Gratuitous Common Sense

Thomas Paine, born January 29, 1737, arrived in America in 1774 at Benjamin Franklin’s request. On January 10, 1776, he published Common Sense, a powerful republican pamphlet advocating the separation of church and state (among other things) which had an immediate impact, and is the influence for the title of this blog.

Paine served in the Revolutionary War and in the Pennsylvania legislature. In his other major essay, Age of Reason, Paine expressed that “all religions are in their nature mild and benign” when not associated with political systems. Thomas Paine was the quintessential Deist of the 18th century.

In 1791 and 1792 Paine published numerous editions of his Rights of Man, in which he defended the French Revolution.

The work of Thomas Paine inspired many to strive for political, economic, and social advancement. He was among the first to call for an end to slavery and the establishment of human rights around the world.

I am proud to call him a great influence on myself and the early American political system.

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“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”

- Confucius

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This couldn’t be any more true if Jesus himself had drawn it. I have a feeling that I’ll be linking to I Drew This more in the future.

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“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

- Bertrand Russel

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“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

- Albert Einstein

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I don’t find utilitarianism to be a particularly healthy philosophy for individuals or societies. Justifying the means with the ends can lead you down some dangerous and unwarranted paths. And it is one of the main roots of hypocrisy, an often unintentional (or ignored) “end” that comes as an unwelcome side dish to the primary goal you were trying to achieve in the first place. Basically, as a one-time thing, it works (isolationists and short-sighted thinkers abound), but if you happen to live beyond that one time, you might as well admit that you have no principles.

More on this in the future.

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