"Common Sense"

Thomas Paine wrote "Common Sense" to denounce the British rule over the American colonies.  Paine's basic argument was that it was "common sense" for the American colonists to rise up against the British and to declare independence.  Paine asserted the idea that governments should be based on the sovereignty of the people as declared in a written constitution that includes a system of checks and balances.  Paine stated that Americans "... have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest and purest constitution on the face of the earth.  We have it in our power to begin the world over again".

After the American Revolution and the failures of the government set up under the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution was created at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.  This Constitution formed the basis of the "perfect Union" of the United States of America, a government that still lasts today.  Effectively, the creation of the United States under the Constitution made the world over again, as Paine predicted.  It is this Constitution that has been the basis of other democracies founded throughout the world.

Americans have the ability to change things in the United States and in the world.  There are so many problems: millions of people living in poverty, a lack of affordable health care, corrupt governments, disease, genocide, nuclear weapons, terrorism, war, failing economies, global warming, dictatorships, the cost of college, and increases in crime.  Americans can lead the change to solve these problems.  Americans "have it in our power to begin the world over again".  It is time for everyone to stand up and declare that an adjustment in the world needs to be made.  However, it is important for Americans not to view themselves as all-powerful.  This position of world aggressor gets American interests nowhere and it does not gain any allies.  It hurts the United States and the rest of the world.  Americans need to lead a complete transformation- socially, economically, and politically- along with the help of the rest of the nations of the world.  Americans need to make America and the world better places to live, safer places to live.  Let's take this opportunity to return to Paine's "Common Sense".  Get up America and be prepared to change the nation and the world.  This is our time, our life, our nation, our world; let's leave our mark!