The rights stuff

More on that last point, a lovely quotation from Tom Paine.

Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that [the right to choose a government] exists in the nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists anywhere; and, what is still more strange and marvellous, he says: “that the people of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes.” That men should take up arms and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke.

And of course, of Mr Leigh.