Latest / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast / The American Crises - Pt 2

Transcript

The American Crises - Pt 2 · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

• 0:11
  This is plausibly Live, the official podcast of The Dave
• 0:14
  Bowman Show. Thomas Paine once said freedom
• 0:21
  demands perseverance. He wasn't writing that from a
• 0:24
  cozy study. It was the winter of 1776.
• 0:28
  Washington's army was starving, barefoot and about ready to give
• 0:32
  up. Payne sat by candlelight and
• 0:34
  wrote The American Crisis, reminding everyone that liberty
• 0:38
  only matters if you're willing to fight for it.
• 0:41
  When things look hopeless, he said, what we obtain too cheap,
• 0:45
  we esteem too lightly. In other words, if freedom comes
• 0:48
  easy, we won't value it. That's a truth that still stings
• 0:52
  today. Too many people want the
• 0:54
  benefits of liberty without the responsibility.
• 0:57
  They want government to fix everything but still call
• 1:00
  themselves free. Payne would have laughed at
• 1:02
  that. Freedom isn't supposed to make
• 1:04
  you comfortable. It's supposed to make you
• 1:06
  accountable. Washington read Payne's words to
• 1:08
  his troops before crossing the Delaware, and they went on to
• 1:11
  win a victory that changed the course of the war.
• 1:14
  That's what perseverance looks like.
• 1:16
  We may not be standing in the snow at Valley Forge, but we're
• 1:19
  still being tested. Every generation has to decide
• 1:21
  whether freedom is worth the struggle.
• 1:23
  Paine's challenge still stands. Quit waiting for it to get easy.
• 1:27
  It won't. Liberty survives only when
• 1:29
  people have the courage to endure.
• 20:17
  None. The.