By Gene Jones, President, Florida Veterans for Common Sense
On this day, we celebrate our Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical government.
As Florida Veterans for Common Sense (FLVCS) celebrates, we also remember that without the pen of Thomas Paine we’d have a different government, and to keep it, we must heed Paine’s warnings about tyranny.
In January 1776, Paine published a booklet, Common Sense, that sparked the American revolution with a new idea. Before Common Sense, the colonists blamed the king’s ministers and parliament for their troubles. Common Sense convinced them to blame the king.
Paine’s idea was that one man should not govern, but that the people themselves should rule. Instead of the divine right of kings to rule by fiat, Paine made the case that the law is king. Common Sense sets forth the democratic principle that a country is free when the people rule with a common purpose in opposition to tyranny.
Paine recognized that with freedom comes the responsibility to rule ourselves. We must be involved to shape our own government. Paine tells us that if we don’t, some dictator may arise who would assume the powers of government to sweep away our liberties like a deluge.
Threat to our liberties and government
As Paine said in the first Crisis Papers, “These are the times that try men’s souls…” We see with our own eyes the efforts of MAGA Republicans to sweep away our liberties and government. MAGA Republicans still claim that an imaginary ‘deep state’ stole the last presidential election. Worse, MAGA Republicans tried sedition and insurrection to prevent Congress from certifying the presidential election. Also, MAGA Republicans submitted false slates of electors to change the election result.
As Paine warned, the MAGA Republicans’ goal is to assume the powers of government to itself so it can impose its minority will on all of us. It gladly subverts the rule of law to do so. We see a march of tyranny before our very eyes. MAGA Republicans are unconstitutionally limiting voting rights, gerrymandering voting districts, firing duly elected public officials, taking away a woman’s right to choose, banning books, perverting education, and scapegoating minorities.
On this Independence Day, FLVCS members and supporters rededicate ourselves to Paine’s idea that we should rule ourselves. We will not allow a MAGA Republican minority to impose its undemocratic will on the majority.
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