No way he simply knows about the Googles?

oh man, oh man, did I just have a great idea for a new smartphone app.

Well neither of us can read his mind, we can only look at the surrounding evidence.

How many slaves would somebody have to own and never let go free, before you would think that he didn't mean ALL men?

How racist would somebody have to be before you would think he didn't mean ALL men?

How many more quotes like these would somebody have to write before you would think he didn't mean ALL men?

It's well known he was racist and thought blacks weren't as intelligent. "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" It appears he meant all men were equal in the eyes of a Creator, which has nothing to do with intelligence. No one believes all men are created with equal intelligence.

Foldn,

Let me know if I have to restate my previous post. Because your response really doesn't follow. Reread it, and let me know.

You've again proven he was racist. Nobody disagrees. Neither does anyone believe all men were created with equal intelligence, physical attributes, imagination or tastes. Your posts don't disprove what he meant by that statement, as I clearly demonstrated. And nobody can seriously dispute his political efforts to limit slavery and his writings against it. There's no need for me to dig them back up for you. You're welcome to disagree with Lincoln.

Except that what you believe you clearly demonstrated, wasn't the actual point under contention.


And nobody is disputing that TJ helped to ban the importation of slaves or that he wrote that slavery was bad.

In your opinion, in regards to slavery, how much bigger of a hypocrite would TJ have to be before it's OK not to admire his anti-slavery body of work? Like how much more federal aid would he have had to send to Haitian slave holders to support their fight in favor of slavery before the scales tip out of his favor?


How many slaves would TJ have to hold and never set free before you'd think that maybe, just maybe he was being disingenuous when writing things like- "Nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition, not only of the trade, but of the condition of slavery; and certainly, nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object."?

I don't know what point you think you were contending. TJ wasn't saying I'm as smart as you or you are as tall and good looking as I, he was saying we both have the same worth in the grand scheme.

Was he a hypocrite? You're darn right he was a politician. But if you actually want to better understand the paradoxes that arose from this obviously brilliant man's thoughts vs actions, I'd first suggest you read the complete text where you captured those snippets. If you can hold your nose and stomach the racism and pseudo-science, I'm certain you'll learn what he was after.

Same logic people use to say taxation isn't theft.

Does saying taxation is theft correlate with being a drooling idiot?

Would you like to walk us through the logics?

Perhaps, if it were taxation without representation.

I think the response to "taxation is theft" should be "so?"

Exactly.

It's a stupid semantic argument but its not inherently wrong, just ridiculously simplistic.

spanktehbadwookie, since you appear to be new to our planet, I will actually try to shed light on this. You might be surprised to find out that Jefferson, far from being a pariah, is in the running for the most widely respected person in the history of the U.S. Despite dying nearly 200 hundred years ago, we still consult his authority on contemporary issues constantly. For example, here is an apparently non-ironic effort to give a Jeffersonian perspective on Affirmative Action, believe it or not. You functionally could not have a better reputation or be more beloved. In fact, most people in the US is carrying a portrait of him in their wallets right now. I have four! That's more than I have of my actual family, true story. I am sure that if you asked a sample of Americans what they think Jefferson was doing during the Constitutional Convention, a majority would venture that he was in Philadelphia inventing democracy, not in France raping children.

This really raises the question why anyone would bother spending so much time trying to defend this deified, long dead person from charges that hardly anyone actually gives a **** about. Someone more cynical than myself might suspect that the real intent is to use the sanctified image of Jefferson to undermine the horror and memory of the historical practice of slavery, or more broadly, other forms of institutionalized racism, many of which are still evident today. Of course, that's not really what's happening here, but (simply as an intellectual exercise mind you) it might be illuminating to re-read this, or any one of the dozens of other slavery apology threads in 2+2, with that in mind.

Do you keep coins in your wallet or do you have four $2 bills? Off to the dog track?

Some us don't scrimp at strip clubs, TYVM.

You have several faulty presumptions about me, but let us set that aside.

You are equating having a balanced view of Jefferson's timely flaws and virtues with alleged contemporary slavery apologists, possibly motivated by the modern flaws of politics.

Back to me, I am neither new to earth, nor to slavery apologetics and I have yet to see any posted in this thread.

So back to you, what is the purpose of your attempts make people ITT who are not slavery apologists and rhetorically turn them into one? To get the word out how bad Jefferson was? You want to exploit the words of people who are not slavery apologists to accomplish this? Can you explain the purpose and reasoning for doing this?

spank,

In case you missed it, I have cited some slavery apologia and posted it ITT:

A FATE WORSE THAN CASTRATION

I don't see anything apologetic about that content. Seems to be in line with the common practice of trying to understand historic mindsets with timely context.

However it is revealing of your irrational moral judgement of people who do that. Probably why you confuse them with apologists.

"Trying to understand historic mindsets with timely context" with the aim of minimizing the moral culpability of those people for their atrocities fits the very textbook definition of apologia.

It's also important to note that Alex, in that post, was in no way trying to understand historic mindsets with timely context. Doing so would require actually reading things that historical people wrote about their mindsets and the context in which they had those mindsets. Alex was making up a hypothetical completely devoid of any historical mindset or context and using that to assert that we shouldn't say bad things about slave owners.

His using it in a way that isn't bad to make it sound bad.

If someone kills someone in a way that would normally be murder and you point out that given the circumstances it was understandable then wookie would call you an apologist for killing

"apologist" like "murder" is a real word that has a meaning. Look it up in a "word-book" if you don't believe me.