Patriotic and resolute until the very end, Sipsey Street Irregulars' Mike Vanderboegh died on Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at the age of 64.

He wrote this back in January:

I beat the odds of my first cancer diagnosis for five years through the grace of God, who evidently wasn't done with me yet. In those five years, we broke the Fast and Furious scandal story ... and generally became a thorn in the side of the empire[.]

In December 2010, the Obama-controlled media complex desperately wanted to ignore an illegal government-sponsored gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious. 

And it would have, if not for a stubborn blogger/patriot/gun rights activist named Mike Vanderboegh. 

The fearless defender of a citizen's right to bear arms latched on to a story coming from ATF street agents at CleanupATF. org. 

Accusing an ATF official in Phoenix of purposely approving more than 500 untraceable AR-15-type rifles to be "walked" into Mexico, the agents asked if anyone out there could confirm a rumor that one of the rifles was linked to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. 

Vanderboegh, with the help of David Codrea and courageous whistleblowers, took up the challenge.  On December 28, 2010, writing for his own blog, he led with this headline: "Border Patrol Agent killed with smuggled AR-15? Some ATF agents seem to think so."  The rest is history. 

A self-described "Christian libertarian," Vanderboegh started out as a radical left-wing antiwar member of various communist groups.  His disillusionment with Marxism-Leninism came about from a chance meeting with an ex-Wehrmacht surgeon he met while working as a hospital aide in Ohio in 1977.

The man he called Herr Doktor gave him a copy of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.  After countless conversations with the doctor, Vanderboegh was ready to make the break from his fellow travelers.  Understanding he was now going to be a traitor to the class struggle, he blamed the defection on marital troubles:

I didn't tell them that this was because I had a crisis of conscience. I lied and told them I was just burnt out and that my wife was about to divorce me. This was more or less true, but still a lie. 

However, the first thing you're taught when you get to be a killer tomato (red thru and thru) is that it is OK to lie to anybody about anything if it advances the party's goals. So given that, lying to liars was even expected, in a way.

Anyway, I got out and never looked back. That didn't mean I wasn't constantly haunted by the reality of what I had done. 

Vanderboegh, the ex-communist, was a brilliant writer, a pit bull patriot, a Second Amendment champion, and a founder of the Three Percenters, a group of gun owners "who will not disarm and who will not compromise" their constitutional right to bear arms.  Finally, and most importantly, Mike V. was inspirational. 

Vanderboegh roused other citizen-journalists with limited resources, like me, to verify first, trust later.  With no big-name news organization behind him, he adhered to Thoreau's maxim: "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." 

He rabidly defended America's founding principles through his blog posts and speeches.  Vanderboegh understood that in these dark times, when the Lie has become the "pillar of the State," and self-serving parasites in the media are feeding at the trough of the power elites, Americans need to possess the same unapologetic, fearless, and revolutionary spirit of the first patriots.

Not much intimidated Vanderboegh.  He boasted that he was on the last three White House enemies lists. 

In an April 2010 report entitled "Meet the Patriots," the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed Vanderboegh as one of "36 individuals at the heart of the resurgent patriot movement."  The authors described him as an "anti-Obama health care activist." 

A month earlier, on March 19, 2010, Vanderboegh had slammed the Affordable Care Act as "Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act."  The headline on his blog read, "To all modern Sons of Liberty. THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW."  The "illegitimate" law, he wrote, was a "tyrannical transfer of power wrapped in soft lies" and "carried the hard-steeled fist of government violence."

In an interview with the Washington Post in 2010, an SPLC research director said Vanderboegh "has been on our radar since the 1990's when he first surfaced in Alabama militia groups." 

The Center kept a close eye on Vanderboegh's activities, often mentioning him in their Hatewatch articles and Intelligence Report.  According to the SPLC's bio, Vanderboegh declined to be interviewed by the publications' writers over the years, telling them, "P--- on you lying b------- and the fact-challenged horse you rode in on."  In response to their request for a list of the facts he suggested the Center misrepresented, Vanderboegh responded in part, writing, "[B]y all means, you lying, conflationist b-------, have at it. Just don't expect me to assist you. Oh, yeah. Thank you in advance for all the free publicity."

In his own words, shortly before his death, Vanderboegh summed up the belief system that informed everything he did.  His love of country spurred him not only to expose the corrupt government officials behind the deadly Fast and Furious operation, but to never stop holding all enemies of our way of life accountable.

From Sipsey Street:

For many years I have introduced myself as a Christian libertarian who believed in God, free men, free markets, the rule of law under the Founders' Republic, and that the Constitution extended to everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion.

As I take my leave from this existence, I must admit that the Constitution, as the Founders crafted it, is now or soon will be dead – killed by corruption and collectivism and mostly by our own sloth and moral cowardice in opposing its enemies.

Yet if the Constitution is dead as an organizing and unifying force in this nation, the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights can never die as long as there remain free men and women who believe in the Founders' vision. This is the essence of the Three Percent, that no matter how small our numbers are – if we remain armed and determined – we may yet preserve the flickering flame of liberty.

Amen and farewell.