“When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument and good order”

At the start of the World War ll Franklin Roosevelt told the nation that all we need fear is fear itself.

Today it seems that fear is to be embraced. To insure that the wrong vote is not cast, the spectre of a mushroom cloud is invoked; to justify an ill-conceived foreign policy, it is said that wild-eyed fundamentalists will find and kill us if we don’t continue to prosecute the very same war that helps to bring forth a new generation of wild-eyed fundamentalists – fear playing into fear, and engendering more fear.

Fear as a tactic to hold power and manipulate people is one used by tyrants, fools, and bad presidents. It does not serve the good of the people.

All we need fear is fear itself – and those that use fear to gain advantage or cling to power.

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thomas paine thomas paine quotes fear war fundamentalist terror terrorist president bush

“It often happens that the weight of an argument is lost by the wit of setting it off; or the judgment disordered by an intemperate irritation of the passions.”

Too often the messenger obscures the message; even if unintended. In an attempt to be clever or to disparage those on an opposing side of an argument, the point vanishes in a vitriolic sea of animosity aimed more at the messenger than the message.

A recent case in point occurred last Saturday at the White House Correspondents Dinner, but examples of it abound in our current public discourse: I think you’re a slimebag and anything that issues forth from your mouth is thus slime.

And whatever the point was in the beginning is lost.

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thomas paine argument debate opinion white house correspondents dinner

“When we think or talk about taxes, we ought to recollect that we lie down in peace and sleep in safety; that we can follow our farms or stores or other occupations, in prosperous tranquillity; and that these inestimable blessings are procured to us by the taxes that we pay. In this view, our taxes are properly our insurance money; they are what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict policy, are the best money we can lay out”

Granting that many may have issue with Thomas Paine’s take on taxes; and that many may have disagreements with how our government spends the money it collects, or the way it goes about collecting it, I offer Paine’s words nonetheless in hopes it may soften the blow from earlier this week of paying the taxman.

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thomas paine tax taxes irs internal revenue service income tax

“Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.”

A responsible citizen in a modern society – especially one that influences so much of the rest of the world through its culture, foreign policy, military might, and demands on global resources – has a duty to be cognizant, to some degree, of the repercussions of his or her participation in that society.

It is not enough to know who was booted off the island last night, or the latest vote on American Idol, or have the latest scoop on some vapid pop star’s admission into rehap.

It is often said that we get the leaders we deserve. Therefore, it is our duty to know the issues of the day. It is our duty to be aware of the policies our leaders pursue in our name. It is our duty to seek knowledge of the world, our place in it, and the consequences thereof. We are not owed the freedoms and abundance of our society if we do nothing to help preserve it.

Ignorance is not bliss.

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thomas paine knowledge ignorance society

“It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war, that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so amiable. The continued spectacle of woe, blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity, becomes an apology where it is truly a crime.”

Leaving the battlefield is sometimes the only way to stop losing the war.

Another day, another month, another year, and soon the cost of the continued war takes a toll greater than the sum of any body count, itself a morbid measure of the tragedy.

Thomas Paine’s fear in The Crisis – as it should be ours now – was that the full consequences of a war protracted is fully realized when unrelenting violence slowly kills the spirit of a nation. And then, yet again, war becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy; a murky, deadly fog through which few can penetrate. All is lost when the purpose of the war becomes the war itself.

thomas paine the crisis war war in iraq

“O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principals. If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobbyhorse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear ARMS.”

War is not a moral act, even if justified by defensive necessity. When not of necessity but ideology that war is engaged, it instantly becomes harder to win; and even harder to justify when the ideology is based on falsehood, executed with an incompetent disregard for nothing but the best possible outcome, and expressed to the world through hubris and arrogance.

Justifications thus wear thin, and enemies are provided justifications of their own.

And then becomes the reality of an intractable war that nobody wins.

thomas paine foreign policy war war in iraq

“The weaker any cord is the less will it bear to be stretched, and the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it.”

Is there cause for concern when regular troops, reservists, and National Guard are asked to return for a second and third tour of duty; When there is talk of “lowered standards” and “moral waivers” in regard to acceptance into the military; When military commanders speak of their forces being “stretched to the breaking point”; When wounded veterans are subjected to poor conditions and substandard treatment.

Are we stretching the cord to the breaking point? And when it breaks, what then? What happens to a foreign policy that depends so heavily on military solutions?

thomas paine rights of man foreign policy military

“For that which is a disgrace to human nature, throws something of a shade over all the human character, and each individual feels his share of the wound that is given to the whole.”

No matter how far removed we may feel, either through distance or time, from the raging and rampant genocidal lunacy that haunts human history, we all suffer. The killing and violence in Darfur is but one more example of the ravages of fear and hate on the human soul, and inflicts one more wound into our shared character as a species on this earth.

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