[Reaganite Republican]

*** Personal PING ***

[Inyo-Mono]

Bttt!

[11Bush]

You forgot some items:

Inventor
Father of the Library of Congress
Kicker of Muslim ass

Was he perfect? Far from it, as with all men he was flawed, but he was a giant who moved and lived with other giants of the time. We are blessed as a country that when we needed them the giants were ours.

[CodeToad]

So many of the lessons of failure they knew then we practice today.

[daletoons]

Thanks RR. What we have today is everything this great genius warned against. Way to go lefties!

[PzLdr]

How great? Lived WAY beyond his means, constantly in debt. Died without freeing any of his slaves. Amazing? Yes. Great? Not so much.

[Graewoulf]

One of my heros. Thanks!

[LS]

One of my favorites: he taught himself Spanish so he could read Maciavelli in its native language-—or so I read. He also launched the first “
War on Terror” with only a joint resolution and said “those who aren’t with us are with the Bey of Tripoli,” or words to that effect.

[RJS1950]

No doubt he was a genius and one of the great founders but there are some warts that go along with him.

While he was part of the genius behind the Declaration, he was purposely kept as ambassador to France, keeping him and his egalitarian, democratic ideas away from the creation of our Constitution and Republic.

“At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington” and as SoS he and his supporters did everything possible to undermine the Washington administration. They even secretly bought a newspaper through which they channeled vindictive propaganda pieces excoriating Washington’s policies and the man personally.

Following that approach to his political rivals “At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of the Democratic-Republican Party”, a party that while it had the name Republican in it was in no way shape or form Republican in thought or action. The Democratic-Republican party was later rechartered as the Democrat Party of the United States; that traitorous entity that has done so much over the years to undermine our constitutional republic.

He was a genius and overall a patriot, but his actions in some cases were not in keeping with the tenents of our Constitution with which he did not agree and was probably frustrated with because he had no real part in the formulation.

[central_va]

Had he lived 50 years later instead of hero, he would have been labeled a dirty rebel an evil slave holding secesionist by the Free Republic Neo Unionist Society i.e. Lincoln Coven. THe hypocrisy of history.

[Billthedrill]

Truly brilliant man, one of my intellectual heroes. But no one with that long a public career could possibly be unblemished. Edmund Randolph called him (and Patrick Henry) out for stoutly insisting that a Bill of Attainder was a threat to liberty when they'd used one themselves in the Josiah Phillips case. I don't believe either man ever apologized for it, either; Henry certainly didn't.

As some have already mentioned, Jefferson was not the sole author of the Declaration but did produce the first draft. The rest of the Committee of Five consisted of John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Livingston. If that was a poker hand, you'd stand pat.

[zeugma]

bfl

[x]

He was a great man who had his flaws.

In his talents and intellect he was far above today's politicians, but in some things he was very human, even small.

[BroJoeK]

Quoth Jefferson:

The Internet is chock full of outright fake Jefferson quotes, and even more real quotes taken out of context to distort their original meanings.
That includes several of those you listed here:

Fake: "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

This is a fake quote from 1986.
It does vaguely resemble an actual Jefferson quote:

"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, - the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it."

Fake: "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

Actual quote in context:

"The good effects of our late fiscal arrangements will certainly tend to unite them in opinion, and in confidence as to the views of their public functionaries, legislative and executive.
The path we have to pursue is so quiet that we have nothing scarcely to propose to our Legislature.
A noiseless course, meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness.

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Their finances are now under such a course of application as nothing could derange but war or federalism.
The gripe of the latter has shown itself as deadly as the jaws of the former."

Fake quote: "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government"

Incomplete quote: "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

The real quote: "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms within his own lands.

Fake quote: "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

A variation on that fake quote is also fake: "When governments fear the people, there is liberty.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Misquote: "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

The correct quote is:

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. "