Common Sense
August 30th, 2008 by rsm
As the political match finally reaches the endgame this year, I am fascinated. I always have been a news hound. Seriously. I remember Viet Nam, even though I was about 3 when things were starting to go badly. I wasn’t at the point of full analysis of what I was hearing, so the sonorous voice of Walter Cronkite on CBS was the only source I needed for facts.
This lead me into journalism. Well, reporting.
And now I sit with interest in hearing speeches, observing choices, and most ardently looking at what happens when candidates are forced to think on their feet. This has been especially true here at our local level where I know most of the council members and commissioners at least socially.
But in all these things, I am taken back to our founding, to those things that truly are great about the concepts and thoughts which created our nation.
Strange, long life that he led, I think Thomas Paine captured the intellect of so many quite clearly. Yes, John Adams, one of our greatest thinkers and debaters did not care much for Paine, but there were elements even he used in his oration.
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.
Too true, Mr. Paine. Apparently we need to reread your words.
Great quote.