[unspun]

A note to our sunshine patriots, including those who ponder the way to vote, this November seventh.

In a future of a world subjugated by Shaira Law, will you say, "I actually voted for those who would protect America, before I voted against them?"

[unspun]

   

[ichabod1]

No, they will just blame Bush.

[PerConPat]

But wait! Is it just to engage in an undeclared war? And must we not deny one single "natural" right to one single enemy combatant lest we place our own civil rights in danger? Furhtermore, oh horrors of horrors, might not our sacred phone conversations be monitored in an overly zealous attempt to track terrorists? Perhaps we will be able to calm our fears regarding these dreaded consequences of the GWOT, while we ponder the situation knee-deep in the radioactive rubble of one of our cities.

[Alberta's Child]

The big difference, of course, is that Thomas Paine was writing about "Americans" fighting for freedom and liberty for themselves.

If modern Iraq doesn't have their own Thomas Paines, Patrick Henrys, George Washingtons, etc., then there's sure as hell no reason to give them ours.

[baseball_fan]

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered"

found valuable how Paine ties together both the political and spiritual nature of freedom, both the external and the internal dimensions, and how difficult yet how dear is the goal. i salute our nation's service members. thank you for posting.

[Congressman Billybob]

The incredible power, and also the currency of the ideas expressed, in the first quote -- the opening paragraph of The American Crisis I -- is why I've been working for years on a book that is now ready for publication. The title is "These are the times that try men's souls." The subtitle is, America -- Then and Now, in the Words of Tom Paine.

No researcher prior to me has noticed that Paine did not write in prose. He wrote in a natural unrhymed poetry, descended from the heroic measure of Homer (which he studied in the original Greek), and the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, and parts of the King James Version of the Bible, many of the aphorisms of Miguel Cervantes. (Paine's knowledge of those four sources -- the four greatest sources of quotes in the English language -- can be demonstrated in his texts.

Here's an example:

"Of greater worth in the eyes of God
And society, is one honest man,
Than all the crowned ruffians who ever lived."

Congressman Billybob

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Please see my most recent new statement on running for Congress, here.