What opinion can we possibly form of you, but that you are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport even with your own character, and are to be held by nothing but the bayonet or the halter?
Paine expresses extreme contempt for Great Britain, viewing it as a morally bankrupt nation that only responds to force.
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As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods.
When men unite in agreeing that a thing is good, could it be obtained, such for instance as relief from a burden of taxes and the extinction of corruption, the object is more than half accomplished.
The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason, and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new world.
If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expense of building navies, filling them with men, and then…