It would be better that nations should wi continue the pay of their soldiers during their lives, and give them their discharge and restore them to freedom and their friends, and cease recruiting, than retain such multitudes at the same expense, in a condition useless to society and to themselves.
In "Rights of Man," Paine proposes a radical reform of military service, suggesting lifetime pensions instead of perpetual enlistment.
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I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all.
But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.
Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.