“When it is laid down as a maxim, that a king can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the question with respect to himself.”

Demanding blind loyalty and cronyism, shunning any criticism and persecuting the critic, allowing dogma, time after time, to trump reality, and using fear to enforce irrational doctrine and open contempt for the constraints of established law – and of congress…

Be it a King in the 18^th century or a President in the 21^st, it is madness to not hold those in power to account of their abuses and utter failure of power. As it was in the 18^th century, then, so it is in the 21^st: time to dislodge from power Mad King George.

“It is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the fact.”
-Thomas Paine, Age of Reason

When a belief defies readily available facts, it becomes a delusion. I may believe I have lots of money in the bank, but to hold onto that belief given the fact of my bank balance would prescribe me as delusional.

When a delusion precipitates and exacerbates an ongoing human tragedy, when the delusion is defended as messianic mission whereby no one can dare question it, when a country is left in ruins, then the delusion must end.

George Bush has been hailed by some as a man of right conviction. That is as what some would like to believe. Given the facts of the past seven years, continuing such belief is in itself a delusion.

No conviction, no belief, will ever unmake that fact.  

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
-Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

On the Fourth of July it is good to remember that all we take so very much for granted was not always so. Freedom from political tyranny was very much a matter of the day-to-day world in which Thomas Paine lived and a radical idea indeed. A hard-won freedom that we must guard against losing, lest it slip quietly away from our distracted gaze.

It has been one year since I started this project, first under the auspices of World History.com with ThomasPaineBlogging.com (the site is still there, sometimes, if you’re lucky) and then here ThomasPaineBlog.org. It all started with an essay written on an idea I didn’t come up with, but one that interested me nonetheless, when considering Thomas Paine’s contribution to the American Revolution. That of Paine as the “first American blogger”, and the power of words in the fight for national independence, individual freedom, and human progress.

Thanks for being a part of the Thomas Paine Blog and the History Blog Project.

Here, once again, is that first essay:
Thomas Paine – The First American Blogger