The Dawn of the New Age"If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expence of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try which can sink each other fastester. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infintely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. But this, though it best answers the purpose of Nations, does not that of Court Governments, whose habited policy is pretence for taxation, places, and offices." - Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Thomas Paine sensed the need for someone to defend social uprisings like the French Revolution...this is how Rights of Man was born. The book was revolutionary at the time speaking of the right of the people to revolt if the government doesn't meet their demands. As important, the book dismisses the political Adam and the notion of ruling by heredity.