Lewes Forum thread

Go on, tell 'em what you think

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Our proudest son
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On 12 Dec 2019 at 7:16pm Mark wrote:
Was just thinking whilst walking to polling station that Lewesians can feel proud and hold their heads high tonight. The ancient Greeks invented the idea of a democratic nation and then the notion disappeared for millennia until Tom Paine reintroduced it and explained in the Rights of Man that all citizens had the same stake in society. Kings and queens had the same stuff flowing through their veins and arteries as you and l. Is that idea gone now? Now that elections are all about fake news, spin and lying. A third era? Post-democratic government? The exit polls will be an indication.
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On 12 Dec 2019 at 7:41pm A Person wrote:
Tom Paine, yes: a revolutionary democratic thinker. (Also an outsider who would now be labelled a DFL although DFN would be more appropriate). Someone who, not content with fomenting revolution in our American colonies then set about doing the same in France. Stout fellow.

I'd add the Battle of Lewes to your list of milestones in the development of democracy, where the Barons prevailed and imposed the requirement that monarchs must govern together with a council. Now they weren't elected (and they were very much in it for their own gain) but it was a big step forward and is universally recognised as the forerunner of our parliament.

Lewes: an argumentative little town which punches way above its weight.
 
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On 13 Dec 2019 at 3:16pm Basil wrote:
And Tom Paine, of course, detested organised religion and would no doubt be accused of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism if he re-appeared today.

'I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church.'
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On 14 Dec 2019 at 9:47am A Person wrote:
No, why? Rejecting religious beliefs makes you an atheist, not a bigot. Believing that members of other groups are somehow inferior and treating them as "other" is what makes you a racist.


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