Isn’t it time for a little common sense about our society and government?

In this tumultuous age of Tea Parties, Glenn Beck, Rahm Emanuel and White House czars, perhaps it behooves us to pause and contemplate the fundamentals and what can be done to improve our lot in life.

Some writers these days are confusing society with government, leaving little or no distinction between them. They are not only different, but have different origins.

Society exists for our wants. Government to abate our wickedness. The former promotes our happiness by uniting our affections. The latter restrains our vices.

Society is a blessing.

Government, at best, is a necessary evil. In the worst case, government is intolerable.

But we find it necessary to surrender part of our property so we can obtain protection for the rest of it. Security is the true design and objective of government, so it follows that we would choose the least expensive form with the greatest benefits.

If we want to change the government there are means to determine the fate of America. By the legal voice of the people in Congress, by a military power, or by a mob. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line. Let the names of Democrat and Republican be extinct. Instead, let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind and a free and independent United States of America.

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I went out this morning to breathe the air around Tom Paine. From the second paragraph, with considerable editing and a bit of modern rephrasing, those are words from the beginning and ending of "Common Sense." Published anonymously in January 1776. It sold 500,000 copies in America and Europe.

Did it sound at all familiar? No?