Common Sense on this Ukrainian Independence Day

Thomas Paine was a founding father whose contributions were philosophical, literary, revolutionary. What might he say about the Ukrainian fight for liberty?

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!

Ever since the Russian invasion, I am constantly struck by the apparent shared sentiments of Ukrainians today with Americans’ fight for liberty in 1775. 

Thomas Paine was a founding father who never held office, didn’t sign founding documents, nor has his image on any currency. His contributions were philosophical, literary, revolutionary. What might he say about the Ukrainian fight for liberty?

Unsurprisingly the Enlightenment principles that imbued our founding fathers shout loudly from Common Sense, perhaps the biggest seller proportionally of all American publications, first pressed in Philadelphia in February 1776. 

Common Sense was read by, or read to, just about every citizen in the colonies at exactly the time they were deciding whether to declare independence from England. The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, persuaded the British Army it was better to stay in Boston proper rather than attempt military incursions doomed to fail. Sound familiar? Massachusetts was at war and times were tough. George Washington was waiting for artillery on a slow march from Fort Ticonderoga through Massachusetts to be delivered by Benedict Arnold to Dorchester Heights. When installed the cannons represented “checkmate” and the British withdrew on March 17, 1776 (Boston Battle Facts and Summary | American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org).

Common Sense was written at this time and Paine talks about the misery Bostonians endured when America found itself in a situation not unlike Ukraine today; in the early days of a war for their liberty from a seemingly overwhelming foe that is intent upon denying that freedom. Common roots give the bully justification – superior size and arms make it doable. Or so they thought. And like America, Ukraine will prevail.

​It doesn’t take much to bring Paine’s words to life and see their applicability. Just insert Russia for England, Ukraine for America, Putin/autocrat for the king, autocracy for monarchy, and so on. The fact is that his words apply to any country today that is fighting against wanna-be tyrants. Take a look.

"The cause of Ukraine is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested.

That Putin is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of autocracy.

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of an autocrat; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of an autocrat shuts him from the world, yet the business of an autocrat requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

The nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is for an autocrat.

Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

But Russia is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by Putin and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not Russia, is the parent country of Ukraine.

But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

But Russia is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by Putin and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not Russia, is the parent country of Ukraine.

But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

It's a fight that continues on through the Ukrainian people who share the DNA of Europe and the Enlightenment principals we all share. Russia and Putin play the role of the tyrant autocrat some 250 years since America had to beat their English tyrant to form the so-called American Experiment. Similarly, Ukraine has to defeat Russia now to form its Ukrainian Experiment some 31+ years in the making.

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