It Would Seem That In Paine's View

Above All Things The Mass-mind Is Most Bitterly Resentful Of Superiority. It Will Not Tolerate The Thought Of An Elite; And Under A Political System Of Universal Suffrage, The Mass-mind Is Enabled To Make Its Antipathies Prevail.

The State, On The Other Hand, Both In Its Genesis And By Its Primary Intention, Is Purely Anti-social. It Is Not Based On The Idea Of Natural Rights, But On The Idea That The Individual Has No Rights Except Those That The State May Provisionally Grant Him. It Has Always Made Justice Costly And Difficult Of Access, And Has Invariably Held Itself Above Justice And Common Morality Whenever It Could Advantage Itself By So Doing.

It Is Unfortunately None Too Well Understood That, Just As The State Has No Money Of Its Own, So It Has No Power Of Its Own. All The Power It Has Is What Society Gives It, Plus What It Confiscates From Time To Time On One Pretext Or Another, There Is No Other Source From Which State Power Can Be Drawn. Therefore Every Assumption Of State Power, Whether By Gift Or Seizure Leaves Society With So Much Less Power; There Is Never, Nor Can Be, Any Strengthening Of State Power Without A Corresponding And Roughly Equivalent Depletion Of Social Power.

Perhaps One Reason For The Falling-off Of Belief In A Continuance Of Conscious Existence Is To Be Found In The Quality Of Life That Most Of Us Lead. There Is Not Much In It With Which, In Any Kind Of Reason, One Can Associate The Idea Of Immortality.

As Far As I Know, I Have No Pride Of Opinion.