From Thomas Paine's Common Sense - one of the prime documents of the revolution. I need to read and study this...but even just reading the opening of the pamphlet amazed me. Let me share:
"Some writers have so confounded society with government as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. the one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher."
I think that says it quite well. We have confounded society with government on a truly stunning scale. Modern America is using government as a means of procuring wants, ignoring the fact that government, by its very nature, is a punisher. In using it to procure the wants of some, then, it is punishing others. That is the nature of government, and until (or unless) we learn to distinguish what Paine said in his first paragraph, the punishment will continue.
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