groundcontroltothomaspaine

Thomas Paine was an interesting and critical figure in the origins of America and the development of modern ideals of freedom and democracy.

Glenn Beck thinks he understands Paine really well. Count it among the man's many not-so-charming delusions. I do eventually mean to read this thing, taking advantage of the local municipal socialist book-sharing program (library), though probably not the same one Beck went to to learn all government services are wicked and wrong. Hopefully it will turn out better than my attempt to read Ann Coulter.

John Perkins has a considerably better grasp of Paine. Perkins is descended from Paine and has learned some hard moral lessons on the nature of power and control. He knows that authoritarian control structures in capitalist business are no less odious than authoritarian control structures in government, that the two are often deeply intertwined and that this is NOT a result of government corrupting honest capitalism but of the corruption inherent in all desire to control and exploit for profit and power. Glenn Beck by contrast only remembers to detest authoritarian government if it fails to make the appropriate "conservative values" nonsense noise, and like most pseudo-libertarians, is inexplicably more angered by things government does FOR people than by things government does TO people. (Often this takes the form of detesting those labelled as weak or dependent, veneration of metaphorical Strength being a characteristic fascist value.)

Susan Jacoby also understands Paine quite well. Her excellent book embraces Paine's contribution to America's true moral foundations, and continued influence on all movements to bring about a better, freer world.

But the best source on Paine is Thomas Paine himself, in Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, and numerous other writings, pamphlets, and letters, he explains quite clearly what he stands for. Apologists like to pretend it was a different or changed Thomas Paine who wrote Age of Reason, but the same "spirit," the same principles of freedom of mind and body for all and the free pursuit of truth unfettered by orthodoxy, authority, or dogma underlies all his writings. It's all public domain, so you can find it on Project Gutenberg and numerous university course text pages, or in several printed editions if you like. Though far from the first freethinker, he is among the finest.