Arkansas Snubs Thomas Paine

[Doug]

Thomas Paine Day Vote Fails in Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Thomas Paine may have helped inspire the American Revolution, but inspiring Arkansas lawmakers to commemorate a day in his honor is another matter.

The proposal by Rep. Lindsley Smith, D-Fayetteville, 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.

The vote Thursday was 46-20 in favor of the measure, but 51 votes were needed to pass...

''I think if Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were standing here today, they would give you the same presentation about Thomas Paine,'' Smith said. ''He needs to be remembered and he's not remembered.''

But Rep. Sid Rosenbaum, R-Little Rock, quizzed Smith about Paine and quoted passages from Paine's book, ''The Age of Reason,'' which Rosenbaum criticized as anti-religion.

''He did some good things for the nation, but the book that he wrote was anti-Christian and anti-Jewish,'' 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.''

Rep. Chris Thyer, D-Jonesboro, said he will ask the House to reconsider its vote. Smith said she was hopeful the measure would pass later.

Here.

[Savonarola]

In a world where everyone today recognizes the names of serial killers, assassins, prominent racists, crooks, and especially anti-Semitic actors, the legislature has chosen to disremember Paine for writing some stuff that made sense.

I hate the Bible Belt.

[Dardedar]

DAR
Cheryl just sent this notice to the fayfreethinker address:

***
Urgent, the bill did not pass by only a few votes (eight)....
Here is what you can do:

1. here are the people who voted no, but if you write and tell them
that it will come back up for a vote and you would appreciate their
vote in favor of it, of the no votes, I think you can get:

Earnest Brown
Willie Hardy
Randy Stewart

Also, write to Chris Thyer and thank him for preserving this for a vote
on Monday--he stood up and preserved the ability to bring it back for a
vote, so a special note of thanks for him doing that will be extremely
nice and extremely helpful to praise him in doing that.

Also, there were so many that didn't vote, so focus on them by writing
to them as well with a note that you hope that they will vote in favor
of it when it comes back for a vote on Monday and that you will be
pleased to speak to them about Paine and answer any questions they
would have and give your phone number:

Abernathy
Adcock
Allen
Anderson
Berry
Bradford
Burris
Cornwell
Cowling
Creekmore
Davis
Dobbins
Dunn
Evans, David
Evans, Lenville
George
Green
Kenney
King
Lowery
Maloch
Martin
Medley
Norton
Prater
Rogers
Sample
Schulte
Sullivan
Webb
Wood
Woods

2. Send Thank yous for their vote in support of HB1317
Baker
Blount
Bond
Breedlove
Jerry Brown
Burkes
Cash
Cheatham
Chesterfield
Cook
Davenport
Edwards
Garner
Greenberg
Harrelson
Hawkins
House
Hoyt
Hutchinson
Hyde
Jeffrey
David Johnson
Janet Johnson
Key
Lamoureux
Lewellen
Lovell
Moore
Overbey
Pate
Patterson
Pennartz
Pickett
Powers
Pyle
Rainey
Reep
Reynolds
Roebuck
Saunders
Shelby
Sumpter
Wagner
Walters
Wills

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Somebody sure needs to point out it wasn't the church (of whatever sect) that wrote the pamphletes turning "sunshine patriots" into a group able to win freedom from colonial masters. Jefferson also wrote "anti-bible" stuff - and the declaration of independence. Without Payne, we'd probably still be part of the British Empire - and it would still be empire, because it was our example that moved Canada, Australia, and New Zealand from colony to commonwealth to independent nation (sharing a nominal monarch).

[Hogeye]

Tom Paine was a great man. He was a major educator about individual rights. He was a minarchist, bordering on anarchist. Here's one of my favorite Paine quotes, from "Rights of Man."

Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.
...
Government is no farther necessary than to supply the few cases to which society and civilisation are not conveniently competent; and instances are not wanting to show, that everything which government can usefully add thereto, has been performed by the common consent of society, without government.

I'm a little surprised that hardcore statists like Dick Bennet, who never net a government program he didn't like, seem to approve of Paine, the quintessential minarchist. Note, Barbara, that like me, Paine considers law, property, defense of rights, and so on as preceeding the State. All too many today can't get their heads out of the statist box, and can't conceive of these except under State domination.

[Dardedar]

Tom Paine was a... minarchist, bordering on anarchist. ...Paine, the quintessential minarchist.

DAR
I can't imagine Paine having the slightest interest in anarchy. If he ever had a nice word to say about it specifically, you could quote it.

Bits from wiki:

"Paine was an early advocate of republicanism and liberalism. He dismissed monarchy, and viewed all government as, at best, a necessary evil. He opposed slavery and was amongst the earliest proponents of universal, free public education, a guaranteed minimum income, and many other ideas considered radical at the time."

"Paine published his last great pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, in the winter of 1795-96. It further developed ideas proposed in the Rights of Man concerning the way in which the institution of land ownership separated the great majority of persons from their rightful natural inheritance and their means of independent survival. Paine's proposal is now deemed a form of Basic Income Guarantee. The Social Security Administration of the United States recognizes Agrarian Justice as the first American proposal for an old-age pension. In Agrarian Justice Paine writes:

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity… [Government must] create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property; And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age."

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Tribal, clan, and other unofficial forms of government preceeded official forms of government (just like hunter-gatherer societies preceeded agriarian ones). Payne was acknowledging that, while supporting the Republican form of official government.

[Hogeye]

I can't imagine Paine having the slightest interest in anarchy. If he ever had a nice word to say about it specifically, you could quote it.

I already have, but it bears repeating. Paine, being a minarchist, had many criticisms of government qua institution. Some of them:

• Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished.

• In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.

• Government is no farther necessary than to supply the few cases to which society and civilisation are not conveniently competent; and instances are not wanting to show, that everything which government can usefully add thereto, has been performed by the common consent of society, without government.

• Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil...

• Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security.

[Note that Paine is using "government" in the broad non-statist sense here - the sense compatable with anarchism.]

There's another place in his writing where he brags about how America had no formal government during the revolutionary years, and did just fine.

But Paine was a minarchist - he was inconsistent in his opposition to statism. He tried to get government funding for a bridge design he made, and (perhaps understandably for his time) he was overly optimistic about a republic. Today we know that that form of statism has many/most of the same problems as the monarchism Paine despised.

As I said, it's surprising that government is the solution to 'most everything types would like government as necessary evil Paine.

[Dardedar]

I'm a little surprised that hardcore statists like Dick Bennet, who never net a government program he didn't like,...

DAR
Of course that's false. He is very much opposed to the biggest government program of all: The military industrial complex.

But Paine was a minarchist

DAR
Curious how some one can say that government is necessary, and then be considered some flavor of mini-anarchist. Course, I have heard Christians say that Jefferson was a fundmentalist Christian too. People often try to put the founders in their camp. Oh well.

D.