Yeah, I really did mean that I think Jefferson was probably plastered when he wrote that incoherent, ranting, raving letter. It's far from the only example of one like that. Compared to some of his others which are not incoherent rants, there has to be something to explain the difference. I think the guy was probably at least a binge drinker if not a full blown alcoholic. It was hardly rare for that period.
I don't care for the phony, plaster St. Jefferson of a jillion hagiographic TV shows, movies and magazine articles and books. The guy was seriously not admirable in a large number of ways. I think we'd all be entirely better off if people didn't hold the "founders" in such awe that we aren't allowed to look critically at the governmental system they established, their thinking about it and their other legacies that have, as I noted the other day, permitted every evil allowed to go unpunished, committed by the government, the oligarchs, the plutocrats, the robber barons, etc. Looking at them realistically is a step that will have to be taken before we have any hope at all of changing things to prevent those evils. The religion of The Founders and "Original Intent" are mounted by those who want to continue and profit from those evils.
I don't apologize for pointing out that the guy was raving when he wrote a not inconsiderable number of his letters.
The Founding Fathers counted black people as 3/5 of a person and claimed the right of humans to own other humans, according to the color of their skin and their countries of origin. We are not now, nor were we ever an exceptional nation for our goodness, which I why I am not a patriot of the US but merely a citizen of the country, my country because I was born here, and I choose to live here. I remind myself often of where we came from, and I am puzzled why so many citizens venerate the Founding Fathers to the point of secular sainthood.
ReplyDeleteVery well put.
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