Thomas Paine quotes

1. 
   The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
2. Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
3. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
4. These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. 

On Being Gay

I wrote a piece called On Being Trans and posted it on July 23, 2023, not quite three years ago.  I’m writing this now because the politics of sexual identity has exploded out of control.

My first response is simple: the political issue of sexual identity is a Republican wedge issue, and wedge issues by definition are meant to distract from serious issues, like war and peace, the size of our National Debt, wealth inequality, etc.  Another reason this issue is not so important is the number of folks it affects.

Before I go on, let me be crystal clear how I feel/think about the wedge issue of trans rights.

Running for Office

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Thank you for showing up, it means more to me than you can imagine.

My name is Ben Paine, and I am running for Congress.  Not as a Democrat or a Republican or a Green or a Libertarian, because all those choices cost money that I don’t have and that I won’t beg for.  I have called myself a "flaming liberal" but my political positions on issues are informed by common sense, not by anyone's liberal platform.  I mean to win your trust and your vote, perhaps not your agreement on your favorite issue.  So, if I impress you and you want me to represent you in Congress, you will have to write me in.  Ben Paine is an easy name to remember.

Understanding the MAGA Voter

The default way that rank and file Democrats think of MAGA voters is that they are “stupid,” by which they mean low IQ.  While it is true that MAGA voters are typically poorly educated (Trump: “I love the poorly educated”) (2/3 of MAGA voters are NOT college educated, while half of Democratic voters are college educated), that does not make them stupid.  And they feel disrespected, not without cause, by their better educated sisters and brothers.  Intelligence may correlate with education but history is replete with brilliant minds of little formal education and foolish PhDs.  In addition, my own definition of stupidity is stupid by choice (“don’t bother me with facts, my mind is already made up”), not by low IQ.   And stupid by choice (let’s call it “operational stupidity”) is much more pernicious than stupid by low IQ.  The clinical word that describes this kind of lazy and stubborn stupidity is “confirmation bias” (“I will only listen to news sources that support my own beliefs”).  But confirmation bias is not exclusive to MAGA voters.  A MAGA voter listens to Truth Social and Fox News, but a liberal voter listens to MSNBC and late night talk TV.  Indeed, confirmation bias seems to be universal among humans.  So, maybe we are all kinda stupid, apparently no one likes admitting he was wrong!  Or likes to THINK, rather than react without thought!

The Vanity of Donald J. Trump

I performed a Google search for “list of all things named after Donald Trump.”   This is what came up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Donald_Trump.  Check out the web page, it’s fascinating.  It is 10 ½ scrolling pages long and it has a total count of 226 items, most (200?) of which were of his making.  This is the top level breakdown: Real estate, 49; Hotels, 24; Golf courses, 26; Casinos, 11; Streets/roads/government buildings, 20; Arts and media, 40; Food and drink, 7; Sales/retail/side ventures, 25; Transportation, 2; Species, 3; Tributes and homages, 12; Satirical and critical, 5; Political parties, 2.

Presenting ... Jesse Welles

Our Gangbusters’ Economy

Our GDP (Q3, 2025) stands at $31,095 billion, up from $19,958 billion (Q2, 2020), a total increase of 55.8%, for an annual increase of 8.8%; up from $1,089 billion (1970), for an annual increase of 6.4%.

The Dow Jones Industrials stands today (12/26/2025) at $48,176, up from $21,917 at 03/2020, a total increase of 120%, for an annual increase of 14.7%; up from $839 (1970), for an annual increase of 7.8%.

Antifa

The president of the United States – Donald John Trump – has issued an executive order designating “Antifa” as a terrorist organization.  Which means that anyone believed to BE Antifa has broken the law and can be arrested, tried and convicted for being a domestic terrorist.

But let’s look at this.

Censorship

This piece is the offspring of CBS cancelling Steven Colbert and ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel.

What is free speech, anyhow?  The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”  To make a point of it, the Constitution only forbids Congress (or the federal government) (the 14th Amendment added state governments to who was forbidden) from abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.  But freedom of speech only protects a speaker from government prosecution, it does NOT protect him from being fired by a private corporation, for any – or no – reason at all.

Ben Franklin speaks

On September 17, 1787, just before the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were asked to sign the document, Ben Franklin asked his fellow delegate from Pennsylvania, James Wilson, to read his considered closing remarks.