Fake Founding Father Quotes?

[bohonato]

I did something I have never done before: I wrote a letter to the editor.

But I believe it was justified. It was in reply to another letter to the editor (it keeps gettting worst!) all about how our Founding Fathers were Christians and all the homosexuals should be purged.

Well, I knew people like B. Franklind and Thomas Paine were postively NOT Christian, so I wrote a letter with a short list of Founding Fathers who were not Christian (there are more):

Thomas Jefferson
James Adams
Benjamin Franklind
Thomas Paine
George Washington
James Madison

complete with quotes!

But then I discovered something that astounded me.

The letter I was argueing with stated that James Madison once said : 'We have staked the future of all our political insitutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments.'

Guess what. James Madison never said that.

Guess who did. David Barton, a Texas-based Religous Right propagandhist. He pulled it out of his ass along with twelve other 'Founding Father' quotes. He admitted to creating them in 1994.

These people are so concerned with power and "morality" that they don't even let a little thing like history or honesty get in their way!

[mnaz]

Honesty? Who needs to tell the truth when one is a self-appointed deputy of Truth? What the hell does integrity have to do with 'God's Will'?

If these people would just settle their own accounts with God and live happily in their faith (he says wearily). But they can't do that.... they just can't. They cannot distinguish individual from collective. They just cannot fathom that the founder of their religion was a enlightened man who lived from love.... lived and let live. They cannot fathom God as anything but a bearded supernatural entity who pulls everyone around on puppet strings (remember free will?) and punishes entire nations in real time when they are not 100% pious according to various redneck preacher precepts. They just can't do it!

I thought Jefferson was Christian, btw. But regardless of his own faith, or the dominant faith of the time, he wisely recognized that 'liberty and justice for all' must include freedom of religion. How can anyone deny freedom of religion as being part of our overall freedom? And once this is confirmed, then how can any reasonable 'patriot' continue to push for the state to write Christian practices and belief into law? A state which requires its citizens by law to participate in Christian practices does not live up to freedom of religion.

Such things as mandatory school prayer (to a Christian God) are incompatible with true 'liberty' for all, as are such things as a permanent, faith-based Constitutional injunction against even the possibility of negotiation toward some form of civil union for gay couples.

However I do think that the ongoing flap over Christmas in the public schools is a little over-the-top. I think even ol' Saint Nick got the ax in some cases.... seems a little extreme. Perhaps Jesus might be taken out of the message, but Santa? I don't know. These Christmas shows and displays are such a long-running tradition, and participation is essentially voluntary. Perhaps just substitute "Holiday" for "Christmas", and get on with life. We've got much bigger fish to fry, I would say.

[bohonato]

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789


Thomas Jefferson did believe in the words of Jesus; however, he referred to everything else in the bible as 'dunghill'. But, as you say, neither the Founding Fathers nor the Framers of the Constitution sought to force their personal views upon others. Hence, freedom of religion.

A couple weeks ago, I heard a woman saying she would refuse to shop anywhere that wished 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas'.

[firsty]

revisionist history is an easy thing to pull off on a nation full of historical illiterates.

i will now quote an irrefutable source - "dazed and confused" - "remember as you celebrate the bicentennial that america was founded by a bunch of rich slave-owning white men who didnt want to pay taxes" (not sure of exact wording)

elsewhere in the same film, a stoner pointed out that the founding fathers were pot growers and smokers. hell yeah.

my favorite thomas jefferson quote is this:

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the same coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

thats on the jefferson memorial. millions of people take pictures of it every year and then go home and vote for politicians who pretend that jefferson meant something else.

people are idiots.