In this year of all years it seems somehow very unsurprising that someone or some group would stage an attack with a large bomb on Christmas morning in a major American city. What the motivation was, or who did it, is so far unclear.
Yet, good news or bad, here we are as slaves to the calendar. Every year on December 25th we celebrate Christmas, no matter what. Some celebrate it as a matter of faith, some as an expression of family, home and hearth, some not at all. Many more, if not most, celebrate it as an orgy of crass commercialism run amok. It really isn’t important why; that is the beauty of our shared American experience… we have the freedom to observe the holiday as we see fit.
On Christmas, in the comfort of our homes surrounded by family and friends it is important, I think, to reflect on how it is we got here and remember what it took for the great experiment that is the American society to begin at all. It is especially timely in light of the progressively bitter divisiveness that has swept our nation the past few decades and to where it has brought us to with such unrelenting pressure and invective. Add a pandemic and, in many cases, a profoundly less than reasonable response to it by government and this year shapes up like none that ever came before.
Well… if you are ignorant of history it shapes up that way.
2020 has been, and continues to be, the kind of year that Thomas Paine had in mind when he published the first in his series of pamphlets titled “The American Crisis”. The first sentence of that work has become a hallmark of American rhetoric.
“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 his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
Paine published the first edition of his pamphlet on December 19th, 1776 in Philadelphia, just in time for the Christmas season. America had publicly declared Independence the previous July, but things were not going well. The situation in and around Philadelphia was particularly desperate, and there was privation and starvation throughout many of the then British colonies. Hardships were many, and the issue of independence was very much in doubt.
So it was on Christmas day 1776, right about now as I write this, that 2600 rag tag, hungry and shivering volunteer militiamen were preparing to move themselves, their gear and 18 pieces of artillery across a half frozen river in the dead of night. That the crossing was perilous is something of an understatement given that many of the men did not know how to swim. This force, under command of General George Washington, had been read Mr. Paine’s pamphlet two days before in an effort to boost morale and explain “why we’re fighting”. The following morning they surprised and defeated a superior force of some of the best trained professional soldiers of the day at Trenton, New Jersey. The food, fuel and ammunition they seized helped get the force through the rest of the winter and kept them together as a fighting force. Such was the American character of the time; independent, resilient, willing to try and overcome any challenge. While the struggle continued for another five years, through more terrible winters, in the end the people of America prevailed.
Fast forward 244 years to today. Americans enjoy the highest standard of living of any people in the history of the world. While there are poor people in our society, most have it better than billions of people around the globe. Our nation has not suffered true privation since the Great Depression and the early, dark days of World War 2, 80 odd years ago. Were something as cataclysmic as either of those events to come along I am left to wonder if Americans in general could be roused and respond to meet such a challenge as they did so overwhelmingly in those earlier times.
We have, as a society, become very soft and willing to let others take responsibility for things that we should be responsible for ourselves. We let elected officials take responsibility, and those elected officials let a faceless, permanent bureaucracy take responsibility leaving the majority of Americans to focus their attention on the next wave of Instagram influencers. And while the recent election may give the impression that “the people have spoken”, the fact that nearly all incumbents at all levels of government were returned to office, when opinion polling shows approval of government as a whole and of legislative bodies in particular remains historically low, says otherwise.
Bask in the spirit that is the Christmas season, but don’t become so comfortable that you forget the lessons of our founders, or so complacent that you forget who it is that our founders put in charge of things; personal, political and governmental. It is we, the people, who grant power to government and not the other way around. And it is we, the people, who are going to be faced with a whole new set of crises and challenges in the coming new year.
The View From Out West 
Are we still the men who will row across a frozen river in the middle of the night to kill our enemies in their sleep on Christmas?
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