For almost two hundred years,
Democrats have celebrated Jefferson.
This began in the ‘30s when FDR adopted him as the symbol of his
administration. At a 1962 White House gathering
of 49 Nobel Prize recipients, President Kennedy noted that “never before had
such talent been assembled in one room, except, perhaps, when Thomas Jefferson
dined alone.”
Our political propagandists from
all sides have traditionally invoked the Founders as often as possible. And why not;
is there utterance from any more current President, Cabinet Secretary or
political observer that might compare? I
think not; aside from Lincoln, of
course.
The problem with what passes
as factual reporting today, is that there is no appetite – or perhaps resource –
for doing anything other than passing on the factually impaired statements of
our legislators and Presidents and their staff. Also offered are
endless uttterings from anybody on the internet so long as such might agree with
the biases of that particular “news” purveyor. Newspapers in my time once hated all
politicians and ridiculed their lies, half lies and cherry picking; no more.
“Think Tanks”, originally established to get the facts straight in order
to support good governance, are now too often just propaganda factories – and there
are so many, it is beyond the average individual to know which few might be
trusted.
I’m a big believer in
American Exceptionalism so I love to see the Founders and Federalist Papers invoked. But for the propagandists, invoking the
Founders has become problematic. First
of all we don’t seem to teach either American history or civics anymore so the
unwashed masses don’t know who these people are.
One of my Grandsons informed me that the Constitution is
out of date. I asked for the name of his
high school civics teacher so I could find him and beat the snot out of him.
By the way, American Exceptionalism has nothing to do
with Americans somehow being better than somebody else. This is a fact, even though the President and
former Constitutional Law teacher has told the world otherwise. Presidents should have better advisors or
stop straying from the teleprompter.
American Exceptionalism is about our singular system
of democracy and its elevation of individual liberty over the tyranny of the
majority.
Look it up.
Anyway besides general
ignorance, the propagandists find it awkward to be quoting the same guy as the
enemy. Cherry picking is the answer to
that of course, at least until your guy’s quotes are better for the other side.
Thus we can return to
Jefferson who is now widely quoted by the right. The rising Republican force used to be the
Bible-thumpers for whom Jefferson’s Deism was a problem. But now we have the Libertarians rising and
much of Jefferson feels contemporary.
Consider these quotes:
· When we get piled
upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
· The democracy
will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and
give to those who would not.
· It is incumbent
on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted
on would save one-half the wars of the world.
· I predict future
happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the
labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
· My reading of
history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
· No free man shall
ever be debarred the use of arms.
· The strongest
reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last
resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
· The tree of
liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and
tyrants.
· To compel a man
to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and
abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
· I believe banking
establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be
paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a
large scale.
[Note: I have
removed the quotation marks from these statements because while most are
confirmed accurate, many are also paraphrased.
A few are disputed. However in my
considered opinion, all of these statements accurately represent not only Jefferson’s
views but also a reasonable paraphrase of what he wrote. The links for all of this are listed below so
that everyone can decide for themselves.]
Cherry picked or not, these
thoughts – selected by Cal Thomas, I think – feel timely and they will be
uncomfortable for today’s progressives. We’ll
have to see if Jefferson remains respected by the activists or if he’s
summarily dumped along with the other contemporary human centrist detritus.
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