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Tom London

10 Apr, 11 tweets, 2 min read

Extracts from COMMON SENSE by Thomas Paine, 1776

Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance. No truly natural or religious reason can be assigned to distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS
1/?

[Monarchy] was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings,
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and the Christian World hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred Majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!
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To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity.
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One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an Ass for a Lion.
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This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin: whereas it is more than probable, that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the
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principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief among plunderers: and who by increasing in power & extending his depredations, overawed the defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions
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No man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original.
8/?

It certainly hath no divinity in it. However it is needless to spend much time exposing folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship Ass & Lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion
9/

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent. Selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large
10/?

Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
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More from @TomLondon6

Tom London

@TomLondon6

8 Apr

She Was Poor But She Was Honest by Anonymous

She was poor, but she was honest,
Victim of the squire's whim:
First he loved her, then he left her,
And she lost her honest name.

1/?

Then she ran away to London,
For to hide her grief and shame;
There she met another squire,
And she lost her name again.

See her riding in her carriage,
In the Park and all so gay:
All the nibs and nobby persons
Come to pass the time of day.

2/?

See the little old-world village
Where her aged parents live,
Drinking the champagne she sends them;
But they never can forgive.

In the rich man's arms she flutters,
Like a bird with broken wing:
First he loved her, then he left her,
And she hasn't got a ring.

3/?

Read 6 tweets

Tom London

@TomLondon6

22 Feb

"Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults"
- Thomas Szasz

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget"
- Thomas Szasz

If you talk to God, you are praying.
If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist.
If God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic.
- Thomas Szasz

Read 13 tweets

Tom London

@TomLondon6

5 Feb

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them”
- Karl Marx

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”
- Karl Marx

“If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist”
- Karl Marx

Read 6 tweets

Tom London

@TomLondon6

30 Jan

“The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848
Discuss.

“All that is solid melts into the air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face, with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind” - Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848

“Modern bourgeois society...that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like a sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells”
- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848

Read 14 tweets

Tom London

@TomLondon6

15 Jan

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
- William Blake

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way."
- William Blake

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
- William Blake

Read 6 tweets

Tom London

@TomLondon6

14 Jan

Here is William Blake, 200 years ago, prophetically describing the cruel manner in which Tories in 2021 advise Tories to treat the poor

'Compel the poor to live upon a crust of bread, by soft mild arts.
Smile when they frown, frown when they smile; and when a man looks pale
1/?

With labour and abstinence, say he looks healthy and happy;
And when his children sicken, let them die; there are enough
Born, even too many, and our earth will be overrun
Without these arts. If you would make the poor live with temper,
2/?

With pomp give every crust of bread you give; with gracious cunning
Magnify small gifts; reduce the man to want a gift, and then give with pomp.
Say he smiles if you hear him sigh. If pale, say he is ruddy.
Preach temperance: say he is overgorg'd and drowns his wit
3/4

Read 4 tweets

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