Yesterday I wanted to do a political post that somehow expressed my feelings about the current presidential campaign and Thomas Paine. It never really came together.
It was the anniversary of Thomas Paine’s death in 1809 at the age of seventy-two. When I think of him, I think of how he wrote the documents that inspired a group of rebellious individuals to overcome their personal disagreements and inner squabbles and turn thirteen young colonies into one new country full of hope for the future. He’s the person who came up with the term “United States of America.” He despised any kind of dictator or tyrant. He disagreed with slave ownership and said so. His beliefs and concerns for the rights of all people were expressed in concepts that would eventually become minimum wage, public education, and social security.
He also entered into a lifelong feud with George Washington that, along with his views on organized religion, led to a loss of esteem for him in the country he helped create. He had entire other lives in France and England until then-President Thomas Jefferson invited him to return to the U.S. His writings were eventually held in high regard by many great philosophers and thinkers, including Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln. Yet when he died, only six people followed his coffin to the grave, among them two freed slaves who wanted to pay their respects.
I suppose in every age, we are unjustly hard on forward-thinking individuals. We pick apart their flaws as humans and turn a deaf ear to their ideas and dreams for a better future. Two quotes from Thomas Paine:
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
“Thomas Paine. Englishman by birth. American by choice. French by decree. Citizen of the World.”
i wish there were still people like him in positions of power…i can’t tell you how disappointed and fed up i am with government and politics.
“forward-thinking” is good only as long as it truely includes EVERY ONE