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Thursday, June 29, 2006
I just wanted to talk about Jefferson!
Geeze, I go away for 12 hours and you guys go ten more rounds before I even get a chance to check in. I'm not going to wade into all the issues raised in the comments to the posts below because I really did just want to talk about Thomas Jefferson. But I will say first off to new commenter David that I apologize for the inappropriate insult. It wasn't my comment or post but as a semi- proprietor of this blog I didn't care for it either. But hey, it just kind of comes with the medium. That said, I actually found Hammer's parody pretty darn funny. Which, as folks who know me will realize, pains me to admit. I want to be the funny one here. And on that note, yes my second comment was in jest. Except the bit about Dick Cheany being an evil homicidal nutjob.
Now about TJ. As I said in my original comment it is a bit of a fools errand to take an 18th century mind, even a brilliant one like Jefferson, and try to shoehorn it into 21st century debates. There has just been too much change in the world to think the old statements can be applied directly. Does anyone think that Washington's counsel against "entangling alliances" means he would have refused to aid England in WWII or join NATO afterwards? I think the same holds true about states' rights. Since the founders' time we have had a civil war and a handful of constitutional amendments on the issue.
That's not to say it wouldn't inform general ideas about where different policies should be made but to claim TJ would be a Republican because today's Republican party trumpets states' rights is ridiculous. Not least because the Rs don't seem in favor of giving power to the states on issues like assisted suicide, gay rights, medical marijuana or a whole host of other topics. Mostly "states rights" for the Rs is a vestige of their opposition to civil rights in the 60s and a convenient phrase to hide behind when it suits their political ends. (And David, I can't believe you would bring up Republicans and race the week after the house refused to extend the Voting Rights Act. And to claim that R were more supportive than Ds of the Civil Rights Act is an old slight of hand argument that is either made from ignorance or deception. Yes, a lot of Democrats opposed the Act, but of course most of them ending up leaving the party to become Republicans because of it. See: Thurmond, Strom; Nixon's Southern Strategy; and Johnson:"We just lost the south for a generation.")
And if you really want to try to claim the man for the Rs because he's for "limited government" how do you think he would come down on the government telling someone whether they can have an abortion, or take drugs, or marry the person of their choice? Can you really picture Jefferson as a prolifer? (And don't even think about opening the miscegenation can of worms!) How do you think he would feel about minimum wage laws? I'm not doing a research paper here but there is plenty out there to make one think he would be a bit of an economic populist, the yeoman farmer and all that.
I thought the newspaper comment made sense since this whole thread started over a post about the government vs the press. Tell me, where do you really think Jefferson would come down on that one? The Bush administration has been fond of equating dissent with treason, or at least with aiding the enemy. I guarantee you that Jefferson would say just the opposite, that dissent is patriotism.
TJ may have not been a fan of federal taxes but we have had 200+ years of changing economics and a constitutional amendment on that one as well. Oh, and how did Jefferson and the founders pay for government? Tariffs! Gosh, I guess TJ would be against free trade then, right? Well, who knows, and for some reason I kind of doubt it, but it does illustrate how silly it is try to apply 250 year old tax policy in your claim of partisan kinship.
I've said I think it's hard to extrapolate specific policies but I think you can look at general philosophies and find an area where Jefferson would run screaming from the modern Republican party: science and religion. Jefferson was above all else a man of reason, a product of the Enlightenment. And he was without a doubt NOT a Christian. Sure he talked about god a lot but if anything he was a Deist, or maybe a Unitarian. Again, an hour's worth of research (which I'm just not going to spend the time finding for anyone) will reveal a man to whom the Christian conservative movement would be anathema. Prayers at football gams, David? Hell, he refused to even proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving! And don't forget his religious views, god as a creator, were a good 75 years before Darwin. Give Jefferson, a scientist in addition to everything else, evolution to hang his tri-corner hat on and all bets are off if you ask me. If we're going to engage in speculation I'll go out on a limb and say Jefferson + evolution = atheist. Imagine how well that would go down with the Republican base.
The bottom line? Jefferson absolutely positively not a 21st century Republican.
14 Comments:
dang jambo, like you dont think republicans are douchebags.
By 
, at
1:45 PM
I don't care for the term myself, but I know you are repeating it only because it seems to bug people so much. And you are not nearly so equanimious (horse like) as Jambo.
It all depends on my mood. This week I am feeling fairly non-confrontational and it seemed like the guy was willing to engage in a fairly straight forward debate, which I kind of like.
Tho for years douchebag was one of my favorite insults. It's rude and demeaning without being vulgar. I think that's a good quality in an insult. Maybe I'll have to start using it again.
I took David on good faith for the first 1000 words or so. At some point, though, you can't have a discussion when one person does 90% of the talking and keeps shifting the subject.
If you let me get away with that, we'd end up talking about monkeys all the time.
Jambo,
This post on Jefferson looks very interesting.
I have only had time to skim it at this point, but rest assured I do agree with your conclusion as stated in the last paragraph.
I'll give the post the attention it deserves as soon as I have a bit more time. But until then, great blog post.
By , at
2:27 PM
get a room david and jambo, maybe you will make a non partisan baby
By , at
2:34 PM
And he [Jefferson] was without a doubt NOT a Christian.
There's some doubt. Excerpt of a letter from Jefferson to Charles Thomson:
"I, too, have made a wee little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."
By , at
4:35 PM
I know he wrote much about his support for the moral teachings of Jesus but he never accepted that he was divine. How's this quote?:
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythology."
It only took a minute or two to find that one and I know there are a dozen other just like it out there.
Now Tard Patch, if that's even your real name, I almost think you are trying to make trouble.
I think all "Jambo" can safely say is that TJ is not an Evaneligal Christian Republican, which remains the favorite target within which to lump all Republicans. Being a supporter of Christ's morals while questioning his divinity is a quite common stance for many people who would still consider themselves religious and certainly not necessarily atheists. Either way that doesn't make him more a Republican or more a Democrat, unless you play to the stereotype that all Republicans are God-fearing, creationist beleiving, bible beaters while Democrats are self-righteous thinkers who prefer the smell of their own farts over religion (South Park reference - no offense intented). Draw those lines if you want, but it does not seem very open minded or conducive to rational debate.
Personally, I think TJ would have moved back to Britian just for a chance to wear a wig again.
By , at
6:13 PM
I've said a couple times I think it is a bit silly to try to put TJ, or any of the founders for that matter, in a 21st century box. I won't say he couldn't be a Rockafeller Republican, or a Libertarian, or heck even a Green for that matter. But I have no doubt at all that he would be appalled by the fundamentalist anti-science types that have taken over the modern Republican party and I just don't see him in any way being particularly conservative. Maybe it's prejudice on my part but I can see him talking global warming with Al Gore a lot easier than I can see him clearing brush with W. For some reason I see him hanging with guys like Carl Sagan or I.M. Pei and the like. I don't know if either of them was/is a Democrat or not. Hell, after taking in the 200+ years he missed he might just chuck it all and end up like The Dude. He was after all known to answer the door at the white House in his bathrobe.
The TJ as atheist thing is just something that popped into my head as I was typing and I'll have to give it some more thought, tho I still, 4 hours on, think it's plausible.
Do you think we would ride a mountain bike with W and Lance Armstrong?
By , at
8:02 PM
Let me get this straight. Pragmatism only sounds good in theory? OK, of course I know what you mean, but that does sound kind of funny.
I think you're absolutely right about TJ's philosophy and the LA purchase is the perfect example. He couldn't find the constitutional authority that allows the president to buy the land but knew it was in the nation's best interest to do so. But I don't know that breaking from your philosophy for the good of the country is such a slippery slope. Or if it is that it's a bad thing.
If people are honest, a big if, that should be what everyone's goal is, to maximize the nation's welfare. Some people believe that adherence to a particular ideology is the way to do that and sometimes that ideology differs from mine. Those are the people I can have a discussion with, the ones who are honestly trying to make the nation and the world a better place. But the ones wedded to an ideology, no matter where it leads the country? Not so much.
Without federal subsidies, we wouldn't have regional rail service.
Or interstate highways. Or airlines.
Oh, well, maybe the Mennonites will pick up hitchers.
