Thomas Paine

Paine’s response to Burke’s rights of man seems to have some valid points. One point that I liked was when he talked about the rights of men pass when those men pass. The men of the present should not be concerned with the problems of the past and should try to focus on problems today. “When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its Government shall be organized, or how administered” (65). Another thing that seems to make sense is when he states that throughout the history of creation, men have been made equal, equal in all ways “with equal natural rights…and consequently every child born into the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God” (69). Whether if be from a religious stand point, men are created equal to each others and there is no one supreme race or a better race; all races are created equal and should be treated as equals. The only difference that God has made is the distinction between man and woman. There is no races differences, or between social classes. Those differences are made from the ideas of man and not from God. That seems to be one main point in the doctrine of equal rights, rights of humans are made by humans and therefore are not the true ideas of equality. What a person must understand is that there is a difference between the idea created by man and one that is necessary in the preservation of man. The rights that help preserve them are those which help men improve on their way of life and others as well. When there are rules impeding us of these rights, it seems that these rights are ones that do not make for an equal world.