By Jim Heffernan
Suddenly, I’m thinking a lot about Thomas Paine. He was the man who 250 years ago wrote the famous words:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 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 every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
They are the opening words of his “The American Crisis”, a 3,500-word pamphlet Thomas Paine wrote and distributed in 1776 and maybe made the difference in the American Revolution.
250 years later, we are again in “times that try men’s souls.” This time we are not threatened by an outside monarchy but are threatened by ourselves. In truth, it’s only a portion that threaten us. They lack in numbers but vastly outweigh us in wealth.
We need a present-day Thomas Paine to guide us out of our problems. I think Timothy Snyder might be just the guy.
I just read his essay, “State Terror.” I believe he correctly identifies that we are on the threshold of living in a country ruled by terror.
Here are a couple of excerpts that rang true for me.
“Trump spoke of asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to find legal ways to abduct Americans and leave them in foreign concentration camps. But by legal, what is meant are ways of escaping law, not applying it. It is that anti-constitutional escapism that enables abuse. State terror involves not just the malignant development of state organs of oppression, such as masked men in black vans, but also the withdrawal of the state from its role as a guardian of law.”
“The leader principle, or in German Führerprinzip, is the idea that a single individual directly represents the people, and that therefore all of his actions are by definition legal and proper.”
I highly recommend Snyder’s books, “On Tyranny”, “On Freedom” and “Black Lands” for deeper explanations of where we are today.
I am a paid subscriber of Timothy Snyder’s “Thinking about….” Substack column, which is where the excerpts come from. If you’re interested in reading the full essay, I can e-mail it to you. For the essay or discussion, you can contact me at codger817@gmail.com