“Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.”
-Thomas Paine
The issue isn’t really what matters. What matters is to cast doubt on whatever position your opponent takes on the issue.
“A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.”
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Political polarization is not the path to true leadership. When politics refuses to go beyond party at all costs, it remains small, unable to lead. Greatness and leadership is usually found outside the boundaries and comfort of party.
“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Lost in a sea of semantics, twisted interpretations of law, and descriptions of medieval-sounding methods of punishment revealed in recently released Bush-era memos justifying torture is, in truth, a betrayal of the very principles that founded a nation.
Let the terrorist deal in terror. America stands or falls on how it abides by a higher standard.
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
It is the government with something to hide, or thinks itself justified in so doing, that we must fear most.
“‘Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them.”
-Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
No age or epoch of humanity has not eventually found itself the victim of its own base instincts.
Fear, greed, and panic spread through the body politic like a virus, with apparently little to stop them once again running their course.
This followed by talk of lessons learned – until the next time.
“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
-Thomas Paine
The justification to use what has heretofore been known as torture, in the name of the very same principles that prohibit such action as immoral, illegal, and inhumane, is to justify the nullification of those very same principles.
It cannot be explained away as a necessary evil. It is merely evil creeping into soul of a nation.