The Common Sense Series

"... It only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time."

— a bit of alarming prescience on the part of
Thomas Paine, in Common Sense (1776).

HOMAS PAINE has always been among my particular historical heroes, and, inspired in part by his example, I have begun a series of short essays on what Paine and his contemporaries would have called "divers matters":

Campaign Financing

"The love of money is the root of all evil" is not merely a cliché; it is a truism to be forever ....

Class, education and talent

Those who would deny to William Shakespeare the authorship of his works are exemplars of a pervasive and ....

Education and democracy

The right has recently effected a change in America's educational expectations.

We ask no longer: "Teach me all that I ....

The left and public perception

We must wake our fellow citizens to the subversion of our republic by George W. Bush and his plans for perpetual war. To do this, we must make ....

The "War on Drugs"

America's drug policy is riven by inconsistency and outright illogic.

The only legal justification ....

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