The fundamental principle of a free government
is the equal representation of a free people
– Mercy Otis Warren

INDIVIDUALS need a system of moral rules to govern their lives responsibly. For governments, such rules are called constitutions. Thomas Paine wrote,

“I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz, that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disord-ered, and the easier repaired when disordered.”

In this way Paine launched his discussion of the English constitutional monarchy in 1776. I’ll paraphrase him in this chapter to speak about the constitutional republic in the United States today. We’ll apply Paine’s insights to other nations in the next chapter. The principles of national government equally apply to self government, and we’ll tie these together throughout the book.

The U.S. Constitution—while inspired by Athenian democracy, the Roman republic and the Iroquois confederacy—primarily was modeled after the English Constitution. Both are noble documents, given the dark and slavish times when they arose. In a world ruled by absolute kings, the British and American constitutional democracies appeared on earth like a glorious divine rescue from despotism.

“But that it [the Constitution] is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.”

The British and American social contracts are the flawed products of political compromise deals. As a result, each system of government is so exceedingly complex that the people

“may suffer [abuses] for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some will say in one [part] and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.”

If the prescription is public safety, Paine wrote, the only means for a government to guarantee total security is to turn totalitarian.

“Absolute governments (though the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.”

A solution is self evident. First, remove the master from authority. Since absolutist leaders rely on cult psychology to retain power, the second step is helping the True Believers give up groupthink. In time, those programmed to obey learn to trust their own wisdom.

Liberty is not the tradition in every land. Where representative or republican democracy has become a habitual way of life, the ongoing personal growth needed for genuine democracy is difficult. It’s hard to release a long-standing, comfortable prejudice for wanting leaders to control our lives. Responsible self rule frightens most of us.

Our imagined state is now two steps removed from self rule. The people have grown reliant on government for choices they once made themselves, like when to plant a field and how to price the grain. Life in a republic diverts people from recalling life in a direct democracy. Soon their memories of living without any government vanish.

In time, even the basic tasks of a proxy democracy in the republic seem alien and futile. If people believe money buys the ballot box, that their votes do not count, they stop voting. People swallow bland public policy pabulum because they feel powerless. They lose hope. As apathy spreads, power shifts even further to the leaders.

Without deep feelings of community to sustain the social contract, people forget about self control or self realization. They indulge their lowest appetites. The people turn numb to suffering in themselves and others. They forget about compassion and mercy.

As the government loses accountability, access to leaders is tightly controlled. Those few people who bother to complain or protest are punished. When free speech dies, the social contract between voters and leaders fails. The bonds of community finally snap.

A communication breakdown between government and the people breeds revolt. Chaos ensues as communication failures multiply. With a promise to restore law and order, a charismatic leader arises to be a king. The people give up their civil liberties for the sake of security. Soon they forget the meaning of “freedom.” They are willing slaves who cannot be free because they do not know they have a choice.

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PAINE’S parable shows how any “nation state” can migrate from individual self rule to a direct democracy to a representative republic and then slide into tyranny. The foothold of freedom stands forever on a slippery slope. As his words prove, Thomas Paine understood and championed the value of personal democracy.

“Here then is the origin and rise of government, namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of [individual] moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz,* freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.”

* From the Latin videlicit, one may see. In the 18th century, viz meant “namely.”

IMPERMANENCE might be the one permanent truth in our universe. The settlers’ initial struggles in our isolated community united them in common cause, yet in that first generation or another, human frailties and vices surface, such as robbery, rape or murder. Seeing others sin, the resolve for self control evaporates. As a distrust spreads, wrote Paine, the settlers discover the necessity of

“establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.”

The settlers decide they need a government to rule them because they cannot or will not rule themselves without a government.

“Some convenient tree will afford them a State House. Under its branches the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters…. In this first parliament every [hu]man, by natural right will have a seat.”

Thus, the people form a “direct” or genuine democracy.

Most likely, the first laws will carry the muted titles of Guidelines. Regulations will follow. The early laws may be enforced by a penalty no more severe than social disdain—the old cold shoulder.

As the population grows, community concerns increase. But some members now live too far away to attend all meetings at the Council Tree. Personal inconvenience creates a communication barrier—the first block to all of the people participating in their democracy.

When meetings grow too unwieldy, people discover the necessity of agreeing to leave the job of lawmaking to a few wise heads, chosen by the community. Power shifts from the people to their leaders.

The new assembly of delegates has the same concerns and interests as the people electing them. These representatives vote the same way as the whole body would act if they all were present. Under this new social contract, the people form a representative democracy. To use the correct term, they form a simple republic.

With the population growing, new districts need to be represented. The legislature adds seats. Each district elects its representatives, who vote as the majority in the district would vote if they all were present. In this way, any republic may prosper honorably in the land.

To stop the representatives from forming any interest groups apart from the common electorate, Paine wrote,

“prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often; those elected may by that means return and mix again with the general body of electors every few months; their fidelity to the [voting] public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves.”

Paine was alluding to corporal punishment. He meant that corrupt officials give their foes a reason to beat them at the polls.

Lively, open speech between the electors and elected, Paine knew, helps representatives stay connected with all parts of the community being represented. The electors and elected, therefore,

“mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of [a] king) depends the strength of government, and the happiness of the governed.”

WE SUFFER in many lands on earth from the actions of our own governments. Our troubles look worse in our eyes when we see how we supplied the means of our suffering by consenting to be ruled by these bad governments. As Thomas Paine wrote,

“Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence. The palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, we would need no other lawgiver.”

Everyone heeding the universal still small voice of God within us would render all governments obsolete. Tyranny, therefore, would be pointless. Given our fears of anarchy, however, we create government by the same prudent reasoning that advises us, when faced by two evils, to choose the least evil.

One of Paine’s earliest tasks in Common Sense was explaining the nature of government. As a progressive libertarian, he believed that protecting us from force and fraud is the first purpose of government, but leaders must not use force or fraud to stay in power. Because we choose external government over internal self rule, we surrender part of our property and privacy, such as taxes and airport searches, so the state has the means to protect our possessions and our lives.

Paine said the best form of government is the one most likely to secure our freedom at the least expense.

To explain the origin of government, Paine offered a parable:

“Let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth…. They will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought.”

Human beings are social animals innately unfit for eternal solitude. Since thousands of urges excite each person, and since people cannot satisfy all desires by themselves, the colonists soon feel bound to seek help and relief from one another. Self sufficiency is valued, yet talents are most easily noticed through service to neighbors. Adversity forges common bonds as feelings of unity arise among the settlers.

Driven by social necessity, the emigrants form a loose community. Rights and duties are spread fairly among everyone as relative equals. Whatever culture may emerge in that remote place, the blessings from mutual integrity make the limits of law and government unnecessary. The people don’t need a government, for they practice self rule. Their utopian anarchy lasts only as long as they behave themselves.

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Excerpted from GLOBAL SENSE: Awakening Your Personal Power for Democracy and World Peace (an update of Common Sense) by Judah Freed. (c) 2006 by Judah Freed.

MANY of us today think our leaders in the U.S. and in other lands have broken the social contract by waging corrupt wars, by revoking our civil liberties, by abetting environmental destruction in a heedless pursuit of profits. We contend that our governments are no longer morally legitimate. Yet we call for a peaceful regime change, for we know that the real revolution starts within ourselves.

Criticism of the government is not enough to cause social change. Without a realistic vision of a better world to inspire us with hope, we will not do the inner growth work that yields cultural shifts. This book is my contribution towards that empowering global vision. I advocate “mindful self rule” and “personal democracy.” What do I mean?

Mindful self rule is the fine art of making ethical or moral choices about how we want to live. For example, when I’ve chosen over the years to recover from addictions to tobacco and debting, that’s a form of mindful self rule. When I’ve chosen to sit beside a river to feel inner peace and commune with the God of my understanding, that’s a form of mindful self rule. When I’ve chosen in the privacy of my heart to honor my family, friends and neighbors as equal souls with free will, that’s definitely an act of mindful self rule. (NOTE: I have deliberately decided in this book not to hyphenate “self-rule” and related compound terms, so we’ll be more alert to the autonomy of the individual self.)

Personal democracy is the art of expressing mindful self rule in the world. If you seek a job in accord with your social or ecological values, that’s personal democracy. If you boycott products made with slave labor, that’s personal democracy. If you volunteer in a school or literacy center, that’s personal democracy. If you protest abuses of our human rights, that’s personal democracy. If you vote your conscience on election day, that’s definitely an act of personal democracy.

Inner self rule and outer personal democracy interact. In Taoism, the feminine yin energy stimulates masculine yang energy as yang stimulates yin, forming a dynamic loop. In the very same way, self rule stimulates personal democracy as personal democracy stimulates self rule.

What if our inner choices and outer actions are in conflict? Takeo Doi describes our struggles in The Anatomy of Self. Japanese culture, for example, marks a difference between outer face (omote) and inner truth (ura). Social standards and mores (tatemae) may disagree with our inner knowledge of what is natural and right (honne). Conflicts between the self and the society twist us into knots. A need to resolve the tension, I know from experience, makes us gullible to the appeals of shoguns, messiahs and other masters promising us the soft comfort of mindless obedience—the opposite of mindful self rule.

Practicing mindful self rule and personal democracy hinges upon understanding the nature and power of communication. We’ll see in Chapter 15 how we use communication to make sense of our lives and our world. We’ll learn how splitting our perceptions lets us filter out awareness of unpleasant truths about ourselves, such as how our self hate gets twisted into hatred toward others.

What matters here is knowing that we each form our personalities and societies through all the ways we interact daily. Changing how we communicate changes the world where we communicate. So, treating others with more love actually creates a more loving world.

On this planet where we each live and breathe and have our being, we each are a “co-creator.” What we do to others, we do to ourselves. We may admire the Golden Rule, but do we live accordingly?

Global interactivity means that each of us is globally powerful, perhaps infinitely powerful. Saying we are powerless is our excuse to avoid responsibility for using our global power wisely.

If love is the glue that holds life together, expanding our capacity for love expands global unity. Seeking inner peace helps create world peace. Liberating ourselves liberates the world. This is why Benjamin Franklin said, “Who is powerful? He that governs his passions.”

IN THIS opening chapter, I’ve laid a philosophical foundation for the update of Common Sense that follows. This was needed because schools rarely explain abstract ideals like “freedom” or “democracy.” We rarely hear that we can change the world by changing ourselves. So, what’s the plan from here?

In Part I, where Paine looked at the nature of civil government, we’ll apply his ideas to self rule and personal democracy.

In Part II, where Paine refuted monarchy and hereditary succession, we’ll challenge “male rule” and “authority addiction.”

In Part III, where Paine argued against serving a king, we’ll argue against enabling authority addiction in the world or in ourselves.

In Part IV, where Paine showed how to win national independence, we’ll see how to use our global interdependence to win world peace.

In other words, the first half of this book identifies our common problems, and the second half suggests practical solutions. If you stay with me on this journey, you will feel more empowered.

Our goal is self liberation. A free society follows.

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Excerpted from GLOBAL SENSE: Awakening Your Personal Power for Democracy and World Peace (an update of Common Sense) by Judah Freed. (c) 2006 by Judah Freed.

COMMON SENSE by Thomas Paine shifted public opinion in favor of declaring independence from Britain, in favor of a revolution. George Washington said the essay erased his lingering doubts about leading the rebel army. Why was Common Sense so powerful?

Paine distilled into common language the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century. Their views flowed from the Age of Reason in the 17th century, which arose from the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which sprang from the Renaissance in the 15th century, which revived Greek and Roman philosophy after a millennium of medieval darkness in Europe.

The invention of modern printing had upset the cultural applecart. Popular books on classical thought recalled Plato’s wholistic view of life and Aristotle’s deconstruction of reality into its tiniest classifiable parts. These books restored the use of reason based on the syllogism: If A = B, and if B = C, then A = C. Using logic, “freethinkers” and scientists like Benjamin Franklin applied René Descartes’ and Francis Bacon’s useful tool for critical thinking—The Scientific Method:

1. Create a working hypothesis or theory from all available facts.
2. Test the hypothesis fairly (tests must be repeatable by others).
3. Impartially and rigorously analyze the test findings.
4. Revise the hypothesis to fit the findings (return to Step 1).

Freethinkers read The Principia by Sir Isaac Newton, who saw an apple fall straight to earth (not on his head) and deduced gravitation. Newton supported Copernicus and Galileo, who said our planet goes around the sun. Man on earth was not the center of the universe, as the Church had taught. Reason was gaining power over religion just as the Magna Carta had given the law power over the king.

Such trends raised a vital question: Can we live without kings? Read the rest of this entry »