What Tom Said

[goldenponderbob]

A thought occurred to me when I heard about that bridge collapse.
I was thinking about our national chaos, the crazy way we manage
our money, borders and wars, and somehow the thing in Minnesota
seemed to symbolize the collapse of a lot more than just one span.

I don't start many threads. I mostly read stuff others choose to
express. I respect their opinions. and frequently rethink my own.

I started to think about the wealthy, educated folk who manage the chaos,
and it brought me back to our nation's political conception. Six months
before our national birthday, 7/4/76, a little pamphlet was published.

The words below are from that document. Although most of what the author
had to say was the relationship between the British colonies and the
goverment of King George III, there is much that applies right now and
to whatever is left of our national heritage.

My first thought was to ask LLers to take a moment to reflect on Paine's
advice and ask ourselves if we're in danger of losing a gift that we'll
never have a second chance to pass to posterity.

Then I began to think about the unwealthy, uneducated people who were
the recipients of Tom's treatise, and what they did with the information
he gave them.

It occurred to me that we don't teach our children much about the words
Paine wrote, and I suddenly realized why. We got it backwards: our kids
should be reading these words and explaining them to us. It was intended
for a group that could barely read. We're the wealthy educated class who
cannot appreciate the simplicity of straight logic.

So, if you who have kids, I'd like you to have them read and explain the
words below back to you.

If you do that, and If you get the chance to discover for yourselves what
Paine did with the money he made from the booklet, you'll begin to under-
stand what prompted me to write this.


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SOME writers have so confounded society with government,
as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas
they are not only different, but have different origins.

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 is 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 upon 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. Wherefore, security being the true design and end
of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form
thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the
least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all
others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and
end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons
settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected
with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling
of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural
liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand
motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man
is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for
perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek
assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires
the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a
tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one
man might labour out the common period of life without
accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he
could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed;
hunger in the mean time would urge him to quit his work,
and every different want would call him a different way.

Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for, though
neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from
living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather
be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form
our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal
blessings of which would supercede, and render the
obligations of law and government unnecessary while they
remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but
Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen
that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties
of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause,
they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to
each other: and this remissness will point out the
necessity of establishing some form of government to supply
the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State House, under
the branches of which the whole Colony may assemble to
deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that
their first laws will have the title only of Regulations and
be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In
this first parliament every man by natural right will have
a seat.

But as the Colony encreases, public concerns will encrease
likewise, and the distance at which the members may be
separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them
to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was
small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few
and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their
consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a
select number chosen from the whole body, 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. If the colony
continue encreasing, it will become necessary to augment the
number of representatives, and that the interest of every
part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best
to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending
its proper number: and that the ELECTED might never form to
themselves an interest separate from the ELECTORS, prudence
will point out the propriety of having elections often:
because as the ELECTED might by that means return and mix
again with the general body of the ELECTORS in a few months,
their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent
reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this
frequent interchange will establish a common interest with
every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally
support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning name
of king,) depends the STRENGTH OF GOVERNMENT, AND THE
HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode
rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern
the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz.
Freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with
show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may
warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the
simple voice of nature and reason will say, 'tis right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in
nature which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any
thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the
easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view
I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of
England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in
which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun
with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue.
But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable
of producing what it seems to promise is easily demonstrated.

Absolute governments, (tho' the disgrace of human nature) have
this advantage with them, they are simple; if the people suffer,
they know the head from which their suffering springs; know
likewise the remedy; and are not bewildered by a variety of
causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so
exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years
together without being able to discover in which part the fault
lies; some will say in one and some in another, and every
political physician will advise a different medicine.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Common Sense exploded across the thirteen colonies that winter and
galvanized a ragtag group of colonist pioneers led by a few crazed
radicals in Boston and Virginia into a political entity that
declared that the time had come for a new kind of government and it
happend in just six months.

On the day it came out (1/10/76), the radicals numbered no more than
a few thousand, by July the number that supported Paine's position had
risen to perhaps a third of the free adult portion of the population.
An astonishing feat for any time and place, let alone amidst a group
where the ability to read was by no means widespread. Imagine how most
had to have the thing read to them in meeting houses and taverns. The
number of copies sold, impressive as it was, comprised a fraction of
those who were influenced by its message.

Reflect on the advice contained in the passages having to do with
migration from pure democracy ("Some convenient tree. . .") to that
of republican, or representative government ("leave the legislative
part. . .") and consider how Paine describes the migration of
allegiance of those sent to represent you and vote as you would.

Thanks,
goldenponderbob

[Jude]

...and amen, and amen, and amen.

[RMNIXON]

Excellent Post!


And by that I mean it will be unread, ignored, or misinterpreted as some outlandish attack on government by most people here.


In short: Government must build and maintain bridges and do many other things. There is no need that they govern my healthcare or any other individual state of well being other than to protect my basic rights and freedoms.