Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?
Paine uses a rhetorical question in "Rights of Man" to highlight the failures of traditional governments, citing national debt and international conflict.
Share
More from Thomas Paine
I have no idea, considering the reforms which are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly offer, it is better than to wait for a…
I have carefully avoided to enlarge upon the subject, because I am inclined to believe that what is called the present ministry, wish to see contentions about religion kept up, to prevent the nation turning its attention to subjects of…
I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all.
As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods.