On June 19, 2016
Here are words worth repeating – particularly in a time and place where our precious legacy of liberty is being daily eroded by complacency (and by fear of real or imagined dangers), subverted by the self-interest of the powerful, and perilously neglected by its ordinary citizens (and by their once vigilant watchdogs in the form of the press):
““Where liberty is, there is my country,” Benjamin Franklin once said to [Thomas] Paine. “Where liberty is not, there is my country,” Paine replied. For Paine, the role of the citizen extended beyond national borders. The fight of those living under any system of tyranny was his fight. “When it shall be said in any country in the world, ‘My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of happiness’ – when these things can be said,” wrote Paine, “then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.””
Note: The foregoing passage, which quotes Paine and Franklin, is from “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt” by Chris Hedges (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2015) at p. 155. See Artsforum’s review of that book at: https://artsforum.ca/books/featured-book-reviews