The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Still liveblogging the Convention on Modern Liberty… In a wonderful keynote address I will not try to reproduce here, Mr Pullman set out the virtues he thought the nation we might have been (and could yet be) should have. He listed, courage, wakefulness of mind, modesty and honour. No government that had such virtues, he said, could think itself strong when it was actually (as he put it) "throwing its weight around behind the bicycle sheds. No people that had them, could stand by and let it do so. There was an enthusiastic response to his final words'

We are a better people than our government believes we are. We are a better nation.

It would not be difficult.