|
In January 1776, Thomas Paine called on Americans to fight for their independence, arguing the time was right for separating from England and its royal brute, George III. A warring despot was attempting to force his will on the colonies, necessitating armed resistance. Paine's polemic, laid out boldly in Common Sense, was a turning point in America's history. Paine saw the business of traditional government as taxes and war, and Americans were getting assaulted with both. He believed we had a chance to build a new kind of nation if we won our independence, one that would keep government on a short leash and thereby lay the foundation for peace and prosperity. We've seen what has happened with that possibility. We've spent most of two centuries giving away our freedom and cheering on the despotic rule we originally fought to overcome. We can see this change by looking at Britain's George the third and America's third George. Both deal with a legislature that capitulates to them on critical issues. Both are awed by the world dominance of their country's military, and tend to use armed might to achieve "national" goals. The standing armies required to maintain their empires frequently raise resentments in occupied countries, a fact both men underrate. Neither man feels the need to explain his decisions to others, by virtue of his position. A model of mercantilism, Britain's government thrived on corruption and privilege, as it strongly intervened in economic affairs. Ditto the U.S. government today, only much more so. Foreign conflicts illustrate a difference between monarchies and republics, and the similarity of the two Georges. Paine wrote: "Monarchical governments, it is true, are never long at rest: the crown itself is a temptation to enterprising ruffians at home; and that degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers in instances where a republican government . . . would negotiate the mistake." [Common Sense] And this is because "in absolute governments the king is law, [but] in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other." [Common Sense] Our ex-king, the U.S. Constitution, would have stood in the way of the president's desire to conquer another country. By removing checks on government, we make it go through charades to maintain our delusion of lawfulness. But it's difficult to remain blind or shortsighted: "As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to insure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity. And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully." [Common Sense] How do we affect a change? By appeal to our leaders? "To reason with governments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations [people] themselves that reforms can be expected." [Rights of Man, Part One] How does the state justify itself? It looks for a foe. For "unless it finds one somewhere, no pretext exists for the enormous revenue and taxation now deemed necessary." [Rights of Man, Part One] Of course, the domestic "foe" of modern welfare states is the rich, who are bled to pay for their success. And the rich are now any American with a decent job or who has saved a little money over the years. But nothing primes the government revenue pump like war: "War is . . . the art of conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretense must be made for expenditure. In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes." [Rights of Man, Part One] Smart states know that over- or under-oppressing threatens their existence. The "portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by despotism, and that as the real object of all despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is, therefore on the ground of interest, opposed to both. "Why are not Republics plunged into war, but because the nature of their Government does not admit of an interest distinct from that of the Nation? Even Holland, though an ill-constructed Republic, and with a commerce extending over the world, existed nearly a century without war . . ." [Rights of Man, Part One] Paine comes close to vindicating anarchy: "For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American War, and to a longer period in several of the American States, there were no established forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defense to employ its attention in establishing new governments; yet during this interval order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe . . . The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act: a general association takes place, and common interest produces common security." [Rights of Man, Part Two] People can get along without government in most cases because all "the great laws of society are laws of nature. Those of trade and commerce, whether with respect to the intercourse of individuals or of nations, are laws of mutual and reciprocal interest. They are followed and obeyed, because it is the interest of the parties so to do, and not on account of any formal laws their governments may impose or interpose. "But how often is the natural propensity to society disturbed or destroyed by the operations of government! When the latter, instead of being ingrafted on the principles of the former, assumes to exist for itself, and acts by partialities of favor and oppression, it becomes the cause of the mischiefs it ought to prevent. "Can we possibly suppose that if governments had originated in a right principle, and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, the world could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition we have seen it? What inducement has the farmer, while following the plough, to lay aside his peaceful pursuit, and go to war with the farmer of another country? or what inducement has the manufacturer? What is dominion to them, or to any class of men in a nation? Does it add an acre to any man's estate, or raise its value? Are not conquest and defeat each of the same price, and taxes the never-failing consequence? Though this reasoning may be good to a nation, it is not so to a government. War is the [beacon] of governments, and nations the dupes of the game. "[War] serves to keep up deceitful expectations which prevent people from looking into the defects and abuses of government." [Rights of Man, Part Two] In a letter to George Washington from Paris, France, July 30, 1796, Paine reflected on the possible future of America, if demagogues seized the helm: "A thousand years hence (for I must indulge a few thoughts), perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all nations in her favor, may sound like a romance and her inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain may just furnish materials for a village tale or extort a sigh from rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall deride the principle and deny the fact. "When we contemplate the fall of empires and the extinction of the nations of the Ancient World, we see but little to excite our regret than the mouldering ruins of pompous palaces, magnificent museums, lofty pyramids and walls and towers of the most costly workmanship; but when the empire of America shall fall, the subject for contemplative sorrow will be infinitely greater than crumbling brass and marble can inspire. It will not then be said, here stood a temple of vast antiquity; here rose a babel of invisible height; or there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; but here, Ah, painful thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of Freedom rose and fell." George Smith is a freelance writer and public speaker. He's currently finishing a screenplay about Thomas Paine and the American Revolution. He can be reached at gfs543@bellsouth.net.
|