The human right to revolution
Thomas Paine argues against Burke on the issue of the French Revolution. Whereas Burke saw the failure of the revolution as a mark against the common man, Paine saw the Revolution as a philosophical victory. Instead of allowing a tyrannical form of government to exist, the French had successfully demonstrated that they were no longer subject to the despotic French government.
Paine was highly influenced by John Locke and other enlightenment thinkers. He believed that any man is given the unalienable right by nature to overthrow their government when the government failed to be for the benefit of the people. Locke didn't advocate for revolution in those days like Paine did in Rights of Man, but essentially, Paine's arguments are rooted in Locke or Rousseau.
Aristocracy vs. Democracy
Another major thematic feature of the work is Paine's treatment of aristocracy. In Edmund Burke's condemnation of the French Revolution, he argued that the ideal form of government is one in which the uneducated masses are not actually represented in the government, except by the few wealthy, fully educated aristocrats.
Paine's idea is more common to a contemporary political opinion, saying that people should never be governed by an aristocracy that doesn't have a vested interest in their health or well-being, and in fact, the French Revolution had been about exactly that—people starving in the streets while the aristocrats were well-fed.
The condemnation of hereditary government
By arguing that all humans are essentially equal when it comes to their rights as men (because those rights were given by nature itself, or by God, effectively), Paine condemns the caste system that Burke sees as valuable. Paine argues that there isn't some genetic predisposition to being a good ruler. Since each person is naturally equal, given the same rights, then it follows that each person is equally qualified to be a good or decent ruler, and in fact, when an aristocracy lives in privilege, that's what leads to despotism in the first place.
Violence as a necessary evil
Paine argues for the violent overthrowing of a tyrannical government. Whereas Burke saw the violence as obviously evil, Paine sees it as an imposition of justice, since the only thing that gives the government its power is the consent of the people. When the government fails to meet the needs of the people, it can often cause social instability that makes violence necessary.
When discussing the killing of the king, he argues that the king isn't really the object of the revolution, but rather the illegitimate office the king held over the people, so it is within the rights of man in that instance to kill a king who allowed the people to die.
