Amorality is not realism
The content of our national character matters
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense debuted in January 1776. Had it come earlier, it likely would not have helped push America toward independence from Great Britain. The reason it worked was that a few weeks earlier King George III had told Parliament that effectively he was kicking the Americans out of the empire until they surrendered completely to rule by Parliament and that he would reconquer the colonies. Prior to then the Continental Congress had carefully presented their arguments as being against Parliament and what they believed were the “wicked counselors” misleading the king. Their appeals were to King George, for him to take the Americans’ side against Westminster. When it became clear that this was not going to happen, the Founding Fathers were heartbroken, but more than anything else, they felt betrayed and that betrayal made them determined. Then Thomas Paine dropped his anti-royal diss.
In 1766 New Yorkers voted to build a statue to King George because he got Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act. It was unveiled proudly in 1770, designed to resemble the famed equestrian statue of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. New Yorkers tore it down in July 1776. George III and Parliament provoked problems the British Empire did not need. They alienated their colonists, gave their enemies France and Spain the opportunity they craved to break up the British Atlantic system and Britain lost the most productive part of North America.
