"If There Must be Trouble, Let it be in My Day, That My Child May Have Peace"

The Title to This Article is a Quote by Thomas Paine. 

By Rich Kozlovich

 

We are a people who has more information available, from more sources, that is easily and readily available, than any other people in the history of the world.  And we know less.  I used to be shocked at people's historical ignorance, foolishly believing just because I knew things,  everyone else must know these things.   Now I'm just dismayed.

Oh, I know, most people don't read much these days.   Most no longer read books, and even fewer read history books.  It's certainly not taught in public schools, and absolutely not in institutions of "higher education" these days, which need to be defunded.  Worse yet, many schools and institutions are  teaching the corruption of history based on fallacious writings from a book that contaminated an entire generation of America's youth, A People's History of the United States, which my friend attacks with factual gusto showing his work is corrupted with leftist ideology. 

You may wish to read her books, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America, and, Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America

So, let's talk about Thomas Paine.  Who was Thomas Paine?  Why was he important in American history?  Why is he important now?  

Truthfully, I'm not even sure if anyone under 70 is taught enough accurate history in school to know who Thomas Paine even was, let alone his importance to American history.  So much that was written and expressed by the Founding Fathers of America about the tyranny imposed on the American colonies is now applicable to the tyranny the American government is imposing on the American people.  So let's get started.

Thomas Paine "authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and helped inspire the patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain.  His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era ideals of transnational human rights."

We've heard the term at some time in our lives, "these are the times that try men's souls", but do you know where that came from?  That was from The Crisis, a part of the American Crisis collection of articles, all of which can be found here, and listed at the end of this article, written by Thomas Paine during the American Revolutionary War. 

In 1776 Paine wrote Common Sense, an extremely popular and successful pamphlet arguing for Independence from England.  At the time Paine wrote “Common Sense,” most colonists considered themselves to be aggrieved Britons.  Paine fundamentally changed the tenor of colonists’ argument with the crown when he wrote the following:  “Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America.  This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.  Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.”

These essays were so profound Washington required their reading for his troops at Valley Forge because the American Revolution was in a state of crisis, economically and militarily, and the colonists overall were not yet Americans.  They considered themselves to be British subjects living in the American colonies of Great Britain.  That needed to be overcome.  

Here are some quotes from his work which I think are fundamental in understanding the tyranny being imposed on the nation right now, whether it's CRT, vaccination mandates, mask mandates, global warming, energy production or each and every other crisis of the moment being promoted by the left. 

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value ............'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country...........If we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some providential control........ I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. 

By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils - a ravaged country - a depopulated city - habitations without safety, and slavery without hope -.............. Look on this picture and weep over it! 

The Boyd Principle (To Be or To Do: Which Way Will You Go?) states at some point in our lives we come to a fork in the road and must make a decision. If you take one path you will be popular and you will be rewarded. If you take the other path you will be criticized, ridiculed and scorned. However, you won’t have to turn your back on your friends or your principles. 

If you are more concerned with accomplishing that which is right and best - the satisfaction for having stood against the conventional wisdom on right principles will be your reward - and you may actually accomplish something worthwhile.  However, that means taking a stand against conventional wisdom and popular belief, and let's face it, heterodoxy isn't for the faint of heart.  

For those who haven't already looked up what heterodoxy means:   

It's not conforming with accepted or orthodox standards or belief.  

It means standing up and telling the world, you're all wrong, and I'm going to tell you why!  That isn't for the faint of heart.  What does it take to be a heterodox and stand against the conventional wisdom, or should I say "consensus" wisdom?

All it takes is being right.   Knowing the subject well, being able to prove you're right.  Not being afraid to be right.  Unafraid to prove you're right.  Finally, and most importantly, the fearless willingness to be un-liked, all the while being attacked for your stand.  The willingness to man the wall, defending what you know to be true and right just as long as it takes, telling the world, "no one will harm you on my watch".

Once you've reached that point - everything else becomes much easier. As Andrew Breitbart once said: 

"Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, you’re sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you. The message is that they can do it, too."

Editor's Note:  This article, The Terminating of America, by Scot Faulkner was sent to me for publication by another correspondent and friend giving historical background on what the left is doing and how it came into being, the and the are nothing more than an extension of New Deal, which was a redux of the fascist system imposed on the nation during WWI by America's first fascist President,

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, and Coolidge. She has also written, Great Society: A New History, which is still unread on my self.  Also well worth the time is Diana West's American Betrayal, along with Stalin's Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt's Government  by M. Stanton Evans and Herbert Romerstein.

• The American Crisis: December 23, 1776
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Jan. 13, 1777
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, April 19, 1777
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Sept. 12, 1777
  
• The American Crisis: Lancaster, March 21, 1778
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Oct. 20, 1778.
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 1778
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, March, 1780
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Oct. 4, 1780
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, March 5, 1782
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia May 31, 1782
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, Oct. 29, 1782
  
• The American Crisis: Philadelphia, April 19, 1783

 

How Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' Helped Inspire the American Revolution

The 47-page pamphlet took colonial America by storm in 1776 and made critical arguments for declaring independence from England.  

Patrick J. Kiger @ History

But a single 47-page pamphlet—the 18th-century equivalent of a paperback book—did a lot to quickly change that, and shift American sentiment toward independence. Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine and first published in Philadelphia in January 1776, was in part a scathing polemic against the injustice of rule by a king. But its author also made an equally eloquent argument that Americans had a unique opportunity to change the course of history by creating a new sort of government in which people were free and had the power to rule themselves.

'Common Sense,' published in 1776, inspired American colonists to declare independence from England. Joy of Museums/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

“We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth,” Paine wrote. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

Centuries before the existence of the internet, Common Sense managed to go viral, selling an estimated 500,000 copies. By the end of the Revolutionary War, an estimated half-million copies were in circulation throughout the colonies.

By promoting the idea of American exceptionalism and the need to form a new nation to realize its promise, Paine’s pamphlet not only attracted public support for the Revolution, but put the rebellion’s leaders under pressure to declare independence. And even after the victory over the British, Paine’s influence persisted, and some of his ideas found their way into the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Who Was Thomas Paine and Why Did He Write 'Common Sense'?

Paine’s provocative pamphlet was the first real success in his life. Born in 1737 in England to a financially struggling family, he had to quit school at age 13 to labor as an apprentice in his father’s corset shop. He did a brief stint as a sailor on a privateer ship at age 20, and tried and failed to start a craftsman business. He managed to land a government job as an excise tax collector, but was fired twice, the second time after leading an unsuccessful campaign to get higher wages for him and his colleagues. His failed efforts to lobby Parliament left him with a dim view of the British system of government.

Bereft of prospects at age 37, he convinced Benjamin Franklin, whom he’d met in London, to give him a letter of recommendation, and emigrated to America in hopes of catching a break at last.

When Paine arrived in America in 1774 and found work as a journalist in Philadelphia, the colonies already were in tumult over opposition to Britain’s attempts to impose new taxes and restrict trade.

“Paine witnessed it all, and thought, these people are ripe for a revolution,” explains Harvey J. Kaye, author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.

In 1775, with the encouragement of Franklin and Benjamin Rush, the physician and activist who became a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Paine began writing a pamphlet that would urge Americans to go beyond merely resisting British authority. “He encouraged them to realize that they weren’t British, that they were Americans,” Kaye explains.

Paine originally wanted to call his pamphlet The Plain Truth, but Rush, who informally served as his editor, persuaded him to name it Common Sense instead, according to Stephen Fried’s biography of the physician. That phrase fit one of Paine’s most important notions, that Americans should trust their feelings, rather than get bogged down in abstract political debates.

“The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes,” Paine wrote. “They are the guardians of his image in our hearts.”

Key Points Made in 'Common Sense'

Here are some of Paine’s key points:

• Government's purpose was to serve the people. Paine described government as a “necessary evil,” which existed to give people a structure so they could work together to solve problems and prosper. But to do that, it had to be responsive to people’s needs. The British system, Paine argued, failed at that, because it gave the monarchy and nobles in Parliament too much power to thwart the people’s elected representatives. “The constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine,” Paine wrote.

• Having a king was a bad idea. Paine didn't just find fault with British rule of the colonies. He ridiculed the very idea of having a hereditary monarch at all. "In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places, which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears," Paine wrote. "A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshiped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived."

• America as the home of the free. Paine refuted the notion that Americans should be loyal to a mother country that he considered a bad parent. “Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families,” he wrote. Besides, he argued, America’s real connection was to people everywhere who yearned to escape oppression. "This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe," Paine proclaimed. "Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."

• America had a rare opportunity to create a new nation based on self-rule. As Paine saw it, both Americans and the British knew it was inevitable that the colonies would break free. "I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who hath not confessed his opinion, that a separation between the countries, would take place one time or other." And that time had come. America had raw materials, from timber and hemp to iron, and the skills that it needed to build and equip an army and navy for its defense. Just as important, the individual colonies had the potential to put aside differences and form a powerful nation. But they needed to do it quickly, before the population grew to a point where new divisions might develop. The moment in history was "that peculiar time, which never happens to a nation but once," he wrote.

• A strong central government was needed. Paine envisioned that the new nation would have a strong central government, with a constitution that protected individual rights, including freedom of religion. "A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long friends," he argued.

Why Did Paine’s Pamphlet Become So Influential?

Jefferson considered Paine to be the best writer of the Revolution, according to Kaye. But it wasn’t just his arguments that appealed to people. Unlike other American leaders who were well-educated landed gentry, Paine could reach into his own humble background to find his voice.

"He knew people weren’t thinking in the abstract," Kaye explains. "Paine wrote to his peers, in a language everyone could understand."

Just as importantly, Paine understood that philosophical abstractions weren't as powerful as emotion and experience. Instead, Paine urged Americans to embrace "common sense," and trust their own feelings about what was right and just and how the country should be run, just as they did with other everyday decisions. "They recognized themselves in that argument,” Kaye says.

"I attribute its success to two things," Jack Fructman, Jr., author of The Political Philosophy of Thomas Paine and Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom, explains. "First, it was the first published piece that I know of advocating separation from the British Empire. And second, there were pirated copies circulating, a rather common phenomenon in the 18th century before copyright laws." In addition, he notes, "it was often read aloud, which helped spread its popularity and notoriety."

The popularity of Common Sense made it tough for colonial leaders to take a halfway stance against the British. As John Adams wrote to his wife in April 1776: "Common Sense, like a ray of revelation, has come in seasonably to clear our doubts, and to fix our choice."

As Thomas Jefferson biographer Joseph J. Ellis has written, Common Sense "swept through the colonies like a firestorm, destroying any final vestige of loyalty to the British crown." Within a few months of its publication, the Continental Congress instructed each colony to draft new state constitutions, an act that set the colonies clearly on the path to declaring independence. 

Thomas Jefferson, who had received an early copy of Common Sense in February 1776, began writing a formal document in June that would announce to the world that the new nation had been created.

But Paine's pamphlet might actually have done more than the declaration than to unify Americans and win converts to the cause. Paine’s espousal of religious freedom, for example, appealed to people who resented being forced to pay tithes to churches they didn't belong to.

During the Revolution, "most Americans thought Common Sense was the revolutionary document, not the Declaration of Independence," Kaye says.

Over the nearly 250 years since Paine's publication of Common Sense, Paine, whom some call "the forgotten founder," hasn't received as much recognition as other important figures in the Revolution. There isn’t even a statue of him in the nation's capital. Nevertheless, Paine's pamphlet continues to be read, and the ideas in it—particularly the idea of American exceptionalism—continue to resonate among new generations of Americans.