On the Use and Abuse of Power and Liberty

“Those who abuse liberty when they possess it would abuse power could they obtain it”
-Thomas Paine

The genius of the Constitution is in the assurance of liberty for the many and balance of power away from the one, or the few. In theory at least.

How does that theory hold up in 2007?

On Keeping the True Cause Alive in Troubled Times

“Though the cause of America is the most honorable that man ever engaged in, I am not so dazzled by it as not to perceive the faults that are twisting themselves round it, and unnaturally claiming kindred with it.”
Thomas Paine

In a troubled time such as we live, it is too easy to be dazzled by symbolism and paralyzed by fear, slowly letting in the choking weeds of oppression, suspicion, and aggression in the name of liberty and freedom, strangling the very thing for which we claim to hold dear and unique to our purpose.

Lies and obfuscation in the highest echelons of government can rarely, if ever, truly align itself with the true cause and idea of America.

On the Consequence of an Out-of-Touch Government

As this is in the order of nature, the order of Government must necessarily follow it, or Government will, as we see it does, degenerate into ignorance”
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

Isolation, an unwillingness to allow dissent, and a refusal to acknowledge realities that don’t line up with ideologies makes for ignorant governance.

On the Responsibility of Freedom

“Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime”
-Thomas Paine

One crucial component of maintaining a free society and Democratic Republic is the sense of responsibility of the people to maintain their own civil freedom and that of the society at large. The responsibility to participate at some level and remain aware of what their government is doing in their name.

When we become ignorant of the actions of our government and subsequently come to find they have curtailed our freedoms and abused our rights, the crimes of the state become, if we fail to take action against them, crimes of the people as well. Ignorance is no excuse in a truly free society.

Where then, is the outrage?

On Making it Easy vs. Making it Right

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.”
-Thomas Paine, Common Sense 

History is replete with immediacies that made oppression of human rights and dignity convenient. There is little in the best of American history that lends itself much to convenience, but instead from the determined striving of the human spirit.

The only way to preserve and defend the nation is to never forfeit the Constitution and the founding principals of America to the convenience of the day.

The idea of the supremacy of human rights is the key to the survival of a nation and every age would have its excuse to forego the harder road of protecting and advancing that idea.

Making it easy does not make it right.

On Getting Over Yourself

“Among ridiculous things nothing is more ridiculous than ridiculous rage”
– Thomas Paine

Life is hard enough. In living from one day to the next, much of what comprises our outlook and general mood is entirely up to each one of us.

Every life is filled with, at a minimum, mild irritants, inconveniences, and disappointments.

How we choose to deal with not only the extraordinary circumstances we may encounter in a lifetime, but the daily visisitudes of our lives – the daily grind – that is, in large part, the measure of who we are.

Nobody wants to hang with anyone that’s pissed-off all the time.   

On False Truths

“There is a general and striking difference between the genuine effects of truth itself, and the effects of falsehood believed to be truth. Truth is naturally benign; but false-hood believed to be truth is always furious. The former delights in serenity, is mild and persuasive, and seeks not the auxiliary aid of invention. The latter sticks at nothing. It has naturally no morals. Every lie is welcome that suits its purpose. It is the innate character of the thing to act in this manner, and the criterion by which it may be known, whether in politics or religion. When any thing is attempted to be supported by lying, it is presumptive evidence that the thing so supported is a lie also. The stock on which a lie can be grafted must be of the same species as the graft.”
-Thomas Paine, Letter to the People of the United States, FederalCity, Lovett’s Hotel, Nov. 26, 1802

The truth need not be coerced, forced, or threatened. The truth is not supported by manipulation, obfuscation, or deception. And the truth bears no allegiance to anything but itself.

If you have to force truth down too many people’s throats, then maybe it isn’t true.

 

On the Dangers of Blind Trust, Irrational Loyalty, and Unaccountable Leaders

“When it is laid down as a maxim, that a king can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself.”

Demanding blind loyalty and cronyism, shunning any criticism and persecuting the critic, allowing dogma, time after time, to trump reality, and using fear to enforce irrational doctrine and open contempt for the constraints of established law – and of congress…

Be it a King in the 18th century or a President in the 21st, it is madness to not hold those in power to account of their abuses and utter failure of power. As it was in the 18th century, then, so it is in the 21st: time to dislodge from power Mad King George.

 

On the Built Society and Balance with Nature

Taking it then for granted, that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been, had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.”
-Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice

We live, most of us, generally detached from nature, in what Paine calls here a “state of civilization”.  For many this detachment provides food, warmth, and shelter from the vagaries of nature’s whim. But detachment comes with a price, and what is taken from nature in order to serve “civilization” must ultimately strike a balance.

Civilization – the built society – must not only take from nature, but also respect the natural world upon which it depends, and give back from whence it took.

Otherwise and increasing number in society will live neither a civilized or natural life. Until, one day, nature has wholly reclaimed what was taken from it, and the grand schemes of Man have withered back into the Earth.