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Common Sense: Oh, if only it were... common.

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Every once in a while, a piece of literature does more than just inform or entertain...

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...it changes the world.

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Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species made people look at evolution in a different light.

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Mein Kampf certainly shook things up during Hitler's reign.

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And Everyone Poops changed the way toddlers look at defecation.

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Well, back in colonial America, it was Thomas Paine's

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Common Sense that turned everything on its head.

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So who was this Paine?

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Well, he was actually English born...

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...a son of a Quaker.

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Paine immigrated to America with the help of Benjamin Franklin,

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who was impressed by the man's ideas.

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Once he had set up shop overseas, Paine became a journalist and propagandist.

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Although he probably didn't put all of that on his business card.

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So Paine decided to write a pamphlet

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that would communicate his personal desire for American independence.

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As you might guess, the British weren't exactly banging down his door to grant him

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an ambassadorship. His pamphlet, Common Sense called for independence

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for the American colonists from the British Monarchy.

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It defined "Society" and "Government." Sure, someone could have picked up a dictionary...

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...but Paine had some different ideas about what they should mean.

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And spoke of the pursuit of life, liberty and property.

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Okay, so "property" would later get changed to "the pursuit of happiness," but hey

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-- printing companies charged by the word back then.

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Paine argued in his pamphlet that a Republican Democracy is the only suitable government.

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He laid into the British, insisting that they entrust far too much authority to their monarchs.

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And pointed out the unnatural distinction between a king and a subject...

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...because all men are created equal.

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The pamphlet closed with a call to action...

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...urging the colonists to declare their independence from British rule.

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In other words, ideas were one thing...

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...but if they really wanted to be large and in charge, the American people were going

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to have to stick their necks out a little.

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Paine was successful in getting his point across

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because of his use of a number of rhetorical techniques.

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To recap:

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Gave new meaning to certain terms and phrases we still use today.

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Overturned a common assumption -- that the distinction between "king" and "subject"

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is an unnatural one,

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And ended with a call to action. Pretty clever guy, huh?

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Anyway, Common Sense went over pretty well.

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In fact, it did exactly what Paine hoped it would do...

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...and was largely responsible for the Revolutionary War.

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This guy could have persuaded Cousin It to get a haircut.

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Once the war was over, Paine returned to England and tried to incite revolution in his native country.

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...this time with a book called Rights of Man.

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Jeez, what a rabble-rouser.

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Remind us not to invite him to any of our dinner parties.

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He was eventually kicked out of England for his radical ideas...

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...and later moved to France, where he wrote Age of Reason... while in prison.

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We have a feeling this guy's middle name might have actually been trouble.

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After trying to incite reform in England and France,

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Paine would finally die a penniless drunk in Manhattan.

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A sad finale for someone who contributed so much to American freedom...

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...but at least Captain Trouble stayed true to himself to the end.

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