...Is Common Sense Still Common?

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." -Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Introduction)

In light of the recent "tumult" of the OWS protests and the reproach of the American middle class of the greed, and oppressive denial thereof, of the top 1% (economically speaking), this opening to one of the founding seminal works of American political philosophy greatly parallels this modern politico-philosophical awakening. Although we can be certain Paine was speaking of the then revolutionary idea of American sovereignty, it's easy to take this opening to its metaphorical extreme to be understood as ANY "revolutionary" idea of sovereignty, and at that any sovereignty at all. This includes the individual as sovereign. Sovereign of the oppression of any power which deems itself above the will of the majority, especially in a "democratic" society (which, because of the voicelessness of the general election, does not exist in America; what we have in place, rather, is the Federalist Republic envisioned by Hamilton and Madison). But, the will of this majority effectively superseded by private interest, in public sight and with a scarily confident flaunting thereof, American citizens utilize this very same corrupted "democratic" system of election and lawmaking to deface the system they're attempting to ratify. They concede to work within the realm of peaceful assembly (which as Rowden has shown below is not quite as peaceful [in the sense of being angrily dispersed]) and peaceful protest or election of new, pre-determinedly Democratic or Republican, delegates to change an unmanageably corrupted system. This all makes me wish to ask "where has the common sense, so idyllically American, gone?" But this is ultimately the wrong question to ask. I should rather be tempted to say: "when will the common sense, converted, brought by time, finally get here?" Because we started out exactly how politicians wanted it to be, with private interest and greed at the forefront, we must MAKE the time of true democratic, revolutionary conversion come, not just play around with the system like cats at that old ball of yarn. When I say we, I mean the American citizenry, that very same citizenry supposedly founded on ultimate freedoms. But can we pull it off? Have we gone too far into corruption, so far as to desire our own subjugation? Or are we yet salvageable, through the individualization Deleuze and Guattari envisioned their "body without organs" to possess? Free from the fascistic machinations of everyday living, internal and external, and fighting for the sovereignty we once thought we deserved? The answer, as Paine himself seemed to know painfully clearly, only time will tell.