple of blocks later, I slipped into our local greenbelt where there were a lot of places to hide. Having fought my way through some dense brush, I found a small clearing surrounded by cedar trees. It was finally time to take a deep breath, pull out my cell phone and, with shaky fingers, attempt to text my best friend Zach.

I learned the full extent of the violence later: My mom ran out of her office and was immediately thrown to the floor face down with two police officers pinning her small frame on the floor. They aggressively twisted her arms behind her back in a way to maximize her pain and ensure compliance. My dad was standing in the kitchen in shock and didn't move.

With their assault rifles pointed at him from several angles, other officers continued shouting, Get on the floor!

He yelled back,What's the problem here? What do you want?

Their answer was in the form of Taser probes stabbing his chest. Fifty thousand volts instantly convulsed his body and he dropped to the floor in agony. Then he was handcuffed, dragged outside and thrown face down on the front lawn while the house was being searched. The only explanation he could get out of the police was that he was under arrest. As he tried to see what was going on, he caught a glimpse of a familiar person standing nearby: Amy Carden, the CPS caseworker.

My journey to this precarious situation began when I was seventeen and a senior at Liberty High School in Southgate, Texas. Over the previous year, I had begun to understand the web of lies that enslaved me. This was a developing revelation, similar to pieces of a puzzle being snapped into place, one by one, until the scene begins to appear. In a broader sense, it was like climbing a mountain ridge, then looking over the other side to see a vast expanse that fills the senses and shrinks one's daily struggles to insignificance. From such an elevation, lakes, roads and towns are laid out like a 3D map, defining relationships that weren't evident from the valley below. Such perspectives often bring clarity to seemingly complex situations, providing the crucial big picture. In my case, it became a clear vision of evil. I saw a perverted system that crushed the imagination and deformed the soul of the most innocent among us. This cruelty was not hidden and performed in the dark; instead it was practiced and celebrated in public—not unlike the rituals of Molech in ancient Canaan. Although there were no literal fiery child sacrifices, each day the system delivered the bodies and souls of its victims to the gods of the empire of deception.

I knew there was something wrong with our education system, but I could never put my finger on it. Just like many of my fellow students, I grumbled about the homework, the petty rules, the threats and intimidation by teachers, administrators and school resource officers. The latter I came to see as street-level dispensers of violence that put the muscle behind the threats. I didn't spend much time thinking about the whys, just the whats—trying to survive with at least a minimal level of sanity until I could get to college where there would likely be greater freedom. Afterward, I could finally enter real life. But that survivalist approach was rudely interrupted by an article I discovered online that was written by a celebrated public school teacher. He wrote about the origins and purposes of the public school system, and he called for its abolition. I read most of his books and then followed leads to other educators and scholars who challenged the education system at the most fundamental level. All of this was intoxicating because it was finally making sense. I wasn't crazy; the system itself was insane.

As I would understand later, that specific teacher and the others like him were prophets of the temporal realm, warning us of the outward manifestation of an evil system. But there were, and still are, other forces at work. Similar to research on subatomic particles, those unseen entities can only be discovered by inference. Only by their interactions with material objects that can be observed, will their presence be detected. I have learned that there are certain people who have the ability to detect those entities directly. Others receive inside information that is very useful in understanding how to deal with them.

As my perspective changed, so did my actions. It was getting harder to just keep on keeping on. The prison-like environment, meaningless topics and tests, and the endless and often strident propaganda about the importance of public education were getting difficult to ignore. Once you understand what is going on, and see the manipulation and coercion, can you just sit down and shut up? If you have a functioning conscience and any amount of compassion, the answer seems obvious. Besides, I would have gone mad if I had done nothing. So I started my own campaign of resistance. The first skirmish in my personal revolutionary war was ignited by an informative speech assignment in my English class early in the fall semester of my senior year.

The topic that I had chosen for my 4-6 minute speech was the First Amendment of the Constitution. My teacher, Mrs. Mallory, assumed the speech would cover freedom of religion, freedom of speech or freedom of the press—the usual subjects served with patriotic garnishes on a plate of untruths and ignorance.

When that fateful day and hour had arrived, I spent a few moments looking around the classroom before I spoke. I could see small shafts of sunlight coming through the windows that were high up on the walls. The grim, institutional look of the room reminded me of a blend of a small clothing factory in Asia and a prison.

Just put sewing machines on these desks and we're in business, I thought.

Mrs. Mallory was the gray-haired, grim-faced sweatshop supervisor determined that we would meet our daily quota. Even the matronly outfit that she wore showed hints of an institutional uniform.

Already, I could see the normal fog of boredom comfortably settled on the audience even before I began to speak. My topic is about the First Amendment to the Constitution and, more specifically, how it relates to public schools and the role of government in our personal lives. I went on to read the text of the Amendment and focused on the establishment clause where government is prohibited from making laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

Stating the obvious, I said, Most of us have heard this more than a few times—especially whenever there is a big fight over schools teaching religion or some other controversial topic. And then I loaded my metaphorical musket by saying, But there is a deeper issue here. The establishment clause and the rest of the amendment is ultimately based on freedom of conscience. I'm sure some of you are thinking 'who cares about this?' But we should care. Freedom of conscience is not just about religion and speech, but it's also about the life of the mind. It's the freedom to discover the truth, the freedom not to be indoctrinated, or brainwashed and not to be coerced into agreeing with something you don't think is true or right.

Mrs. Mallory had a slightly puzzled expression, but most of the class members were at least awake at this point.

Then I fired the first shot: In the remainder of this speech, I will make the case that the public schools and government control of education represent clear violations of the establishment clause and the right to freedom of conscience.

Mrs. Mallory's puzzled look became a dark frown and the class became very quiet.

Schools claim they don't favor or promote any one religion, but that is just a lie that they feed us. What they actually do is promote a government-approved worldview. One definition of a worldview is that it's a framework of ideas and attitudes about the world, ourselves, and life itself. A worldview is basically equivalent to a religious system of thought. There is no way you can create an education system without getting tangled up in religious beliefs or worldview issues.

I wasn't sure the class was really following the line of reasoning, but I didn't care at this point. The story had to be told and perhaps a few people would start to see what was really happening. After quoting various schooling critics from centuries past, I showed how they were right in their dire predictions.

We have the ridiculous situation where teachers supposedly teach us about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and freedom, yet attendance in those classes is compulsory. They pay lip service to our supposed freedoms while they keep us in this prison. That's right. This place is an unconstitutional part-time prison. Maybe we should call it a day-prison. You get to go home at night to do more prison work. I guess that's the liberty part of Liberty High School.

That brought some laughter from the audience and a few cheers. Mrs. Mallory sat stone-faced while attempting to suppress her apparent growing anger.

It should be no surprise that the current system is run like a prison. That's because the factory model school system we have today was imported directly from one of the most obnoxious police states that ever existed: 19th century Prussia. For the victims of the system who just rely on schools for an education, the Kingdom of Prussia included what is now northern Germany. Another important fact hidden or ignored by so-called educators is that this oppressive system of education was imposed top-down through each state's legislature at the direction of special interest groups. It took money and a lot of propaganda to get reluctant parents to accept the idea of compulsory government schooling. It sounds like politics today. Contrary to the lies of public school supporters, most of the developed areas of this country were well-educated before public schools. I don't think we can say that's true today.

With the time for making my case running out, I made one last flurry of attacks on the evil empire.

"So, here we are. We have an institution that dominates our life for twelve years or more. It treats us as 'human resources' rather than humans. We are processed through a twelve year production line; sorted by age, tested, graded and herded like cattle. How can any person with a brain and a conscience not see the inhumanity with this situation? But don't expect help from any politician or judge. They all benefit from keeping the system as it is. More human resources for big corporations and more busy, dumb taxpayers for government. Where do we fit in here? Don't we have dreams of what we want to be? Or are we too busy doing homework and studying mostly irrelevant topics? Once we're released from this prison, we're too busy going for that degree and that job. If you still have any lingering spark of a dream in you, don't let it be stamped out by this evil system. Refuse to let it steal your dreams and your soul. And whatever you do, keep your kids out of this prison."

With all my ammunition spent, I went back to my seat and sat down. The class politely applauded but the atmosphere was now surprisingly subdued. I guess it was such a shocking departure from the usual speeches designed to pander to the teacher's biases that it was hard to comprehend. The class was looking at Mrs. Mallory to see her reaction.

And she did react: Andrew, that was a very inflammatory speech. I completely disagree with your characterization of our schools. I don't know where you got some of your information, but it's wrong.

Everything I said about the history of public schools is well documented, but you won't find it in any government-approved textbook. Any guesses as to why not?

What she said next was something I was soon to hear many times in different forms. Even if public schools were imposed on America, they are still a force for good. I hope you haven't poisoned the minds of the rest of the students. It's difficult enough to get kids to study.

It was the benevolent dictator argument: Sure, it's a prison but it's good for you. The first skirmish was over, but the big battle was just beginning.

After the class ended, some kids wanted a copy of the speech. Over the course of the next few days, there were so many requests for it that I posted links to it on social media. The support from other students gave me hope we could push back against the empire. As a result, I didn't miss any opportunities to further the message. In one Social Studies class,while discussing the U.S. Government, I had this exchange with the teacher:

Mr. Thorne, I'm not trying to create trouble here. I'm just trying to discover the truth. May I ask a question about the Constitution?

Thorne, aware of my controversial speech, rolled his eyes and sarcastically told me, Forget it. You're not going to win any argument that questions the legality or validity of public schools.

So, you won't let me ask a question?

Go ahead, he said wearily.

How can compulsory school attendance be justified under the First or Fifth Amendments?

None of us are lawyers here, Mr. Hayes.

I wasn't going to let this opportunity vanish. Besides, I wanted the class to hear a dissenting voice. I thought reasoned arguments were supposed to be part of the educational process.

The First Amendment guarantees us freedom of religion, yet we are being taught the state's religion. The Fifth Amendment says we are not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process ... a judicial ruling. Yet we are effectively prisoners here, so how can the government get away with violating these amendments and no one complains?

You are not of legal age, so the Bill of Rights is not fully applicable to you.

Just like prisoners, right? I pressed.

Yes, he said with a heavy sigh.

Although I didn't want to further irritate him, I had to expose the suppression of civil rights. "But the Bill of Rights fully applies to our parents, yet they must obey the compulsory schooling laws. So, in effect, the government is violating their rights as well."

I don't agree with you, but it could be argued that way.

Thank you, Mr. Thorne, I rest my case.

And so it went. Whenever the opportunity arose, I would inevitably raise legal or moral arguments about the day-prison. Other students were starting to show growing skepticism about the whole schooling enterprise. As expected, the growing resistance required a response from the school administration. Within a week of my speech, I was called to the principal's office and handed a letter. It was a demand to appear at a meeting after school the next day. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss my disruption of some classes and my unhealthy attitude toward education. The letter concluded with a threat: Failure to attend this meeting is grounds for suspension.

I had mixed feelings about this turn of events. On one hand, I was concerned it was going to create a lot of grief for me and, on the other hand, I was very interested in how they were going to justify their actions when presented with facts. If they came down heavily on me, I thought I could use it to gain further support from fellow students. But in reality it was not that simple.

When I got home from school that day, I knew I had to tell my parents. It was not going to be easy since they were big supporters of the local public schools. Although my dad didn't say much about his school years, my mother told me she enjoyed that time of her life and often spoke about the many friends she'd made in school. My father, Tom Hayes, was a senior engineer in a large civil engineering firm in the city. Fortunately for me, he had a calm and analytical disposition. My mother, Ellen, was a former public school teacher. She was more outgoing but a little less predictable when it came to sensitive issues like this one. Since she had moved from the constraints of government work into self-employment in public relations, I hoped she would be somewhat sympathetic to my viewpoint.

It wasn't long before my dad opened the garage door to the kitchen and strode in carrying his laptop and a gym bag. He was disciplined about both his work and exercise. He was about the same 5 feet, 10 inch height as me and had managed to stay fit and trim despite being in his late forties. Except for the facial wrinkles, he could have passed for an older brother with similar blue-gray eyes and light brown hair like mine. He soon noticed I was more somber than usual.

What's up Andrew? You look troubled today.

I decided it was time to reveal my position on the education system. Well, I think I have finally discovered what has been bothering me about school.

What's that?

At first I thought there was something wrong with me since everyone keeps hyping school as being so critical for success in life. But I've come to realize it's just a big scam.

Scam?

"Yeah, a scam. We're told twelve years of schooling are so important, but it seems like it starts as a babysitting service and ends up being a prison sentence. It doesn't have to take twelve years to learn that stuff. Not only that, it's unconstitutional."

Dad looked genuinely surprised and puzzled. "Wow! Why did all this come out now?"

I read stuff written by some teachers and professors that told the real story of how and why we have government-controlled schooling today. I realized when government forces schooling on us, it violates our human rights. Plus it's dangerous to give the government power to indoctrinate us. It's wrong on so many levels.

My dad took a moment to ponder what I had unloaded on him. He had enough problems with his intense work schedule, so I knew he didn't appreciate another hassle developing at home. So, you're against education?

Of course not! You know I like to read a lot and learn things. But if what you call education means being forced into a schooling factory, then I'm against it. By the way, I have to go to a meeting after school tomorrow at the principal's office. The school psychologist will be there too.

What? He now realized this was more than just griping.

They say I have an unhealthy attitude toward school and I'm disruptive.

I could see a hint of anger on his face. Why do they say that?

I gave a speech criticizing school and argued with teachers about public schools in a few of my classes. I wasn't being unreasonable. To be perfectly honest, I thought I was being very respectful.

Just then, the garage door slowly opened and my mother struggled into the kitchen. She was carrying her usual oversized and overstuffed purse, a laptop case and a stack of bulging file folders. The wind had blown her hair into a curly blond mop perched on her head. On this day she looked beaten down, and I was certain she didn't need another problem added to her burden. Thankfully, my dad brought her up to speed on my situation, spinning it in such a way as to downplay his concern. Mom sat quietly at the kitchen table listening to the tale.

Her first comment was, I think this is just a misunderstanding that should be easily cleared up. It's inconceivable to me they are trying to force you to repent.

I thought it was interesting she used the term repent. Perhaps she had more religious leanings than I had previously thought, or maybe she was just trying to be funny.

I answered, I think that's exactly what they're trying to do. They just don't like anyone being different. If you don't think school is good for you and the country, then you're a nut case.

I think everyone is overreacting. When I was a teacher twenty years ago, we didn't send people to a psychologist just because they didn't agree with us.

I hope you're right, but I don't think so.