August Kiefer, an 18-year-old Denver resident, raises an American flag while standing with other demonstrators during an anti-ICE protest at the Colorado Capitol on June 10. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline)
Thomas Paine in “Common Sense,” which helped persuade colonists to fight for independence from the British crown, faulted King George III for qualities that are all too familiar to Americans today.
The king had been “an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power,” Paine wrote, adding that the king was willing to accept no laws “but such as suit his purpose.”…