Erasing Jefferson from Our History

President Thomas Jefferson's name will soon be removed from a public elementary school in Berkeley, California if its teachers, parents and students vote to do so. One of the potential names offered Monday by school Principal Betty Delaney to replace Jefferson's is that of late Communist-allied California farm labor boss Cesar Chavez, whose goons broke the arms of workers who questioned his power. Another potential school namesake is Florence McDonald, the late Berkeley city councilwoman so radical that even the liberal San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday described her as a "leftist."

"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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--"

Let the revolution begin.

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