Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine

Glenn Beck is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Christmas Sweater and An Inconvenient Book. He is also the author of The Real America and publisher of Fusion magazine.

He is the host of a TV show on FoxNews and also the nationally syndicated radio show The Glenn Beck Program, which is the third most listened to talk show in America. He has now published Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine and it's the #1 bestselling book on many lists.

A Note from Glenn Beck about the book:

"Two hundred and thirty-five years ago, a British citizen with only a basic education set off to make a new life for himself in the British colonies. For two years he worked hard and watched as his fellow colonists grew tired of British oppression. Then he decided to act. Using his contacts in the publishing industry, Thomas Paine anonymously released a pamphlet that made the case for revolution using extraordinarily logical, straightforward, indisputable arguments.

He called it Common Sense.

Once Paine put his feelings into words, he realized that he wasn't alone. Only seven months passed between the release of Common Sense in January 1776 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Seven months -- a pinpoint in the history of time, but a moment that put the colonies on an irreversible track toward revolution and, ultimately, freedom.

Seven months that changed the world, forever.

Today we find ourselves back in 1776 -- but this time our path forward isn't so clear-cut. The abuses being perpetrated by our government are just as obvious now as they were then, but instead of rising up with a collective voice, we sit idly by and watch as our hard-won freedoms slowly dissolve into a puddle of apathy, political correctness, and outright corruption.

We feel helpless and alone as we hear confusing debates over obscure issues play out on the airwaves daily. But that's the lie. The infighting and the purposeful division promoted by our political parties is a simple ploy to keep us from uniting. After all, a citizenry that fights among itself over petty differences is too busy to notice the real cause of its problems.

As you read the details of the immense harm that both parties have done to our country, you might find yourself wondering what can be done to change our course. I lay out several options, but I want to be clear that none of them includes violence. Thomas Paine and his fellow revolutionaries shed their blood so that future generations would have access to weapons immeasurably stronger than muskets or bayonets: the weapons of democracy. Those are the tools that we will use to usher in a second American revolution, a revolution that won't be fought on battlefields, but in the hearts and minds of the three hundred million people lucky enough to call America home.

Over the years, many revolutionaries have used sharp tongues instead of sharp knives -- and the results have been extraordinary. Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance, once said to his supporters: "The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

It was inflammatory language, but he meant that it is much easier to simply die for a cause than it is to find inventive, effective means to fight for it. Violence is the easy way out -- but it's also a sure path to discrediting everything you stand for, something that those opposed to him found out the hard way.

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time," King said while accepting the Nobel Prize. He continued, "...[man must] overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence."