There’s a lot of talk about genetics today and how these complex chains of chemicals form the working blueprints for every aspect of our existence. We now know what gene pairs control functions and how broken or damaged segments result in dysfunction and disease in the body and mind. Science has learned how to manipulate and recode these all but invisible blueprints with Crispr and recombinant technologies to prevent and target diseases, anticipate future health concerns and create chimeric treatments. Epigenetics has taught us that certain sleeping potentials exist throughout human and animal DNA, both good and bad, and they are activated or “expressed” when the conditions to trigger them occur. They cause cancers, congenital defects and diseases, but often we cannot pinpoint what specific act awakened them. These same genetic codes also produce the geniuses, savants and athletes of mankind in their more positive expressions of potential. So genes can be a force for both good and bad potentials in humans. It’s their expressed reactions to certain triggers that awaken them or send them into dormancy.

But what of the mind and spirit of humanity? Does that have its own forms of unique DNA coding? Can we control how our DNA acts and responds with our thoughts and beliefs? Are there not Artists, Writers, Poets, Musicians, Scientists, Ministers, Soldiers, and sometimes, Politicians who excel beyond their peers? Are these the epigenetic expressions of the Mind and Spirit’s own potentials and capabilities? And If so, what about the genes that regulate Patriotism? “Oh”, You say, “Patriotism isn’t genetic, it’s something political, jingoistic, a learned behavior of your nation state”. But I deeply disagree.

Regardless of what country or culture you belong to, Patriotism and national fealty is expressed in many ways; it’s universal in its presence within human civilizations. Wherever people congregate as a tribe, a state or a nation, that membership in something greater than themselves expresses a “Patriot gene” within some of them. We might guess that its purpose evolved to promote and protect bonds with others who share that unique membership. I said Protection, because that’s a primary survival instinct programmed into every species’s DNA. If it weren’t, that species would cease to exist in a short time, consumed or subsumed by those with a greater force of survival expressions in their own DNA.

Now this Patriot would agree that there IS a patriotic gene and that it lies dormant in all of us, waiting for its triggers to summon its functions and protections. Without it, would there be nation states, great statesmen, political, religious or military leaders in the world? Or would humanity be one large apolitical unallied organism. I say this with certainty because I can describe the moment my own Patriot gene was awakened in 2021! I can even generalize about the specific series of events and the resolve that activated its purpose. I have always been an activist for liberty causes since adulthood but what happened in America in 2020 and in January of 2021 activated something that signaled a dramatic change in my nature. I felt new, incredibly raw emotions arising; anger, sorrow, resolve… and I could feel them crystalize a new determination. So, what were these events? What trigger could possibly reach into my operating code and flip the switch that transformed me into “FuriousTim”, a committed activist for J6 prisoners? In the summer of 2021, I wrote my first letter to a January 6th prisoner being held in the DC DOC CTF, a previously abandoned facility we now derisively call the D.C. GULAG. Through a grassroots patriot organization called the Patriot Mail Project, I randomly chose a name from the list of hostages and sent out a letter of support from my wife and I. I had no idea who this person was before January 6th. He was just another American to us who needed a little encouragement and support. A few weeks later, that prisoner sent me a reply and the message it carried floored me.
It spoke of his 30+ years of patriotism and service to his country as a decorated Ranger and Green Beret, of his beautiful family, his life as an American warrior and his decade long tenure as a State Department forces contractor. How could a person of this caliber, character and stature be in prison without trial? As I read through his four page letter and he revealed his involvement on January 6th and his persecution, arrest and mistreatment at the hands of the DOJ and FBI, my blood pressure rose, my cheeks and face grew hot with outrage, my disgust threatened to reverse my lunch’s direction! In that instant I ceased being a happily retired IT executive, content to play golf and hike. The Patriot gene was now working and I had a mission, born fully formed in my mind, like a gift of that awakening! That patriot’s code had been waiting there, dormant, inside me, for just this moment. Kismet!

With the help of other patriots we began publishing the letters of truth from these political prisoners on a new Telegram channel to get their words and messages out to the American public. More than two full years later from that first awakening, that patriotic genetic imperative has not diminished. It has in fact grown into a driving desire and a need to see Justice fulfilled and Liberties restored, for myself, my children, and their futures… for America. In the book series The American Gulag Chronicles, this patriotic awakening is on full display in the letters, Art and stories of the political prisoners of January 6th. They beg for your attention and ask, “What will it take to trigger Your Patriotic gene?”