The following is an essay i wrote for APUSH.... my teacher is the leader of the Teenage Republican club. I'm so shooting myself in the foot...
Carl Bales
A.P.U.S.H.
Heather Burch
7 May 2006
The Paines of War
When one looks back on the history of early American patriotism and publishing few names stand out quite as bold as Thomas Paine. Paine (author of the extremely popular book Common Sense) was instrumental in the movement to break away from Britain. As an avid supporter of the creation of an independent American country Paine published a number of essays to express his opinions on patriotism and the war situation. On December 23, 1776 the following quote opened on of Paine’s Crisis series,
“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 their country; but he that stands by 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. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
a powerful paper to be sure. The common observer would see this as patriotic and inspiring. That is exactly how it is meant to be read, with a sort of idealistic naivety that breeds unwavering loyalty and fanatical views necessary for soldiers to processes when fighting a war in which they are out classed and financially unable to fight. When Washington had the excerpts from Paine’s essays read aloud to the soldiers of at Valley Forge it illustrated the usefulness of the essays perfectly. It is amazing that you can promote the will to fight in a man with no shoes in below freezing conditions with simple written words, but such is the theory of mob psychology. The purpose of these essays weren’t to chronicle the philosophy of the nation as it birthed itself. It was to motivate the uneducated masses into the frenzy of the war, thus giving America the chance it so desperately needed for victory.
Looking back at the essay’s of Paine it is somewhat interesting to draw parallels between its sentiments and underlined meanings and the current propaganda used to incite mural towards what ever war the United States might be fighting. It is, in fact, not so hard to find a modern day example of this type of attitude in American life during recent history. For example during the 04’ presidential elections some would have considered someone unsupportive of the “War on Terror” unsupportive of America. This seems ironic being that a high percentage of those who whole-heartedly supported this war couldn’t accurately tell the difference in motivation between the Iraq campaign and the Afghanistan operations. As far as the average American was concerned Iraq flew planes into the twin towers and Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were comrades in arms. But even as an uninformed people the majority of the American people support the war because of party line opinion and religious undertones, and of course the mass production of flags and magnetic ribbon bumper stickers.
However, this kind of patriotism borne from fanaticism is not an unnecessary evil. Governments choose with whom and how wars are fought but it is the people who do the fighting. Without a nationalist backing these kinds of necessary outlets for human aggression would not come to flourishing thus inducing the breakdown of a system that has worked to maintain world balance for more than 500 years. The ignorant masses are ignorant by choice and thus lead by necessity. If war is not fought then a basic instinct of mankind is denied and the system to which humanity so contingently clings will crumble. Soldiers are the mirrored symbols of patriotic principles applied for the good of the people as a whole. Individual rights must eventually be sacrificed for the good of the system because that is the only way in which and imperfect system can remain in use by and imperfect people may strive towards improvements. Soldiers are the purity of these principles that seem almost ridiculously impractical in our current American society.
A soldier’s willingness to protect a system is perhaps the hidden beauty in a corrupt system however. When reflecting on David Strickland and William Walker it is impossible to not be envious of such dedication to a cause. It is a paradox of humanity in how soldiers seem obsessively obedient to a system that cares little for their personal well-being, and yet they seem heroically brave for doing so.
Personally I feel that I have gained from the experience of speaking with a soldier involved in a wartime operation. It has helped paint for me more clearly the mindset of those faceless entities I see as simple players in the game of war. It seems nearly inhuman to me that one can order men to fight and die having seen the character of these two men and I myself (as pragmatic as I am regarding war) would be hard pressed to do so. In the end it seems that the glorious mosaic of war may in fact be the end of the system as well as its only hope. Freedom may not be free, but is the preservation of a system (for that is what we truly are fighting for) worth the lives of good men?
