Mike Hudack of blip.tv wishes all a happy Independence Day with a few thoughts worth noting:
The Fourth of July isn’t significant simply because it marks the beginning of independent American politics. It’s significant because it marked one of the first times that a group of people threw off the yolk of foreign leadership and chose self-government. It is significant because of the emphasis placed on individual empowerment and individual choice. It is significant, most of all, because of the ideal of America created on or around July 4, 1776 — an ideal that we have yet to realize, but that we continually strive for.
His personal hero of the American revolution is Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, whose arguments created conditions for writing the Declaration of Independence.
“[the] distinction of men into kings and subjects… [is something for which] no truly natural or religious reason can be found.”
and
“I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain.”
It is allowed to be idealistic today:
The moral here is a simple one. In 1775 and 1776 one man’s words ignited the firestorm that led to the Declaration of Independence. One man’s views on democracy, on republicanism, on individual rights and individual responsibility. One man’s views that almost didn’t get printed because no printer would dare put those words down in ink. Thomas Paine’s access to the printing press, thanks to Robert Bell, changed the world.
Such words are very encouraging, especially coming from someone who has set up and runs a videoblogging community. It means that this particular community and the company behind it is driven by an understanding of the profound impact that individual creativity and its distribution will have on the future. And, surely, that is a Good Thing.
The great hero of the revolution and American politics generally will always be George Washington. First for returning home when the war was won and not becoming Napolean or Cromwell. Second for voluntarily leaving the presidency after his second term was over.
Does anybody really believe this bullshit!!
bowen: Yeah! The fact that I blog it, stating it clearly is a dead give-away…
If you have an argument, make it. If not, piss off.
Well said, Perry…………rank stupidity still abounds but, as I asked in another thread, ‘Why does nothing surprize me any more?’
OK Perry then ask the American Indian who Lord North was trying to protect .and while I am at it may I suggest that George Washington was in fact a lier,and a propaganderist. An occupation that Americans are good at .
Haha. Happy 4th to you, too, bowen. Have another cupcake?
I guess Paine should get more credit. I’ve always favored Jefferson for the deeper philosophical grounding, but maybe I should re-read!
Yeah right, bowen. A pretty small factor in the grievances there.
And, even if you don’t agree, only the worst kind of loser would see fit to spread hate filled bile over someone else’s festival day. Even a designated fair target like the US seems to be these days, unfairly.
…I wonder if you would snark so about Ramadan?
I left a little Independence Day message over at Chicagoboyz, so I won’t repeat it here. I will add that any American who understands the philosophical principles behind the Revolution knows that what the colonists were demanding, at least in the beginning, were their rights as subjects of the British Crown.
In the final analysis, the Declaration and Constitution were incubated in the Magna Carta, nourished by centuries of thought and debate concerning the status of citizens, and finally, as was truly inevitable, written in the blood of those who would only live free or die trying.
The Bible mentions in one parable the “pearl of great price”, and how uncomprehending we sometimes are when we are given the chance to have for our very own something that millions down through the centuries have only dreamt of, if they could even form such forbidden thoughts as the idea of living as a free human being.
I can see some of that incomprehension here today.
But, no matter. As mercy, liberty falls upon the wise and the unwise together. Some of us, knowing our own failings and weaknesses, may just be a little more thankful as we enjoy an inheritence more precious than diamonds.
My children do not truly even understand the concept of tyranny. They might read about it in a book, but they do not know, down in the pit of their stomachs, what it means.
Now that is an inheritence worth fighting for.
Happy Independence Day to all my friends here at Samizdata.
To me Paine and Samuel Adams are probably the lowest sort of scum that the Revolutionary War produced. Paine was a brilliant propagandist, but he exacerbated a situation that was certainly solvable, and by doing so took things way past where they could ever be solved outside of bloodshed. He gambled with the lives and freedoms of every colonist in North America. It’s only because America won the war that he isn’t now villified.
And mind you, I don’t say this because I’m an anglophile. I’m not, and never have been. I’m very, very glad that the Revolutionary War was fought and America won her independence. That doesn’t absolve Paine and Adams of their shitty tactics, though.
Washington fully deserves his status as the greatest American, and it’s for the reason usually given; when he could have easily gone the route of Caesar, Napoleon, and every other despot through history he didn’t, and that’s what’s made all the difference between us and, say, Mexico.
I have an annual Odes to Liberty post to celebrate the 4th. Ironically, three of the quotes are British (not counting the Samizdata Quote of the Day).
He isn’t vilified because he was right. He was a radical and got what he wanted. I applaud him for his lack of compromise.
He was right on the broad strokes, but like most radicals he took things too far. There certainly was room to patch up the relationship with London, and there was a substantial bloc of MPs who were in favor of allowing parliamentary representation for the colonies. The combined actions of Paine, Adams and George III made that all but impossible.
If you want to see just how reckless and stupid Paine was take a look at the correspondences and journals of Gouverneur Morris, the ambassador to France during the French Revolution. Paine was tossed into prison by the Jacobins for being too radical! Let me repeat: He was too revolutionary, radical, and socialist for the Jacobins. That is not good company to keep.
Correction. That should be
Paine was imprisoned for objecting to the execution of Louis XVI, and while being a member of the new French Assembly(?), being seen as allied with the wrong political faction, which was actually somewhat more conservative than most, though that says little in revolutionary France. He was also a foreigner in a land in turmoil, never a good thing.
He was a deist, a freeethinker, possibly an atheist, (though then as now those in political circles hide that opinion if they hold it). He advocated many things that Milton Friedman now does, and that many conservative and libertarians do today, though also a few that they do not.
But he was by far not a socialist in the sense then or now.
Correction. That should be
Dagnabbit. It told me the first one didn’t post because I missed the security code. I swear…
On the self-government point, what about the Swiss? Didn’t some of them choose to reject foreign authority in 1291?
It’s significant because it marked one of the first times that a group of people threw off the yolk of foreign leadership and chose self-government.
It was a lot more common in human history prior to the American Revolution than this statement allows.
It is significant because of the emphasis placed on individual empowerment and individual choice.
That seems at best a modern, libertarian version of these events. I’d say that there was as much a fear of individualism during the Revolution and the settlement that followed as their was a desire to embrace it. All one has to do is view Adams’ desire to create a moral republic based on all manner of laws (e.g., concerning dress, what one ate, etc.) designed to craft a certain type of person to see that.
…but that we continually strive for.
Really? Who is this we?
Glad to see old Tom is still provoking controversy after all these years.
He’s an English hero, IMHO, and it’s a shame England’s reactionaries were so adept at ensuring his ideas could not get a hearing back home.
If our aristos had not been so much less arrogant and more cunning than the French ones, we would have had our own revolution, our own 18th Century Liberal constitution and would not now be in such clear and present danger of becoming a police state.
The Revolutionary War Tom helped to start is not over yet. It is being fought over such abominations as the Prevention of Terrorism Act in England and the PATRIOT Act in the US.
The tree of liberty still needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants.
As a Brit I tend to have mixed feelings about July 4th and these annual post on Samizdata in particular – it’s somewhat odd to be asked to celebrate a war your country lost after all, though I can’t deny it turned out well enough in the end.
As for Thomas Paine though – what Hank said. He was the prototype of the fashionable intellectual who shows his love for mankind by supporting every cause in opposition to that of his own country. If he’d been alive today he’d be Noam Chomsky.
Agree with original sentiments of the article. The US has been mighty inconsistent, though, in its respect for the ideal of self-government in other nations, as demonstrated by foreign policy of Ted Roosevelt, for instance. But quibbling aside this Brit is glad at the great experiment in liberal government of the Founding Fathers. My hero is not Paine — who foolishly misunderstood the French Revolution and its implications — but James Madison, who realised the vital need to constrain government. Washington is also great for giving up power when he could have clung on.
The Bowen character sounds like an idiot
As a Canadian may I insert a bit of historical not strictly on-topic information.
Just a dozen or so years before the American Revolution, the British were engaged in what is known in the New World as the French & Indian Wars to protect the New England colonies from piratical incursions of the French of La Nouvelle France assisted by various tribes of the Iroquois confederacy. The issue in North America was decided when Wolfe defeated Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. As a result of the treaty that ended the war France ceded Quebec to the British and kept Caribbean islands which was at that time considered ever so crafty on their part for as Voltaire sniffed dismissively who needs several acres of snow.
So come the revolution not too many years later and those British colonists loyal to the crown moved northwards and the rest is history – Canadian history that is.
The local authorities around here (Denver metro area) have informed everyone that anyone caught celebrating independence in the traditional way, i.e. with fireworks, would be cited, if not outright arrested. They go on to state that only the state enjoys the right to a traditional celebration of independence. The state is already way too independent for my tastes, so I stayed home.
Well, here’s my two cents:
Tom Paine: I loved the first half of The Rights of Man. The second half does, however, contrary to what someone claimed, delve into what can only be termed socialistic fantasy fed by incognizance of economics (which Adam Smith was only then just coming up with). Every revolution needs a rabble rouser to make men gin up the dutch courage to stand up against the preeminent empire of the day. Compared to Paine, too many Libertarians today are pussies, hiding their pacifist pussilanimosity behind a ZAP bluff they are betting will never be called. Paine put his junk on the line multiple times, at fear of not just IRS confiscation, public humiliation, or even a few years at Club Fed, but of torture and death for Treason. Time for a balls check, boys, its long since time to start hanging the bastards.
Sam Adams: A man of action to Paines rhetoric. Gotta admire a guy in the 18th century who didn’t mind skivvying down and putting some make-up on to go dump some tea in the river (despite the fact it was just as much to impede the competition to his tea smuggling business).
John Stark: Coined the phrase “Live Free or Die, Death is Not the Worst of Evils” upon which the New Hampshire motto is based. Hero of the Battles of Bennington and Bunker Hill. He raised several battalions of troops from NH farms for the cause, was involved in the true first action of the war, the Raid on Fort William and Mary. Unlike most other Rev War generals, he was a true Cincinnatus: he didn’t seek political office at all after the war, he simply went home to his farm, which is why there are no statues of him in D.C. and the official histories barely mention him.
George Washington: A bit of a prima donna to Stark’s competency. Followed Stark’s example but, unlike Stark, cared about not burning bridges with the political sycophantes.
Jefferson, Mason, and Madison: the true triumverate of the philosophy of liberty. They were the Scientists, while Adams, Stark, and Washington were Engineers of liberty, and Paine did the Marketing.
As for “room for compromise”, George wasn’t at all intent on compromise. Mr. Scorpio, you sound like the idiots today who still insist on diplomacy with al Qaeda, Iran, and North Korea. If we’d compromised and gotten representation in Parliament, the US would today be as deep in the shithole toward tyranny that Britain is….
Well, IMHO, part of the triumph of the American Revolution and its thinkers is that Americans learned the lessons of European history well–that government cannot espouse a religion, that the two must be separate. Yet, the founding fathers and most Americans appreciate the value of religiosity, however one privately believes. Religious freedom without the absolute hatred of religion; freedom of religion, not freedom from religion (e.g. Marxist Communism).
Also, seeking to be free of monarchy. Not even figureheads. Designing a brilliant system to firmly enshrine the rights of the person, keeping the government on a short leash, but not succumbing to “mob rule” either, by using a representative republic.
I know I’m conflagrating a long period – colonies, revolution, the writing of the constitution and bill of rights. However, there was a whole group of people involved throughout the long project. Back then, the outcome was uncertain. (What a limb to climb out on! How scary! The fear, the hope, the pounding hearts!)
So, no, these truths are not self evident–it took millenia of human striving and centuries of the development of thought (philosophy) to come to this point of readiness for the American experiment.
The rights are not inalienable–they are socially constructed and revokable by tyrants. The writers *chose* to make them inalienable and it’s up to all of us to keep it that way.
There are many regimes that do not value life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness (and all that implies in economics and law)–and we must constantly be on guard that our own regime doesn’t stray from these ideals. (I am surprised that there wasn’t a massive march of “peasants with pitchforks” in the streets after the Kelo decision!)
I think T Paine made his contribution, but there are so many interesting (if flawed, human) characters in the story. BEN FRANKLIN! What a guy. Would that today’s workmen would meet in pubs for drinks and discussion of political philosophy! He should be a hero to bloggers, he’s sort of the first “blogger”–owning a press, publishing news and pamphlets to editorially push his positions, and designing and owning the FIRST POST OFFICE system to distribute his expression far and wide (to distant subscribers). He should be the “patron saint” of bloggers!
Of course, I recognize the legacy of the philosophers and thinkers in Europe that developed ideas that came to fruition later; and the contributions of English common law upon which our law traditions rest.
So when are the Brits going to have their appendectomy and get rid of that useless welfare class, the royals? Pitch the monarchy. You need it as bad as you need an appendix. The traditions and pomp and circumstance are a security blanket and a mental block…pitch ’em and walk strong in the clear air and sunshine of a monarchy free republic! (LOL)