Thomas Payne

Looking through the quotes from Common Sense by Thomas Payne, the quote “An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot" really stuck out to me. It made me think back to all the past wars that we have fought and it really made me think about how violence in these wars has brought more problems than solutions. It made me think about what is going on in Syria right now, President Bashar Assad ordered a chemical attack on the citizens of Syria, which resulted in the death of over 1400 people. The attack on innocent people makes no sense, his attack not only caused the U.S to intervene but it could have resulted into something bigger. If Assad were to think about his actions, Syria, the U.S, and Russia, wouldn’t be in the situation we are right now. We shouldn’t have to negotiated and bribe other countries from killing their own people. The U.S can try and force Assad to back down, but the result wouldn’t be any better, a lot of innocent soldiers and citizens may die because of our army intervening. The massacre that is going on in Syria really makes me question what kind of principle Assad and other ringleaders carry? Violence will never solve anything, if they want the best for their country they must learn how to be civilized and they need to learn how to control their greed, because as Thomas Payne stated “an army of soldiers” will not solve anything.