Why Does Thomas Paine Hate America?
David Weigel | February 13, 2007, 7:49am
If you want to celebrate Thomas Paine Day in Arkansas,
this has got to be a time that tries your soul.The proposal by state Rep. Lindsley Smith, Fayetteville Democrat, to commemorate Jan. 29 as "Thomas Paine Day" failed in the state House of Representatives after a legislator questioned Paine's writings criticizing the Bible and Christianity. ... state Rep. Sid Rosenbaum, Little Rock Republican, quizzed Miss Smith about Paine and quoted passages from Paine's book, "The Age of Reason," which Mr. Rosenbaum called anti-religious.
"He did some good things for the nation, but the book that he wrote was anti-Christian and anti-Jewish," Mr. Rosenbaum said. "I don't think we should be passing things out like this without at least debating it and letting people in the House know what we're voting on."
Or by, you know,
lying about them.
The Age of Reason isn't anti-Christian or anti-Jewish. It's anti-
religion. "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." This is without question the most powerful document of Deism. (It's free
right here, by the way.) Paine was basically turned into a pariah by the book, though, so this vote carries a kind of terrific irony.
I understand why legislators want to perpetuate the story that all of our founding fathers were Christians (budding Jerry Falwells, depending on who you ask). I don't understand the importance of believing that they all really dug church.
John Kindley | February 13, 2007, 3:00pm | #
Thomas Paine is the one intellect from whose writings I currently derive the most inspiration and validation of my own insights, especially in two respects: his devout Deism, and his advocacy of libertarianism tempered with progressive tax policies.
Paine, the son of Quakers, follows his critique of revealed religion in the Age of Reason with the following: "How different is this to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical.
The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true Deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the Quakers; but they have contracted themselves too much, by leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence their philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the conceit, that if the taste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-colored creation it would have been! Not a flower would have blossomed its gayeties, nor a bird been permitted to sing."
As a practicing Quaker, I'm happy to report that modern Quakers have discarded their distinctive drab, plain-dress uniform of yesteryear, and no longer renounce art as they commonly did in the eighteenth century. Indeed, there are a number of musicians, painters, and artists in my own local Quaker meeting.
Our nation was founded not on Judeo-Christian principles but on Deist principles (especially in the Declaration of Independence's belief that the truth that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights is self-evident). Deism has a positive content (belief and trust in Nature's God, and the moral importance of imitating the benevolence of the Deity) as well as a negative content (skepticism or agnosticism concerning revealed religion), and I for one approve of the continuance of that positive content (which does not contradict the Judeo-Christian tradition) in our public and political discourse.
In Agrarian Justice, Paine advocated paying every citizen (wealthy or poor) upon attaining the age of 21 years a certain sum. This was not a matter of charity but of justice, according to Paine, as compensation for the loss, caused by the cultivation of land and consequent system of land ownership, of every person's natural birthright to joint proprietorship in the earth (as would have been enjoyed in the natural state, and as in fact enjoyed by Native Americans in the lands not yet taken by European cultivation and development). The funds for these payments were to come from a system of inheritance taxes.
Libertarians (of whom I count myself one), many of whom consider Paine a patron saint, would do well to take this concept to heart, if not the specific program advocated. One can be a libertarian and think government spending and taxes should be drastically cut, while also believing that those necessary taxes we do have should be progressive.
Liberty is tied to property, and its tie is closest the less property an individual has. A young man in modern society can't find himself a plot of ground, build a cabin or a tepee, plant some crops, and hunt and gather food from the surrounding area, because all the land has been deeded off to others. If he wants to survive and doesn't have an inheritance, he'll need to obtain employment from someone with money (maybe someone who inherited his money and with it the unearned power to command the indigent's services), and to obtain decent employment in the modern world he'll probably have to go into debt to obtain the necessary education.
This inherently unfair and unfree state of affairs can and should be ameliorated with drastic tax relief that starts at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Eliminate all income taxes (for wealthy and poor alike), and fund the government with use taxes, consumption taxes, and as much inheritance and gift taxes as are needed to replace the income tax (or rather, a fraction of the former income tax in a drastically scaled down government).
For another libertarian and capitalist proponent of inheritance and estate taxes, see Andrew Carnegie's the Gospel of Wealth.
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