Introduction: Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them to general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
I will translate, since this was written in 1776 by an Englishman:
I doubt what I’m going to say will be agreed with by everyone, and this is because my dear readers have become so used to a WRONG that they only see it as RIGHT. Understandably, it is one’s first reaction to defend tradition. But this eventually wears off, because
Time makes more converts than reason.
Judging by our fancy, important, dressed-up politicians who rely on the support of professional athletes and actors, you might think politics a noble pursuit. You might just think your freedoms needed faces, and the scrubbed up and shinier, the better. We call them our leaders, after all, as if they charge into battle on our behalf. It’s tradition, and we gladly defend it. Red, white, blue. Donkeys and elephants.
But who is being duped? Who runs a two trillion dollar deficit and gets to be in charge of anything? What is this bipartisan baloney, when all of us can see their goal is to discredit, malign, and undercut the other party?
We can’t defend this outrageous “custom” any longer. It isn’t cute or patriotic, more wrong than right. We’ve made a full circle, 244 years, to be exact. Where is our pamphlet? What can set us straight?
Back then, Thomas Paine was attempting to rally the troops. He was hoping to spark confidence with his little pamphlet, Common Sense–enough to send King George a breakup letter.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.
Common Sense kicked the tails of some 150,000 Americans who bought Thomas Paine’s words. I think they were more tired of politics than we are now, far more ready to move than he gave them credit for. Within six months they’d penned the Declaration of Independence.
Here are my questions for the average to avid American political hobbyist:
How many hours have you spent worrying over an election? How many words have you gushed, how much talk radio have you consumed? How much of a fire have you fanned into flame over the exciting topic of politics?
Was it worth it?
How many Thanksgivings and Christmases have you tainted, trying to argue to your distant relatives the character of men and women who flex their power in D.C.?
Who wears a little I Voted! Sticker as a badge of honor, as if they are an exemplary citizen, devoted to the utmost degree? Who wears a necklace? Who changes their cute little profile picture to reflect their current political stance to their friends?
Hot air, all of us. We aren’t even self-controlled or peaceable enough to keep our mouths shut over mashed potatoes and gravy. We aren’t bold enough to sacrifice our freedom to defend our country because we’ve never known what real terrible, oppressive government is like.
How much more time do we need before we can smell something foul in the water? But now several of us are finally perceiving some wrongness in something we’ve always thought right.
Politics are becoming unpalatable, and it might surprise you to hear it:
Our government doesn’t exist for our life, liberty, and happiness–it exists to stomp on those who wish to take it from us. And when it fails (and it is failing, don’t let the lipstick fool you),
We furnish the means by which we suffer.
We aren’t just touting republicans, democrats, independents, conservatives, progressives as inspiring superhumans who speak on our behalf–we are actually letting this necessary evil dictate our society.
Let it sink in. Acknowledge your comfort level with this intrusion. We’ve become Sesame Street puppets, little idiots who turn on the TV and wait for the humans to explain what is going on and how we should feel about it. We sing songs along with celebrities, parodying evil, committing it to memory, and thinking it more American than saluting the flag. We invite politics into our social lives like it were just another silly diversion, and not a snake wanting to squeeze us to death.
What are we proud Americans so proud of now? The exciting feeling that comes every four years with “the election of our lifetime”? Pledging allegiance to a lifelong politician?
That Thomas Paine, what a pain.
Let it signal to our brains that there is an injury–let it force us to think before we act, vote, talk, potentially ruin relationships. It’s an old bandage, but I think it works–Common Sense.
As a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.
Common Sense, Thomas Paine, 1776
