By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty, (www.bannerofliberty.com)
July 3, 2004
Over the last 227 years, since 56 courageous men signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, we often forget, or never knew, that there was an Anti-war faction that was strongly opposed to liberty. In fact, of the 2.1 million people in the colonies, about twenty percent of them opposed independence.
Thomas Paine addressed the opponents of liberty, and the hesitant that included many in the Second Continental Congress, in his pamphlet Common Sense, published on February 14, 1776. In that pamphlet Paine addressed many of the same arguments against liberty that we hear from today’s anti-war faction.
According to the anti-war advocates, Operation Iraqi Freedom, like the 1776 debate on American Independence, revolves around “rights.” Did President George W. Bush have the “right” to send American troops to effect a “regime change” in Iraq? Many loud voices have said the answer is “NO!” In fact, in spite of the documented horrors perpetrated by Saddam Hussein’s regime uncovered in the past couple of months, it is not Saddam Hussein whose conduct is in being condemned by the anti-war crowd.
The anti-war argument in 1776 also revolved around whether or not the Americans had the “right” to take the action many were advocating – declaring independence from a abusive king.
It was this question of “rights” that Thomas Paine addressed in Common Sense, a pamphlet written in 1776 in which he accused the king, and the British parliament of an abuse of power.
Paine questioned King George’s “right” to claim the obedience of the Americans considering the way he had been treating them. Many of the clergy of that time, especially the peace-loving Quakers, opposed the notion of independence in sermons in support of the “right” of the king to rule by divine appointment.
Paine responded to the clergy’s defense of the divine “right” of kings by pointing out: “Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in kings more than repeated petitioning.” For more than a decade the Americans had sent humble petitions to King George begging him to respect the rights given Englishmen in the Magna Carta.
Fast forward 200 plus years and America and the world had a very similar problem: For more than two decades Saddam Hussein had been attacking other nations, Iran and Kuwait, more than 1.5 million people had died as a result, his army had been defeated and the peace treaty required him to disarm. He didn’t and had ignored 17 “petitions.” (now called UN resolutions) He had used chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Iranians, financed suicide bombers, and supplied weapons to terrorists determined to drive all Jews out of Israel.
In 1776 the anti-war, anti-independence argument from many pulpits was simply that it was “God’s peculiar prerogative” to set up and put down “kings and governments.” And, the king’s subjects “should not try to rise above” their station “much less plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn” governments “but to pray for the king.” In 2003 the anti-war, anti-Iraq independence argument held that it was the United Nation’s prerogative to make those decisions and individual nations, like the United States, should not try to rise above their station as vassals of the UN.
In 1776 Paine challenged the anti-war crowd by asking: “If these are really your principles why do ye not abide by them? Why do ye not leave that, which ye call God's work, to be managed by himself?” In 2003 the anti-war crowd might well be asked the same question about the United Nations. If America does not have the “right” to defend herself against terrorists, why didn’t the United Nations take immediate, effective action after buildings in New York were demolished and the UN Building in New York had to be evacuated? Why does the UN never demand that tyrants like Saddam Hussein stop abusing their people and their power?
In analyzing American condition, Thomas Paine wrote: “The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy. Held together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change, and which every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our present condition, is, legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independence contending for dependence.”
“The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind,” he counseled, “Independence is the only bond that can tie and keep us together.”
Common Sense was an instant best seller and, less than five months later, the document that he urged be written and adopted, the Declaration of Independence was signed. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan the people are learning something the 13 quarrelling colonies learned more than 200 years ago. A tyrant ruling over them is worse than all their individual little religious and ethnic disagreements combined. The majorities in both countries are relieved to be rid of the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein.
But, there will always be those who support the tyrants. It was no different in 1776. In Iraq and Afghanistan there also will be traitors, like Benedict Arnold and the thousands during the American Revolution and later who left the United States to live in Canada or England under a king.
Millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq have been given a chance to form new governments, just as the 13 colonies did 227 years ago, because a tyrannical government is gone. As Tom Paine put it in Common Sense, “The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind.”
How well the Afghans and Iraqis succeed depends on something George Washington once said: “The Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” Democrats running for office in 2004, please note.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com