{"id":40816,"date":"2025-10-09T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=40816"},"modified":"2025-10-09T10:32:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T17:32:49","slug":"in-1776-thomas-paine-made-the-best-case-for-fighting-kings-%e2%88%92-and-for-being-skeptical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/in-1776-thomas-paine-made-the-best-case-for-fighting-kings-%e2%88%92-and-for-being-skeptical\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1776, Thomas Paine made the best case for fighting kings \u2212 and for being skeptical"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew Redmond<\/a>, Universit\u00e9 de Lille<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of his stand-up sets, comedian David Cross rejects all political commentary<\/a> that tries to answer the question, \u201cWhat would America\u2019s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a machine? What\u2019s a machine???\u201d he screams in their collective voice, recoiling from the sorcery of the state fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first time I saw this bit, something odd happened. Having just read the 1776 political pamphlet \u201cCommon Sense,\u201d I could hear its author, one of America\u2019s founders<\/a>, laughing louder than anybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would be Thomas Paine, the man credited with turning the American Revolution from a complicated Colonial fracas into a titanic struggle for the soul of liberty itself<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Cross is skeptical that anything 250 years old still holds up, Paine, were he alive today, could probably name one thing: skepticism. Ways of thinking and being do not grow out of the ground; we make them ourselves, then hand them down as best we can. Paine would smile to see his favorite heirloom, the skeptical worldview, still intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saying \u201cno\u201d \u2013 especially to those in power \u2013 is an underrated American pastime<\/a>, and Paine was its Babe Ruth. If you plan on joining No Kings rallies and have yet to find a slogan for your sign, Paine\u2019s got you covered: \u201cIn America, the law is king!\u201d \u201cNo King! No Tyranny!\u201d \u201cMonarchy hath poisoned the republic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on. Because he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Published in 1776, Thomas Paine\u2019s pamphlet \u2018Common Sense\u2019 inveighed against monarchy and hereditary privilege and in favor of independence for the Colonies. Smithsonian National Museum of American History<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Birth of a revolutionary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Where did all this anti-monarchical fire come from? Originally, from a small town in Norfolk, England, in 1737<\/a>. Turning from his father\u2019s trade of corset-making, Paine tried his hand at business, met and impressed Benjamin Franklin in London<\/a>, sailed to America, and there found his true metier as a pamphleteer and radical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using simple yet incandescent prose, Paine renounced, repudiated and ridiculed<\/a> at a clip seldom witnessed in print before or since. Hereditary privilege, colonialism<\/a>, the supernatural<\/a>: no, no, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what Paine made his name lambasting \u2013 what he knocked out of the park with almost steroidal force \u2013 were kings<\/a>. All of them, from the figures of ancient legend and Scripture to those who warmed England\u2019s throne during his lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommon Sense,\u201d his first major work<\/a>, was an urgent wake-up call to every light-sleeping lover of liberty within earshot. In that pamphlet, Paine labels kingship \u201cthe most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.\u201d He never minced words; he wanted the right people to choke on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lawn
Thomas Paine quotes in Lexington, Mass., not far from where the American Revolution began. Photo: Joel Abrams, CC BY<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Simple facts, plain arguments\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Exactly what was Paine\u2019s problem with kings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same problem you\u2019ll have, \u201cCommon Sense\u201d promises, when you examine the evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is partly the secret of Paine\u2019s rhetorical power: It\u2019s hard to imagine any wordsmith demanding more vigorously that you not take his word for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paine was a student of history, and history is chock-full of receipts. It shows that abuses of kingly power extend back to the \u201cearly ages of monarchy,\u201d when some \u201cprincipal ruffian\u201d first took power, and \u201cit was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed \u2026 to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that time, says Paine, even those fortunate enough to live under benevolent rule have seldom been more than one generation away from yet another dreadful monarch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.\u201d What a tweet this would have made, caps and all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bring the Paine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The only thing Paine liked less than monarchical rule was its enablers, anyone who relinquished their freedom willingly to an aspiring tyrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not only wrong, Paine insists, but against nature, since all of us are created equal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A somewhat puckish-looking Thomas Paine \u2013 with the wrong first name and a different spelling of his last one. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But even that\u2019s not the worst part. Those who sacrifice their own freedom on the altar of monarchy also sacrifice that of future generations. Their \u201cunwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool.\u201d Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost wise men,\u201d Paine adds, \u201cin their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal worker firings<\/a>, court settlements<\/a>, a government shutdown<\/a>. Paine would loathe how right the U.S. is proving him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides criticizing both tradition and manipulative elites for their role in abetting monarchs, Paine\u2019s writing gestures toward a more widely accessible sense of false freedom that comes with getting what you want from whoever happens to wear the crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of pleasure obscures a painful reality: that the tyrant can strike as well as stroke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem of unchecked power is not nearly counterbalanced by any number of indulgences the wielder of that power deigns to bestow. Freedom, Paine insists, is not transactional; whatever price you name, you\u2019re getting fleeced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, to put it his way: \u201cO ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew Redmond<\/a>, Lecturer, Universit\u00e9 de Lille<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Redmond, Universit\u00e9 de Lille In one of his stand-up sets, comedian David Cross rejects all political commentary that tries to answer the question, \u201cWhat would America\u2019s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?\u201d For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8025,277,46,295,10,25,296,36,4,38],"tags":[3321,16014,17008,2650,885,891,886,860,16174,3650,17006,17009],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40818,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40816\/revisions\/40818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}