Yet another religious cult raided

[kandrathe]

While Paine is interesting as always, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to have picked out of that.

It is clear to me that Thomas Paine, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and many, many early colonists discussed and were greatly influenced by "Social Contract" philosophies promoted by John Locke, Francis Hutcheson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. So, the derivation of inalienable rights from "natural law", and the Lockean view that life, liberty, and property could not be surrendered in the social contract permeates the writings of that time and is alluded to in "Common Sense".

As in, "As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings."

The first part "exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature" bases the belief of equality and egalitarianism on "natural law".