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unhinged
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my favorite founding father (is he even classified as one of those?)
'paine hated the pomp and arrogance of power and privilege. he retained through his life a fierce loyalty to the working class in which he was raised. "high sounding names like 'my lord' "he wrote, "served only to 'overawe the superstitious vulgar,' and make them 'admire in the great, the vices they would honestly condemn in themselves.' " he ridiculed the divine right of kings and popes. the british monarchy, which traced itself back seven centuries to william the conqueror, had been founded, he wrote, by "a french bastard landing with armed banditti and establishing himself king of england against the consent of the natives." and he detested the superstition and power of religious dogma, equating christian belief with greek mythology. "all national institutions of churches, whether jewish, christian or turkish, appear to mo no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit," he wrote. paine posited that the self-professed virtuous people would smash the windows of the actual christian god if god ever lived on earth.
with his unrelenting commitment to truth and justice and eternal rebelliousness, paine would later be vilified by the leaders of the new american republic, who had no interest in the egalitarian society he championed. paine attacked former revolutionaries, such as george washington in the united states and maximilien de robespierre in france, who abused power in the name of 'the people.' he was driven out of england by the government of william pitt and then ousted, after nearly a year in prison, from revolutionary france as well. by that time he was on hold man, and even his former champions, in well-orchestrated smear campaigns, routinely denounced him for his religious and political radicalism. the popular press in america dismissed him as 'that lying, drunken, brutal infidel.'
but paine never veered from the proposition that liberty means the liberty to speak the truth even if that truth is unpopular. he did not seek anyone's adulation. and by the end of his life, like most rebels who have held fast to the vision that took hold of them, he was an outcast. he died, largely forgotten, in new york city in june 1809. six people went to his funeral. two of them were black.' - chris hedges
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171215
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