Common Sense

Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, here is Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Prior to purchasing it a few months ago, I had always heard the work referred to as a "pamphlet." Unless you like your pamphlets to be 58 pages long, this, my fellow Americans, is no pamphlet. But, yeah, it's still a damn short read. And an interesting one too. Everyone who paid any attention at all in high school American history class should know that Common Sense was an effort by Paine to persuade his fellow colonists into getting down with independence. It was wildly successful, and having read it, I can see why; it's literally just a bunch of common sense! Paine starts by attacking the concept of monarchy in general. "Why does one guy get to tell a bunch of others what to do?" he asks. "What makes him a more capable leader than the rest of us?" Paine holds no punches when it comes to the even more ridiculous concept of hereditary monarchy. "Why are the descendants of a bunch of French invaders ruling England anyway? Why should any king's descendants make good kings themselves at all?" Next, Paine gives an extensive list of reasons for American independence; these are the heart and soul of his pamphlet and the ones you're most likely to find quoted in history books. Then, out of nowhere, Paine jumps into an argument for why we should have an American navy. It made a lot of sense, like everything else in Common Sense, but it just felt so out-of-the-blue. I guess Paine was simply saying, "It'd be really easy for us to make a navy, and that's another great reason to cut ties with Britain." Finally, at least in the edition I read, Paine ends with an appendix in which he responds to a Quaker who had published something in favor of loyalism to Britain. Paine basically ripped him a new one, throwing jabs at Quakerism along the way. He ended by advising the Quaker to think before he publishes something. It seemed very catty and much like a textbook Internet fight. I was sort of disappointed that it was even included in my edition of Common Sense, but I guess I can't complain about getting more bang for my two bucks. Anyway, Common Sense was the only sub-100-page book remaining on my backlog; now it's time for me to return to my only super-1000-pager, Hawaii.