DDH – Common Sense, Uncommon Courage

What would make a ragtag collection of colonies declare war on the most powerful empire on earth?

In this week’s third hour of Bill Mick Live, Dave Bowman brought the Liberty 250 series blazing into the winter of 1775 with a gut-punch of reality and one unshakable idea. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” didn’t just change opinions. It ignited a revolution.

As the hour unfolds, Dave walks listeners through the volatile final months of 1775. Muskets were firing. Cities were burning. The King of England had officially labeled the American colonies as being in open rebellion. Yet even with redcoats threatening from every direction, many colonists still hoped for reconciliation. They didn’t yet see themselves as Americans. That would change with the flick of a quill.

With vivid storytelling, Dave relives the Burning of Falmouth, a terrorist-level attack by the British Navy on a civilian port, now known as Portland, Maine. Intended to break the American will, the bombing instead pushed Congress to form the United States Navy. It was a declaration in everything but name. The war had begun. But the soul of the rebellion still needed words.

Enter Paine.

With a voice soaked in plainspoken urgency, Dave outlines how Paine’s 47-page pamphlet laid bare the absurdity of hereditary monarchy and the cruelty of continued loyalty to a crown that burned its own subjects. “There is something absurd,” Paine wrote, “in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” The line hits just as hard now as it did in 1776.

Listeners get a taste of the fire in Paine’s prose. Lines like “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” and “The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.” These weren’t polite political arguments. They were radical calls to build a new civilization, one free of kings, superstition, and inherited power.

This episode reminds us that “Common Sense” wasn’t just a pamphlet. It was a match. Washington read it. Soldiers read it aloud by campfire. Farmers, merchants, and ministers passed it from hand to hand like a gospel for liberty.

If you’ve forgotten why the Revolution mattered, or how close we came to missing the moment, this hour is your wake-up call.

Give it a listen. It’s common sense.