The Gov of Texas explains the position of the #OregonUnderAttack militia with this one simple tweet!

[Recursion]

7. It's an Alamo (and Thermopylae) reference, though he fucked up the tense

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe

I'll add, as a classicist: it's not "come and take it". It's "Having come, then take it". I'll get to the difference in a second.

It was used by the defenders of the Alamo. They took it from the Spartans at Thermopylae. If you've seen the movie "300", it was an extremely Hollywood-ized version of that battle, though what's probably the most amazing scene is word-for-word from multiple attested sources: the Greeks were told to lay down their spears, and replied "μολὼν λαβέ", often badly rendered "come and take them". ("μολὼν λαβέ" is still the motto of the first Greek infantry division, rightly.)

But it's not "come and take them", it's "having come, then take them". Leonidas had absolutely zero illusions about the outcome of the battle, but he knew he was buying time for the Athenian navy to cut off the Persian supply lines. Similarly, Bill Travis had zero illusions about the outcome of the Alamo, but he knew it would give Houston time to raise the other settlers into an insurgency Santa Anna could not break.

Anyways: I think both the defenders of Thermopylae and the Alamo deserve better than to have their sacrifices appropriated by these jackasses...