Lisa Fabrizio
Crisis to common sense
By Lisa Fabrizio
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested.
This quote from Thomas Paine's introduction to Common Sense is topical for its content as well as its import in today's world. When published early in 1776, Paine's pamphlet sold over half a million copies in a country whose population numbered some three million. In Revolutionary-era America, interest in life and death issues was considered a matter of life and death.
Not so in today's America where interest in the vulgar promiscuities of celebrities or the pathetic contests to discover new ones seems to be the prevailing water cooler topic. Issues such as war and peace are now, by a goodly part of the population, considered matters of 'politics' and therefore of no concern to them.
After Mr. Paine wrote his famous tract-the proceeds from which he donated to the Congress-he joined the nascent Continental Army where he wrote the first installment of The American Crisis at Valley Forge, days before he crossed the Delaware River with George Washington. All proceeds from the Crisis also went toward the Glorious Cause.
He soldiered on with the Continentals for the duration of the war publishing more chapters, becoming in a way, America's first imbed. The American Crisis served to bolster the spirit of the Army and the nation at large and some credit it as a turning point to the eventual victory. But in December of '76, during the bleak winter of despair and defeat he wrote not only to rally the fighting man, but to warn of the dangers of appeasement:
There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both.
In an enemy such as the one we face today, we have seen both the cunning and the violence. We've seen also that the mercy the Spanish electorate sought to purchase was apparently only a trick of war.
I reference the works and influence of Thomas Paine to illustrate the difference between an informed, engaged, and highly literate populace with one that, in some part, is quite the opposite. But those unengaged Americans do not bear all the blame for their indifference to events of national importance.
Since the Vietnam War and even before, creeping liberalism had wrapped them in its cloak and stultified their innate patriotism, suffocated their individualism and endeavored to separate them from their Creator. It wiped almost all teaching of the history of their heritage and the civic duties necessary to preserve it from their minds. In place of all this they were taught to worship at the twin altars of sexual gratification and political correctness.
Love of country and Yankee ingenuity were replaced by love of the status quo and reliance on government. The descendants of self-sacrificing Minute Men suffered battles with low self-esteem and victimhood ruled the land where brave frontiersmen once blazed trails for posterity.
Happily though, for many, the fog of propaganda is lifting and ironically it is our enemies who have effected the change. In addition to taking down the Twin Towers they have seriously shaken the very foundation of liberal control: media dominance. The strange confluence of events since 9/11 has produced a reversal of Paine's dilemma-in this case the crisis produced the common sense.
The unremitting negative, leftist coverage of the War on Terror and the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan have opened the eyes of many Americans. The days of military-loathing are a distant memory to all but the elites who still hold the reins of power at the major networks and newspapers.
The lords of media are enraged that interlopers such as Fox News are succeeding and that 'right-wing' talk radio is flourishing like never before; furious that millions of consumers have taken a detour around them and to the truth. Then too there is the Internet where, like so many Tom Paines, average Americans have taken to their blogs and spread the common sense of the matter as they see it.
As we face the terror crisis, once again political discourse is beginning to flourish and the people are thirsting for truth and knowledge as explained so long ago by Mr. Paine:
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
© Lisa Fabrizio
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested.
This quote from Thomas Paine's introduction to Common Sense is topical for its content as well as its import in today's world. When published early in 1776, Paine's pamphlet sold over half a million copies in a country whose population numbered some three million. In Revolutionary-era America, interest in life and death issues was considered a matter of life and death.
Not so in today's America where interest in the vulgar promiscuities of celebrities or the pathetic contests to discover new ones seems to be the prevailing water cooler topic. Issues such as war and peace are now, by a goodly part of the population, considered matters of 'politics' and therefore of no concern to them.
After Mr. Paine wrote his famous tract-the proceeds from which he donated to the Congress-he joined the nascent Continental Army where he wrote the first installment of The American Crisis at Valley Forge, days before he crossed the Delaware River with George Washington. All proceeds from the Crisis also went toward the Glorious Cause.
He soldiered on with the Continentals for the duration of the war publishing more chapters, becoming in a way, America's first imbed. The American Crisis served to bolster the spirit of the Army and the nation at large and some credit it as a turning point to the eventual victory. But in December of '76, during the bleak winter of despair and defeat he wrote not only to rally the fighting man, but to warn of the dangers of appeasement:
There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both.
In an enemy such as the one we face today, we have seen both the cunning and the violence. We've seen also that the mercy the Spanish electorate sought to purchase was apparently only a trick of war.
I reference the works and influence of Thomas Paine to illustrate the difference between an informed, engaged, and highly literate populace with one that, in some part, is quite the opposite. But those unengaged Americans do not bear all the blame for their indifference to events of national importance.
Since the Vietnam War and even before, creeping liberalism had wrapped them in its cloak and stultified their innate patriotism, suffocated their individualism and endeavored to separate them from their Creator. It wiped almost all teaching of the history of their heritage and the civic duties necessary to preserve it from their minds. In place of all this they were taught to worship at the twin altars of sexual gratification and political correctness.
Love of country and Yankee ingenuity were replaced by love of the status quo and reliance on government. The descendants of self-sacrificing Minute Men suffered battles with low self-esteem and victimhood ruled the land where brave frontiersmen once blazed trails for posterity.
Happily though, for many, the fog of propaganda is lifting and ironically it is our enemies who have effected the change. In addition to taking down the Twin Towers they have seriously shaken the very foundation of liberal control: media dominance. The strange confluence of events since 9/11 has produced a reversal of Paine's dilemma-in this case the crisis produced the common sense.
The unremitting negative, leftist coverage of the War on Terror and the battles of Iraq and Afghanistan have opened the eyes of many Americans. The days of military-loathing are a distant memory to all but the elites who still hold the reins of power at the major networks and newspapers.
The lords of media are enraged that interlopers such as Fox News are succeeding and that 'right-wing' talk radio is flourishing like never before; furious that millions of consumers have taken a detour around them and to the truth. Then too there is the Internet where, like so many Tom Paines, average Americans have taken to their blogs and spread the common sense of the matter as they see it.
As we face the terror crisis, once again political discourse is beginning to flourish and the people are thirsting for truth and knowledge as explained so long ago by Mr. Paine:
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
© Lisa Fabrizio
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