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John Armor died in August of 2010 according to your link. I met him on Sept 11, 2009 in the motel with so many other FReepers. Having ordered a copy of his edition of Common Sense, I received a note from his friend after his death. I was certain it would have been in 2010, but I’d have guessed earlier in the year. Whenever, it was too soon.

The opening paragraphs of Common Sense is to me a very powerful attack on the pretensions of socialists:

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

If I were the Speaker of the House, I would install a rule against the use of the word “society” when the meaning of the speaker is actually nothing other than “government.” Republicans would shape up, and Grubercrats would be tongue-tied, trying to speak socialism while trying to sound like they are pro-freedom. The Grubercrats also abuse the word “public” to exactly the same effect.

. . . and they accuse us of using “code words."