https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18465/common-sense-indeed
Founding father Thomas Paine knew a crisis when he saw one.
When America’s Revolutionary War was sputtering he wrote a powerful essay that spoke directly to the men being asked to shoulder their muskets against the British Empire and the most powerful army in the world, giving them the spirit to sustain the fight.
In his Common Sense pamphlet, “American Crisis No.1, 1776,” he shared, “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 his country; but he that stands 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.”
With these inspiring words Thomas Paine dismissed the Loyalists, Tories, and traitors who were against the patriots and would throw aside the demand for independence and freedom. He would scathingly ask, “And what is a Tory? GOOD GOD! what is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs [Patriots] against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward, for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.”
What would Paine make of today’s American “Tories” – those against American patriotism, no longer patriots loyal to America; these might be the Americans whose enormous wealth has so altered their perception of self that they may not even view themselves as citizens of our threatened democracy? Rather, their self-concept may be that of a sovereign entity answerable only to themselves and their stockholders.
