Tom Paine: What a Guy!

In my view, the greatest of America’s “Founding Fathers” was not George Washington or Thomas Jefferson — nor, technically, he wasn’t even an American. Rather, he was a British immigrant and itinerate agitator for real democracy, enlightenment and universal human rights.

He was Thomas Paine, a prolific, profound, persuasive and widely popular pamphleteer in the movement for American Independence. With plain language and genuine passion for the cause, Paine’s 47-page pamphlet, “Common Sense,” was so compelling in its support of the Revolution that it was passed around from person to person — and even read aloud in taverns! But Paine wasn’t content with democratic rhetoric; he actually believed in an egalitarian society, and his post-revolution writings (including “The Age of Reason” and “Agrarian Justice”) unabashedly demanded that the new hierarchy of U.S. leaders fulfill the promise of democracy.

Even before the War for Independence, Paine called for slaves to be freed and slavery prohibited. After the war, he terrified most of the gentlemen of means who’d signed the Declaration of Independence by insisting that non-landowners be eligible to vote and hold office (John Adams was so appalled by this that he decried “Common Sense” as a “crapulous mess”). But Paine just kept pushing, calling for women’s suffrage, progressive taxation, state-funded child care, a guaranteed minimum income, universal public education, strict separation of church and state, and adoption of some of the democratic principles of the Iroquois Nation.

This is Jim Hightower saying, Don’t tell small-minded, right-wing demagogues like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott — but Thomas Paine was WOKE! Some 250 years before their push to impose autocracy, plutocracy and theocracy over us, this revolutionary founder championed social justice and economic fairness. As one historian noted, “We are today all Paine’s children,” for he imbued America’s destiny with democratic impulse and aspiration.