Common Sense

Common Sense
By Thomas Paine

I picked this book up at Barnes&Nobel while looking for a book Uncle Jimmy recommended. I thought I’d put it the bookshelf for a future read of a classic author, a mosaic piece of our heritage. It was a blessing that the book of my original intention was not available, causing me to read this alternative to fill in the time waiting for Jims recommendation, Tuxedo Park. Paine does a remarkable job in classic literature style in making a profound statement to surround his points or argument. Metaphorically he ties a thread around a foundation and flawlessly pulls it through points of argument while consistently and rationally staying connected to his original statement. At any point in his argument in behalf of American independence you can check it against his original statement and find a solid match in rationale. He does not wait or bait you. The very first sentence in his book is profoundly simple and compelling to see what could possibly follow.

To quote Paine’s opening: “PERHAPS THE SENTIMENTS CONTAINED in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general Favor; a long Habit of not thinking a Thing wrong, gives superficial appearance of being right, and raises a formidable outcry in defense of Custom. But the Tumult soon subsides. Time makes more Converts than Reason.”

In Paine’s first waypoint to common sense in the context of government it goes as follows: “ SOME WRITERS HAVE SO confounded society with government, as to leave little 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 a patron, the second a punisher.”

Paine was a deist. Like Jefferson, he believed in God, but distained any organization including Churches that oppressed people and specifically he despised the King of England. Paine fostered a society that allowed a free practice of religious thought to be openly expressed in any social or official setting. Since then and to the chagrin of both Paine and Jefferson we have drifted from that premise. It was his and our other forefathers vision that seeded a separation of Church and State and clearly did so to allow liberty in the form of a government by the people not the Church or the State. This seed has spread across the world and in every geographic region that has followed suit, Germany being a temporary exception due to a lapse of rational civic thought, has equally found a prosperous place in world order. I say this because Common Sense should be placed on every coffee table in America. As we debate issues we should always check ourselves for good common sense as demonstrated by Paine.

I read this and Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer while waiting for my book to come in. It is truly refreshing to capture the thoughts of our early Americans…and a refreshing reminder of why every time I come back from a trip abroad I say there is no place like home.