A Fable of Liberty Lost and Found: Inspired by Thomas Paine's Common Sense

A Fable of Liberty Lost and Found is a short parable offering insights for the hard choices our world faces today. The satiric cautionary tale tells what happens in any society when people lose a sense of our natural oneness.
The allegory is inspired by the fable that opens Thomas's Paine's Common Sense. To show the design and purpose of government, Paine imagines a remote community trying to govern itself, showing how the different forms of government arise. His pivotal writings convinced most 18th century colonial Americans to reject monarchy and establish the world's first modern democracy.
Today in the early 21st century, award-winning author and seasoned journalist Judah Freed builds on Paine's fable to warn about our nations' corrupt slide into tyranny and collapse. The ending offers hope for reviving democracy. The author's imagination and satire are informed by recent trends and events in the USA and around the world.
Synopsis: The short story is told in two parts with 10 sections. Part I tells a tale of conscious people who land on a remote island to escape dystopia. Over the generations, their society goes from utopian anarchy to open democracy, then they choose a republic, which gets corrupted, leading to tyranny and collapse. Part II offers an optimistic alternative ending, a vision of the people instead emerging into an enlightened society. We need all the hope we can get these days. (Reading time: 30 minutes.)
Book Backstory: This two-part work of fiction originated as the preamble and epilogue that frame Judah' Freed's nonfiction book, Making Global Sense: Grounded hope for democracy and the earth inspired by Thomas Paine's Common Sense. The parable brackets Freed's reasoning on the power of a billion globally aware people to build our world anew. Because the story stands up on its own, here's the full tale told in a single volume for readers who care about our future on earth.