Fighting for Freedom

How many today would fight for ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’. The question certainly is appropriate as many constantly claim we have less freedom than ever before (we will leave for further investigation and thought that opinion). It certainly is hard to argue that the burden of government was greater under King George than under our current system. While there is perhaps anger taking people to the polls, there is not a widespread social disruption or anything resembling an active revolutionary movement. Is that an indictment of today’s citizen? Shouldn’t they be risking it all for ‘liberty’?

If we look back to the inhabitants of the colonies in 1775-1776, most did not in that time either. The big losers were the big names. Though some of the big names became the big winners. Supporting independence and liberty was one thing. Fighting for it another.

The population in 1775 was ~2.5M (have seen higher figures). Probably safe to assume 1.25M of that was male and probably 60% of fighting age. Yet, this domestic population rarely stood and fought in any significant fashion against the 50K British troops and their 30K Hessian mercenaries. This foreign population was forced to fight over the entire east coast. Still we struggled.

Washington was not kind to deserters. He was not in general having to turn away recruits. America had difficulties fielding armies. We needed, or at least greatly benefited, from the involvement of France and Spain on our side.

People like to be on the side of winners, but few will fight... for independence... freedom... anything.

All of this was in the time of the enlightenment and revolutions were beginning to spread. Did the cause of ‘liberty’ and freedom not resonate?

Yes... at least at the intellectual level of society. While I believe that plenty of people did read or were capable of reading more complex material than now, I am not terribly certain that the average joe has ever had much consideration for the thoughts of the esoteric. People had to work pretty hard across the board just to eat. Freedom is a word that means different things to different people. Being able to demagogue a crowd is far different than that crowd taking up arms and slogging through the mud for years in a war.

Freedom for some probably meant no king... to others it simply meant freedom to have the British pay for our Indian issues as opposed to us. Freedom for others is more along the lines of FDR's list of freedoms than the Founders.

My bottom line is that I do not think the fact that 95% of people now would not have fought then is any great indictment. Most people rarely fight willingly for any cause. Most people care about food, women, entertainment and beer. As long as you don't interfere too much with those they will tolerate a great deal.