![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The 4th of July is one of those holidays where I can't go around other people for fear of the fistfights. Anymore there are a lot of words being spread around about the US and especially about the founders of the nation. I guess that I self consciously don't say our nation because I think in the last few hundred years we've broken, pretty successfully in most ways from the nightmare dystopia of the late 18th century. There's a good bit of lionization of the founders on both poles of the polarized viewpoints - both teams trying to claim those guys for themselves - but I truly don't understand it.
Now - to me- I see, and really do tend to agree with the Tea-Party people's interpretation of events. I'll agree that Washington, Jefferson et. al. were wealthy tax dodgers who had their then Karl Rove - Franklin and Glen Beck - Paine - put together a program of moral outrage that would persuade the poorer classes to stage a revolution that offered them not a whole lot of benefit. Like anyone a lot of good and bad can be said on these guys' behalfs - but I'm here to tell you - that those guys were by any acceptable moral standard - utter trash. I wouldn't cross the street to spit on Tom Jefferson and I think you should all feel the same way. That dude owned his children - he was a straight up sex criminal, he paid money to have other people - that's a pretty messed up behavior and it's not like it wasn't known, it's not like that was a big secret. So Participating in and profiting from the North American and African holocausts - you've got that shit on the plates of the founders and I don't think there's enough on the opposite side of the balance to make them worth thinking about - much less put them on the money.
Maybe Lincoln? I mean - you can say, and probably you'd be pretty right- that the US was made by Lincoln, more than by anyone else- but right, who alive today can look at the United States and not wonder why it is we had to sacrifice so many people so that the south would be a part of our country? I don't think there are any right thinking people who can say that they're happy that Texas or Florida are part of the United States - so even Lincoln is a mixed bag.
So it comes down to it and there's not a lot of good to be said about the people who've gone before. It's interesting, maybe, to think about the presidents sequentially. Obama's not that good a guy, he's made mistakes and been pretty displeasing on the whole unrestricted Drone-War policy, but you know -he didn't really own people and he didn't stake his whole career on wiping out populations of indigenous people or subsidizing industry in the form of military adventure (so far). So maybe, maybe America will be a good place one day, I kind of believe it, it may come true - but it's funny to know that the country is moving toward its best days (not to say those days are gonna be all that bright, just better than what came before).
Now - to me- I see, and really do tend to agree with the Tea-Party people's interpretation of events. I'll agree that Washington, Jefferson et. al. were wealthy tax dodgers who had their then Karl Rove - Franklin and Glen Beck - Paine - put together a program of moral outrage that would persuade the poorer classes to stage a revolution that offered them not a whole lot of benefit. Like anyone a lot of good and bad can be said on these guys' behalfs - but I'm here to tell you - that those guys were by any acceptable moral standard - utter trash. I wouldn't cross the street to spit on Tom Jefferson and I think you should all feel the same way. That dude owned his children - he was a straight up sex criminal, he paid money to have other people - that's a pretty messed up behavior and it's not like it wasn't known, it's not like that was a big secret. So Participating in and profiting from the North American and African holocausts - you've got that shit on the plates of the founders and I don't think there's enough on the opposite side of the balance to make them worth thinking about - much less put them on the money.
Maybe Lincoln? I mean - you can say, and probably you'd be pretty right- that the US was made by Lincoln, more than by anyone else- but right, who alive today can look at the United States and not wonder why it is we had to sacrifice so many people so that the south would be a part of our country? I don't think there are any right thinking people who can say that they're happy that Texas or Florida are part of the United States - so even Lincoln is a mixed bag.
So it comes down to it and there's not a lot of good to be said about the people who've gone before. It's interesting, maybe, to think about the presidents sequentially. Obama's not that good a guy, he's made mistakes and been pretty displeasing on the whole unrestricted Drone-War policy, but you know -he didn't really own people and he didn't stake his whole career on wiping out populations of indigenous people or subsidizing industry in the form of military adventure (so far). So maybe, maybe America will be a good place one day, I kind of believe it, it may come true - but it's funny to know that the country is moving toward its best days (not to say those days are gonna be all that bright, just better than what came before).
