“Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense.

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Every time I write about the New York Carriage Horses – every single time – someone posts a message on one social media page or another complaining that the effort to ban the horses in New York is yet one more liberal  or Democratic plot to take away our freedom. When I can, I point out that I support the carriage horses and they are supported by all kinds of people.  I am neither a conservative nor a Republican. I hope that I am never either on the left or the right, I would hate to have my mind and thought labeled and defined in such a shallow and limited way.

Liberty is not the exclusive province of the “left” or the “right,” it is not an abstract idea to be debated on our mindless and divisive cable news channels. It is the cause of every person who believes in freedom and who does not take it for granted. Like so many of you reading this, I am the descendant of immigrants who fled to America for their lives in search of freedom and security. These are not abstract or foolish ideas to me, they do not belong to one political party or another.

Jefferson wrote that freedom is fragile, it is can be taken away suddenly or die by a thousand cuts, and we when turn our backs on fellow citizens whose freedom and security is being taken from them by our own government, we betray ourselves and the dreams of our children.

Thomas Paine wrote that the cause of America is, in great measure,  the cause of all mankind. Some principles are not local, they affect all of mankind. The laying waste of the work of honest people, the dehumanizing of them by their own leaders, the warring against their natural rights without cause, the seizure of their property without due process, this ought to be the concern of every person who believes in freedom,  not matter what label they wish to affix to themselves.

This was the cause and purpose of our revolution.

I am not much of a political person, but when I do think about politics, I think of myself as a radical for liberty, I’m not sure Thomas Paine, the eloquent philosopher who helped launch our revolution,  ever wrote a word I could not live with or support.  I believe that a commitment to freedom and security was the common idea that united all kinds of disparate and diverse Americans and sparked the American Revolution – then and now the world’s greatest experiment with idea of individual freedom, then unheard of in the world.

There was no “left” and “right” when it came to freedom, this was our common value.

The “right” to me has come to represent a hatred of government and a cruel and xenophic disregard for the poor. The “left” has become a social movement that has lost its moral compass and values the rights of animals more than the rights of people.  Both live inevitably in the realm of perpetual argument and rage.

Ideologues cannot think for themselves or lead, they can only follow, and it is this issue, this question of freedom and security,  that are at the heart of the New York Carriage Horse controversy. Beyond the questions relating to animals and their welfare, there is a much larger one.  I have little doubt where Thomas Paine would stand were he alive today. He would recognize, as I do, and so many people on all sides of the political spectrum do, that there are serious and fundamental questions underlying this agonizing and pointless controversy.

This week, I have been re-reading “Common Sense,” and for the hundredth time in my life, was inspired by it again. It applies to this carriage horses, it is what drew me to it and has kept me there.

It is a serious thing – more serious than taxing tea – when government acts without mandate or cause destroys the work and reputation and way of life – the freedom – of innocent and blameless people, and joins with the mobs harassing and frightening them and accusing them of crimes they did not commit.

Americans have always been divided, often bitterly, about many things, but they have always been united about one thing: it is the role of government to protect freedom and property, and to preserve liberty and provide the security that citizens need to live their lives in peace, contentment and prosperity. This has drawn all sorts of people to the cause of the carriage trade – workers, poets, progressives, actors,  conservatives, artists and animal lovers and romantics from all over the world. The horses have transcended the hoary divisions of left and right, they have called to their cause and survival people who love freedom and grasp it’s importance.

For more than 150 years, the people in the carriage trade have lived in peace and freedom. They have worked long and hard and honestly, provided for themselves and their families, run their business successfully, obeyed the laws and regulations of the city and the state, paid their taxes. Today, they find themselves under a cruel and prolonged assault that threatens to take away their liberty and security and their property as well, and that has already damaged or destroyed their dreams for their children and grand-children.

Their government has not protected or defended them from this unjust persecution, quite the opposite, it has initiated and sanctioned the assault on their way of life and is seeking to destroy their industry, deprive them of their sustenance, security and property. All of this has been done without any consultation of representation of them or their interests, it has been done outside of the law and the purview of the civic bodies and agencies that have regulated them well and for generations.

And it has been done in defiance of all evidence and of the public will, which has repeatedly and overwhelming said it supports the carriage trade and wishes that the horses remain in New York.

I would highly recommend that anyone who doubts the seriousness of this wrong-headed campaign or considers the issue to be frivolous or a waste of time re-read Common Sense, the pamphlet that started a revolution, a small book that sold 500,000 copies in a country of two million people. It always reminds me what the struggle for freedom is about, and how it never really ends.

Government is a necessary evil, wrote Paine, it exists only because of the inability of moral virtue to rule the affairs of mankind. Kings are not fit to govern free people, he wrote, because they represent only themselves, not the will of the people they serve. “And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.”

Paine foresaw that his country would grow, and that the affairs of the country would have to be governed by a select number chosen from the whole body of citizens, “who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present.” This, he wrote, is the opposite of tyranny, and anything else is tyranny itself, the behavior of Kings, not representatives of free people.

In a free society, leaders do not have the right to don the crowns of Kings or rule by fiat. They exist to represent the freedom and security of the people, and to reflect the wishes of the people who chose them, they are a necessary evil, not the sons and daughters of divinity.

In New York City, the mayor has chosen to take away the freedom, way of life, liberty and security of hundreds of his citizens. In this, he is opposed by nearly three-fourths of the citizens of the city. By every newspaper.  By labor unions and business organizations. By the rich and the poor, by every racial, gender, age, ethnic and geographical entity in his city, and by countless animal lovers, children, tourists, visitors and lovers of the great park that is a crown jewel of the city. He has consulted no experts, taken no surveys, talked to no driver or horse owner, entered into no dialogue, negotiation or discussion. He has, by decree,  labeled the targets of his campaign and their work “immoral,” and refused to discuss it further, stating repeatedly that he is correct, and that he knows he is correct because he believes it to be so.

This, then, enters the realm of tyranny, not democracy, and Paine cautioned that there is no such thing as tyranny small or tyranny large, once the crack is opened, it can open wide.

He has introduced legislation that would ban the carriage horses and banish them from New York with no mandate at all.