Politics. Remember - I have an award for knowing the most about History.

[kingtycoon]

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).

Comments

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

Are you serious? There is an entire segment of the American population that is probably pretty fucking happy that they're, oh, I dunno, not in fucking chains anymore. That little service wouldn't have happened without Lincoln, with the big fucking boot provided by men like Grant and Sherman.

Seriously.

I'm not even going to start about Jefferson.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

Well sure! That's why I mention that you can't even call the US a place until after Lincoln! Well - I may have been more articulate in my brains - but you know, I had some beers.

Still, I came around on Lincoln, I think he's the right kind of guy, bu if he's the best we can do - and maybe, maybe the only really decent one (probably besides Carter) in the bunch? It's not the bloody and horrible legacy of a lot of other, worse countries, but it's pretty bleak. That's what I'm saying - the best is yet to come, don't think too much about what happened before- it wasn't very good.

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

I think what happened before here is damn sight better than anything contemporary to it. You can't really piss and moan about people not being perfect, because they're people.

But that document they forged that lets you piss and moan -- that's a pretty nifty product of apparently 100% evil people.

[mordicai.livejournal.com]

In general I like the Enlightenment, but it is conspicuous that a bunch of rich white dudes embarked on a campaign of slavery & genocide. It did put an end to Kings more or less, though.

[fordmadoxfraud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the awfulness of the founding fathers is I think tempered not by the notion of whether they were good or bad, but whether they were better or worse. Than their contemporaries I mean. Which, yeah, can be a bit of a feeble yardstick, but otherwise pretty much everyone before the civil war (or womens suffrage or desegregation or whatever) was a monster.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

It's just that - I came to believe in moral progress - that it's a thing that people and states achieve - and now I think, it's wrong to look back for guidance.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Overall I don't disagree with you. But I would argue that Paine was a hell of a lot more progressive than any of the other founders, and that if he were alive today he would be considered left-wing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_Justice

And I think he actually hoped for a day without nation-states (or at least some sort of global system which is vastly antithetical to the right-wing's ideology). That doesn't mean of course that he didn't have conservative tendencies here and there, but I think he's nothing like Glenn Beck.

And I 100% agree with you that the whole Civil War was a mistake. Would slavery have run itself out over time in the South? I dunno. I'd like to think it would have. But based upon how things keep going and where we're at today, it seems like it would have stood as an institution (unless, of course the North boycotted the South, which may have forced a war anyways?) But, I do get a lot of anger from liberals when I say we'd be better off w/o Texas and the rest having stayed in the Union.

But then I feel like I can't talk, because fuck... Scott Walker has done a good job of ruining the fucking hell out of my state. No place is safe. :\

Even the best president (IMO) had plenty of flaws (especially since his goal was to save capitalism from itself, and only after having his hand forced by trying everything else first)... FDR (though Teddy was also decent in *some* ways -- but in many others not so much)...

We need some fucking strong arm tough guy liberals, and that's the problem with the current dems.