Well, they could always go to either Madison or Monroe's place, I forget which, which has had a big shake up when the historians tried to do something like that and were quashed by the money people.
Not surprising conservatives would reframe merely stating facts – Jefferson fathered children with an enslaved woman – as “propaganda.” It’s always, always projection. They are busy wielding their own propaganda, with GOP politicians claiming 10 to 13 year old girls can consent to sex, therefore are responsible for their “choices” and shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion, or that police are justified for pumping dozens of bullets into a Black man who was unarmed and fleeing.
So since they don’t care about facts or truth but only care about shaping a narrative, everything that doesn’t fit their narrative becomes de facto “propaganda.”
Yes, always shaping a narrative while also continuously working to discredit the whole idea of narrative. If one puts specific facts about slavery together to come to a conclusion that slavery was, you know, bad, then those facts are now in service to a narrative, and therefore suspect. If one puts specific facts about heat waves and wildfires together to come to a conclusion that the climate is changing, and not for the better, then those facts are being used to serve a narrative and can't be trusted.
So there’s Alito’s historic support. Women are literally men’s chattel, TJ never considered any abortions. If it’s good enough for Jefferson and Hemings, we’ll, case closed.
"Jefferson’s life story is full of thorny contradictions. The world’s foremost proponent of liberty, who wrote the immortal words, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' was nonetheless a committed slave owner until his death in 1826.
That has made him a prime target for the left. "
So by this implication, the Right is pro-slavery. (This has been, etc.)
Of course they are. I believe it's Missouri that is now both-siding the *Holocaust.* Saying slavery is A-OK is the logical conservative endpoint. They just haven't worked up the nerve, or sorted out the talking points, to go there yet.
Ohio is like so many states (Texas, Georgia, etc.). On the surface, looks solid red. But it's not really. It's just run by some huge loud mouthed assholes, who are held in place by gerrymandering and voter suppression.
That is exactly their plan. They need to say that actual slavery was not that bad, & that it actually had an end. That's so when any one of us finds ourselves entangled in the new forms of slavery coming soon to a labor market near you, you already know that it couldn't be that bad, right?
And another perfect circle Venn Diagram is the one comprising A) those telling us the Democrats are bad because they defended slavery and B) those telling us actual slavery wasn't all that bad.
Dollywood didn't actually go anywhere. We just turned Dolly into a pro-vax queer-friendly groomer and now they can't fap to her boobs anymore. It's an existential blow, like how we burned down Seattle and Portland.
Go visit, Roy — Monticello is well worth the trip. It is a beautiful and fascinating place, full of neat stuff. I was last there several years ago, and it was interesting to see how the narrative was changing. When I was a kid it was strictly a Great Man talk, e.g., "Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter so dinners with the Madisons wouldn't be interrupted by the *servants*." The integration (heh heh) of slavery into the story has made it much richer and more complex, and has greatly expanded the historicity of the place. Jefferson designed the house so kitchen, pantries and other working rooms were all on a basement level that could be kept hidden from visitors; now they've been restored and are part of the tour; as have outbuildings where various workshops were and gardens where food was grown. The restorations give a much clearer picture of how an 18th c. plantation actually worked, and how complex it was.
However, Jefferson descendants from the wrong side of the blanket are still kept out of the family cemetery.
It is worth the trip, yes. Been over 40 years since I was there (testing a prototype wheelchair – long story), but there are plenty reasons to linger over and take in...
I'd want now to inspect the workhouse wherein enslaved people were forced to make nails – a big moneymaker – that, according to at least one current historian, was a location of heinous, ongoing assaults. And I would hope to have a chance to see TJ's correspondence wherein he points out the economic imperative of dealing in the slaving trade, especially given his temporarily (read fairly ongoing) embarrassed economic status.
Those things were not part of the tour in the late 70's.
Ah jeez. Edited to add It is also time to point out who actually BUILT Monticello.
White people feeling "sad and demoralized" is the real Original Sin. Seems to me that you can still say the guy was smart and cosmopolitan and thought a lot of thoughts that he wrote down, and also acknowledge the people who made it possible for him to run around the world and think thoughts and write them down. They will concede he was "complex," but don't want you to know how.
It's like those claims that teaching about slavery and racism in school will "make white children feel bad about being white." I imagine that their ongoing project to eliminate all traces of human empathy from the population will serve to protect future generations of white children from this danger.
When I finally got educated about it I did not feel bad about MY skin color – I was ENRAGED by the knowledge that others with similar pigment had been lying systematically and officially for centuries.
Well, there are histories and then there are histories. Some honest, some not so, and some, like what's taught to the youth, like all fictions and fantasies.
As for Jefferson, what a rich subject for enlightenment on the founding of the nation up to its present state.
His life itself raises the question of what did the Founding Fathers mean in their rhetoric and how much was performative and bullshit? Was everything in the Constitution and Bill of Rights meant to be taken seriously or, again, performative? I mean, not just no direct election of POTUS but no uniform rules for elections of electors. And so on and so forth.
Then there's his love of the yeoman, the concept still at the heart of conservatism -- the fully self-sufficient man who has no need for government. Who is now being hammered into extinction by rapacious capitalism which to say by a powerful, unchecked right wind. Dunno how much this can be attributed to TJ but one can believe that he'd call for some watering the tree of liberty with the blood of capitalists. Or maybe not.
And his relationship with Hemmings. Of course, the dynamic was nothing new but a Founder who took full advantage of his position of power to put the woman in a position of zero agency. I mean, classic.
As for the shitheads and snowflakes upset over woeness at Monticello, well, I've zero respect for anyone with disrespect for the idea of facts; nothing wrong with a 360º picture of plantation life. And anyone sad over having the balloons of their fantasies popped by truths, well, as ever fuck their feelings.
Meanwhile...
Two things of interest from the Times:
Query: Might Pamela Paul b actually writing a humor column? I mean, this:
TBH, the Times frequently pisses me off but because of pieces like the second one there, can't really make me hate it. Comes close and then promotes something good.
You're a more dedicated reader than me. I did appreciate the second article, but having seen the headline I declined to waste my own personal brain (such as it is) on the first, unless I'd landed on the Onion site.
The Free State freak story is great. (I note the freak refers to his neighbors who undid his malign work as "woke.") If Paul's essay is a joke it's very "inside," as one would expect from the former Mrs. Bret Stephens.
TBH, when I read the Free State piece, I thought of you. Then again, the Free State couple are self-parodies so as grist for the mill, there's nothing there.
That said, it is or should be a lesson to us all. If you let them, they will, so step 1 is just not letting them. Which requires a little foreknowledge.
I accuse the Paul piece of being a joke hopefully. But I’m not betting that it is. And if it’s not, it’s got to be too frightening. Again, no credible argument for getting rid of Roberts. None of what’s happening is because he’s Chief Justice although he’s been involved in his share of abominable decisions. If he’s to go, then the rest of the papist-fascists and, of corse, the historically unfit, unqualified Thomas.
Meanwhile, just learned that post-Dobbs constitutional law professor it girl Kate Shaw is married to Chris Hayes: a hot couple in a way Mr. and Mrs. Bedbug never were and couldn’t have been.
No, that piece required a little reading. Today’s doesn’t require any past the headline if it’s not a humor piece because the thesis has zero credibility from any reality-based angle. Only worth reading past the headline if it’s a humor piece.
But, you know, tough to slag the Times given that New Hampshire piece and slapping it on the front page. Worst thing about that one is that it’s preempted Roy from writing anything quite like it.
As little reading as possible, in my case. I bailed as soon as I saw the phrase "Far Right and Far Left", taking it as a red, flashing "False Equivalencies Ahead" sign.
An awful piece, the worst combo: dumb, stupid, nasty. As this rate, she’ll manage to be too toxic for the Times. Probably needs to be medicated or maybe there was some contractual bullshit fir which giving her a column is the easy thing for the Times.
Yes, I wondered whether there was some divorce settlement assistance from employer to hack (Mr. Bedbug) but given the rumors I’d suspect that it’s a matter of just getting her out of the Book Review.
Hemmings, Hawings, Woke & Bad is NOT my new new LLP name, only because, irrespective of the potential marketing power of the brand, I'd just rather die.
I read Henry Wiencek's Master Of The Mountain and was convinced that Jefferson was some sort of sociopath. He flaunted his illegitimate children in front of his legitimate daughter and when she confronted him about it (several times) only smiled enigmatically. Rather than conceal his slave children as many planters did, he flaunted them, having one son who was his mirror, polarized image serve guests at dinner so he could watch their jaws drop in amazement. Jefferson came across as an extremely unpleasant piece of work, to say the least.
I think I remember a section in James Merril's The Changing Light at Sandover (1976–80) where the poet & his partner either converse with TJ directly (via Ouija board) or else a spirit who tells them about the role of redhead "geniuses" in history (I remember Moses & William Blake being two of the others).
The poem is pretty cluelessly privileged -- I can't think of the last time I ever heard another academic mention it. I keep bringing up though. Not sure why.
Hmm, d’ya think they noticed that Jefferson rewrote the Bible to suit his own version of Deism? Anyway, I’ve come to accept that the parts of the Constitution written to appease the slave owners are now the framework for the American fascism we’re living through. Jefferson isn’t solely to blame for that, of course, but I don’t imagine he made any effort to think through its implications for the future of the country he claimed he wanted to be an inspirational model of the Enlightenment for the rest of the world.
Wait til they find out that in that quote "I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" it was specifically organized religion which the word "tyranny" refers to.
Which wasn't your original argument. That was failed to consider slavery ever ending. Given that expansion of slavery was considered to be essential to keeping slavery going, ending the external slave trade was possibly thought to be tantamount to slavery ending some day
Or...an end run around the shipping industry middlemen. Selling people from one's own place within the states could (and of course did) supplant importation. Twas an important source of income for TJ (once he figured it out).
did Jefferson have anything to do with writing the Constitution? He was the Minister to France from 1785 to 1789, so wasn't even in the country at the time.
Maybe you can make bad things go away by putting your fingers in your ears and going 'La La LA- that never happened"
over and over. I wonder if they do that when the car breaks down or the toilet leaks or their kid gets cancer. Kinda like their organized religion.
Having grown up in and amongst these people here in rural Southwest Ohio ( like Alabama with shitty winters) I am pretty sure no small percentage of the conservative visitors to Monticello are gratified to find out PaPaw Liberty knew the white man's place in the social order
(You should have heard him just about midnight.) and founded this country to preserve that order .
Some years ago, a friend who is a retired professor of American history, visited Monticello, where they referred to the slaves as "servants". He loudly objected.
In that letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush which supplies the quote "I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" Jefferson opens with the fond wish that "the yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation; & I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man." I wonder why the Republicans don't ditch that Woke Anti-Slaver Lincoln and rename themselves "The Party of Jefferson."
This idea of cities as just inherently pestilential is interesting, like they couldn't imagine that large numbers of people could live together safely through the simple expedient of not shitting in your water supply.
They figured it out in London in 1854 during a cholera outbreak. Hard to blame TJ for not seeing that far ahead.
I do wish I could go back to 1776 to help out. I don't think I'd join the actual fighting though -- too risky! Instead I'd invent science fiction. Try to steer the new republic by writing cautionary dystopias about how it'll play out if we pass the 2nd Amendment, or let slavery just sort of sliiiiide by for the next 80 years. Best case scenario, I save the planet! Worst case, the planet still falls apart 250 years later but a lot of people on the internet say I was a genius.
I mean, they could make substantive arguments about what the democrats are doing and have done for Black Americans, or they can wave Lincoln around, and one of them fits on a bumper sticker.
Gotta remember, to these people? Black Americans *aren't* American. They consider us vermin. Untermenschen. (Cf. Obama's birth certificate, or the history of lynching.)
They allow certain ones to ally with them as long as they do as told (straw bosses or Congressional candidates) and disappear when ordered.
Well, they could always go to either Madison or Monroe's place, I forget which, which has had a big shake up when the historians tried to do something like that and were quashed by the money people.
Not surprising conservatives would reframe merely stating facts – Jefferson fathered children with an enslaved woman – as “propaganda.” It’s always, always projection. They are busy wielding their own propaganda, with GOP politicians claiming 10 to 13 year old girls can consent to sex, therefore are responsible for their “choices” and shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion, or that police are justified for pumping dozens of bullets into a Black man who was unarmed and fleeing.
So since they don’t care about facts or truth but only care about shaping a narrative, everything that doesn’t fit their narrative becomes de facto “propaganda.”
Yes, always shaping a narrative while also continuously working to discredit the whole idea of narrative. If one puts specific facts about slavery together to come to a conclusion that slavery was, you know, bad, then those facts are now in service to a narrative, and therefore suspect. If one puts specific facts about heat waves and wildfires together to come to a conclusion that the climate is changing, and not for the better, then those facts are being used to serve a narrative and can't be trusted.
"Our narratives are good, because they're not narratives. They're just the truth."
Whoa, now you’re doing CRT.
So there’s Alito’s historic support. Women are literally men’s chattel, TJ never considered any abortions. If it’s good enough for Jefferson and Hemings, we’ll, case closed.
"Jefferson’s life story is full of thorny contradictions. The world’s foremost proponent of liberty, who wrote the immortal words, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' was nonetheless a committed slave owner until his death in 1826.
That has made him a prime target for the left. "
So by this implication, the Right is pro-slavery. (This has been, etc.)
Of course they are. I believe it's Missouri that is now both-siding the *Holocaust.* Saying slavery is A-OK is the logical conservative endpoint. They just haven't worked up the nerve, or sorted out the talking points, to go there yet.
Currently, it's Ohio. But that's only because Missouri is slow to catch on.
Thanks. I guess part of my brain still can't believe what has happened in Ohio since 2012.
Ohio is like so many states (Texas, Georgia, etc.). On the surface, looks solid red. But it's not really. It's just run by some huge loud mouthed assholes, who are held in place by gerrymandering and voter suppression.
And the huge bloc of voters that choose not to vote.
Conservatives: Taxation is worse than slavery! Wokeism is worse than slavery! Equity is worse than slavery!
Also conservatives: Actual slavery wasn't all that bad!
This is precisely correct. And when they say that last line, I respond "Sounds good to me – you first buddy".
That is exactly their plan. They need to say that actual slavery was not that bad, & that it actually had an end. That's so when any one of us finds ourselves entangled in the new forms of slavery coming soon to a labor market near you, you already know that it couldn't be that bad, right?
Consider yourself lucky to be enslaved. The alternative, after all, is admitting that White men are not the highest form of life on the planet.
All Hail the White Mice!
No, they're way down the list, after women — and dogs. ; )
They got FREE FOOD!!!!
Groucho Marx to Mrs Claypool: “Everything about you reminds me of you. Except you. [aside] if she figures that out, she’s good.”
Exactly.
Not that there’s any good reason to expect better from them, like making sense.
And another perfect circle Venn Diagram is the one comprising A) those telling us the Democrats are bad because they defended slavery and B) those telling us actual slavery wasn't all that bad.
Wha...that ain't no diegram – that there's just a circle!
Nah, not pro-slavery, just anti-anti-slavery.
First they took away Dollywood & now Monticello — has anyone checked in on Colonial Williamsburg recently?
Wait – where did Dollywood go?!
Dabney Coleman is a great unsung hero of the feminist revolution. I'd give 9-to-5 odds that there is no greater scorn-catcher.
Dollywood didn't actually go anywhere. We just turned Dolly into a pro-vax queer-friendly groomer and now they can't fap to her boobs anymore. It's an existential blow, like how we burned down Seattle and Portland.
Oh. Right. I guess certain people were slow to catch on to Dolly, and having done, had sads.
The only burnt thing I experienced in the great-ish northwest was coffee...
Ah yes, I fondly remember brainwashing Dolly and torching Seattle, following Saul Alinsky's blueprint. Good times, good times....
Go visit, Roy — Monticello is well worth the trip. It is a beautiful and fascinating place, full of neat stuff. I was last there several years ago, and it was interesting to see how the narrative was changing. When I was a kid it was strictly a Great Man talk, e.g., "Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter so dinners with the Madisons wouldn't be interrupted by the *servants*." The integration (heh heh) of slavery into the story has made it much richer and more complex, and has greatly expanded the historicity of the place. Jefferson designed the house so kitchen, pantries and other working rooms were all on a basement level that could be kept hidden from visitors; now they've been restored and are part of the tour; as have outbuildings where various workshops were and gardens where food was grown. The restorations give a much clearer picture of how an 18th c. plantation actually worked, and how complex it was.
However, Jefferson descendants from the wrong side of the blanket are still kept out of the family cemetery.
It is worth the trip, yes. Been over 40 years since I was there (testing a prototype wheelchair – long story), but there are plenty reasons to linger over and take in...
I'd want now to inspect the workhouse wherein enslaved people were forced to make nails – a big moneymaker – that, according to at least one current historian, was a location of heinous, ongoing assaults. And I would hope to have a chance to see TJ's correspondence wherein he points out the economic imperative of dealing in the slaving trade, especially given his temporarily (read fairly ongoing) embarrassed economic status.
Those things were not part of the tour in the late 70's.
Ah jeez. Edited to add It is also time to point out who actually BUILT Monticello.
White people feeling "sad and demoralized" is the real Original Sin. Seems to me that you can still say the guy was smart and cosmopolitan and thought a lot of thoughts that he wrote down, and also acknowledge the people who made it possible for him to run around the world and think thoughts and write them down. They will concede he was "complex," but don't want you to know how.
It's like those claims that teaching about slavery and racism in school will "make white children feel bad about being white." I imagine that their ongoing project to eliminate all traces of human empathy from the population will serve to protect future generations of white children from this danger.
When I finally got educated about it I did not feel bad about MY skin color – I was ENRAGED by the knowledge that others with similar pigment had been lying systematically and officially for centuries.
Well, there are histories and then there are histories. Some honest, some not so, and some, like what's taught to the youth, like all fictions and fantasies.
As for Jefferson, what a rich subject for enlightenment on the founding of the nation up to its present state.
His life itself raises the question of what did the Founding Fathers mean in their rhetoric and how much was performative and bullshit? Was everything in the Constitution and Bill of Rights meant to be taken seriously or, again, performative? I mean, not just no direct election of POTUS but no uniform rules for elections of electors. And so on and so forth.
Then there's his love of the yeoman, the concept still at the heart of conservatism -- the fully self-sufficient man who has no need for government. Who is now being hammered into extinction by rapacious capitalism which to say by a powerful, unchecked right wind. Dunno how much this can be attributed to TJ but one can believe that he'd call for some watering the tree of liberty with the blood of capitalists. Or maybe not.
And his relationship with Hemmings. Of course, the dynamic was nothing new but a Founder who took full advantage of his position of power to put the woman in a position of zero agency. I mean, classic.
As for the shitheads and snowflakes upset over woeness at Monticello, well, I've zero respect for anyone with disrespect for the idea of facts; nothing wrong with a 360º picture of plantation life. And anyone sad over having the balloons of their fantasies popped by truths, well, as ever fuck their feelings.
Meanwhile...
Two things of interest from the Times:
Query: Might Pamela Paul b actually writing a humor column? I mean, this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/opinion/justice-john-roberts-supreme-court-retire.html
It's the kind of idea that cannot have a credible case supporting it. So: Parody or what?
And this page 1 story showing exactly how the nation collapses and how it's stopped:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/us/croydon-free-state-politics.html?searchResultPosition=1
TBH, the Times frequently pisses me off but because of pieces like the second one there, can't really make me hate it. Comes close and then promotes something good.
You're a more dedicated reader than me. I did appreciate the second article, but having seen the headline I declined to waste my own personal brain (such as it is) on the first, unless I'd landed on the Onion site.
Ditto on the Paul. If it's not some sort of parody or satire -- if it's serious -- there's nothing there worth reading.
And if it is a humor piece, she can't compete with Roy.
The Free State freak story is great. (I note the freak refers to his neighbors who undid his malign work as "woke.") If Paul's essay is a joke it's very "inside," as one would expect from the former Mrs. Bret Stephens.
TBH, when I read the Free State piece, I thought of you. Then again, the Free State couple are self-parodies so as grist for the mill, there's nothing there.
That said, it is or should be a lesson to us all. If you let them, they will, so step 1 is just not letting them. Which requires a little foreknowledge.
So the Times offers a wide range of opinions, from Bret Stephens to his ex-wife?
Not quite true but the joke works anyway. I presume they split over the bedbugs he (but not she) was bringing home from the office.
I accuse the Paul piece of being a joke hopefully. But I’m not betting that it is. And if it’s not, it’s got to be too frightening. Again, no credible argument for getting rid of Roberts. None of what’s happening is because he’s Chief Justice although he’s been involved in his share of abominable decisions. If he’s to go, then the rest of the papist-fascists and, of corse, the historically unfit, unqualified Thomas.
Meanwhile, just learned that post-Dobbs constitutional law professor it girl Kate Shaw is married to Chris Hayes: a hot couple in a way Mr. and Mrs. Bedbug never were and couldn’t have been.
Well, at least now we have an answer to the question, "How do you top 'Left and Right want to erase women'?", she's just an inexhaustible resource.
No, that piece required a little reading. Today’s doesn’t require any past the headline if it’s not a humor piece because the thesis has zero credibility from any reality-based angle. Only worth reading past the headline if it’s a humor piece.
But, you know, tough to slag the Times given that New Hampshire piece and slapping it on the front page. Worst thing about that one is that it’s preempted Roy from writing anything quite like it.
As little reading as possible, in my case. I bailed as soon as I saw the phrase "Far Right and Far Left", taking it as a red, flashing "False Equivalencies Ahead" sign.
An awful piece, the worst combo: dumb, stupid, nasty. As this rate, she’ll manage to be too toxic for the Times. Probably needs to be medicated or maybe there was some contractual bullshit fir which giving her a column is the easy thing for the Times.
I've heard of universities with spousal hire policies, but I've never heard of a newspaper with an ex-spousal hire policy.
Yes, I wondered whether there was some divorce settlement assistance from employer to hack (Mr. Bedbug) but given the rumors I’d suspect that it’s a matter of just getting her out of the Book Review.
"When you think about it . . ."
There's your problem, right there.
Hemmings, Hawings, Woke & Bad is NOT my new new LLP name, only because, irrespective of the potential marketing power of the brand, I'd just rather die.
I read Henry Wiencek's Master Of The Mountain and was convinced that Jefferson was some sort of sociopath. He flaunted his illegitimate children in front of his legitimate daughter and when she confronted him about it (several times) only smiled enigmatically. Rather than conceal his slave children as many planters did, he flaunted them, having one son who was his mirror, polarized image serve guests at dinner so he could watch their jaws drop in amazement. Jefferson came across as an extremely unpleasant piece of work, to say the least.
I think I remember a section in James Merril's The Changing Light at Sandover (1976–80) where the poet & his partner either converse with TJ directly (via Ouija board) or else a spirit who tells them about the role of redhead "geniuses" in history (I remember Moses & William Blake being two of the others).
The poem is pretty cluelessly privileged -- I can't think of the last time I ever heard another academic mention it. I keep bringing up though. Not sure why.
It's been a long time since I've read anything of Merrill's, and never that. But "cluelessly privileged" rings a major bell for me...
Solarized, I think?
(Periodic reminder that Sally Hemmings and Martha Jefferson, Thomas's deceased wife, were half-sisters.)
Hmm, d’ya think they noticed that Jefferson rewrote the Bible to suit his own version of Deism? Anyway, I’ve come to accept that the parts of the Constitution written to appease the slave owners are now the framework for the American fascism we’re living through. Jefferson isn’t solely to blame for that, of course, but I don’t imagine he made any effort to think through its implications for the future of the country he claimed he wanted to be an inspirational model of the Enlightenment for the rest of the world.
Wait til they find out that in that quote "I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" it was specifically organized religion which the word "tyranny" refers to.
Understandably failed to consider slavery ever ending.
Well they put in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, which ended the importation of "slaves" 20 years after the adoption of the Constitution
Not quite the same as ending it.
Which wasn't your original argument. That was failed to consider slavery ever ending. Given that expansion of slavery was considered to be essential to keeping slavery going, ending the external slave trade was possibly thought to be tantamount to slavery ending some day
Or...an end run around the shipping industry middlemen. Selling people from one's own place within the states could (and of course did) supplant importation. Twas an important source of income for TJ (once he figured it out).
Not if an owner bred slaves and sold/bought them. Possibly restrict the use of slaves but doubt that an import ban would have ended it.
did Jefferson have anything to do with writing the Constitution? He was the Minister to France from 1785 to 1789, so wasn't even in the country at the time.
Just terrific Roy.
Maybe you can make bad things go away by putting your fingers in your ears and going 'La La LA- that never happened"
over and over. I wonder if they do that when the car breaks down or the toilet leaks or their kid gets cancer. Kinda like their organized religion.
Having grown up in and amongst these people here in rural Southwest Ohio ( like Alabama with shitty winters) I am pretty sure no small percentage of the conservative visitors to Monticello are gratified to find out PaPaw Liberty knew the white man's place in the social order
(You should have heard him just about midnight.) and founded this country to preserve that order .
"rural Southwest Ohio (like Alabama with shitty winters)"
I've always called your neighboring state Indiana "Mississippi with snow".
"Mississippi with snow" [Wisconsin timidly raises hand]
(You should have heard him just about midnight.)
I read and reread this just to feel the continuous face-slap.
That, my friend, was not necessary.
But I am soberly, sadly glad you did it.
Damn.
So Jefferson was a tinker, eh? Who knew he had Roma blood!
And a tailor, a soldier and a spy! He was so complex!
Some years ago, a friend who is a retired professor of American history, visited Monticello, where they referred to the slaves as "servants". He loudly objected.
Oh my god.
In that letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush which supplies the quote "I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" Jefferson opens with the fond wish that "the yellow fever will discourage the growth of great cities in our nation; & I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man." I wonder why the Republicans don't ditch that Woke Anti-Slaver Lincoln and rename themselves "The Party of Jefferson."
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-32-02-0102
This idea of cities as just inherently pestilential is interesting, like they couldn't imagine that large numbers of people could live together safely through the simple expedient of not shitting in your water supply.
Much was not known in the late 18th Century
...nor yesterday
They figured it out in London in 1854 during a cholera outbreak. Hard to blame TJ for not seeing that far ahead.
I do wish I could go back to 1776 to help out. I don't think I'd join the actual fighting though -- too risky! Instead I'd invent science fiction. Try to steer the new republic by writing cautionary dystopias about how it'll play out if we pass the 2nd Amendment, or let slavery just sort of sliiiiide by for the next 80 years. Best case scenario, I save the planet! Worst case, the planet still falls apart 250 years later but a lot of people on the internet say I was a genius.
I think they think it gives libs the sads.
I mean, they could make substantive arguments about what the democrats are doing and have done for Black Americans, or they can wave Lincoln around, and one of them fits on a bumper sticker.
It occurs to me that I am framing the sins of democrats towards Black Americans as largely those of omission, and that's bullshit. Sorry.
"Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK!" almost fits on a bumpersticker, but it's not used much today because:
1) Hardly anyone remembers who Robert Byrd was
2) They're afraid KKK-supporting Republicans might defect to the Democrats if they heard this.
3) It implies that being a member of the KKK is a bad thing, and that's a forbidden thought in today's Republican party.
Gotta remember, to these people? Black Americans *aren't* American. They consider us vermin. Untermenschen. (Cf. Obama's birth certificate, or the history of lynching.)
They allow certain ones to ally with them as long as they do as told (straw bosses or Congressional candidates) and disappear when ordered.
My bumper sticker says "THIS BUMPER STICKER IS NOT LARGE ENOUGH FOR MY OPINIO"
Such merit as there was in that yeoman thing, it aged poorly to the extent that it still exists, it’s perverted AF, a zombie of a concept.
replace Lincoln why that would prove they were racist and they still probably need the cover
"what they had always believed about the Founders — that they were not only heroic but also godlike"
Jefferson was more of a Zeus than a Yahweh.