Can free, open source public domain audio books play a role in re-humanizing the Founding Fathers?

There are things that I am definitely aware of even though I don't often or ever bring them up. One of those things is the de-humanization campaign that progressives have engaged in (in varying degrees) ever since our first progressive President, Theodore Roosevelt, and it puts us in the position to ask the question.

How can we re-humanize our Founding Fathers? What tools can we rely on or use or else, what tools can we build to have an effect against the problem?

First, let's recognize something. There is a lot of power in the spoken word. It is very, very powerful if used properly.

Recently I made a mention of a work by Thomas Jefferson called the "Dialog between the Head and Heart" that was completed at LibriVox in which I recorded one part of the audio recording, and two other people did other separate parts with the audio pieces edited together to make not just a cogent and accurate-to-words production, but its got what I think the proper levels of sternness where needed, loftiness in other places, etc. - its just all around a good quality finished product.

It is also only 30 minutes long, so that makes it highly approachable, simple to listen to or read, not appearing to "be too big", and it is of course free in the public domain so there is no financial negatives in the matter.

But let's recognize something else. As I had said before, the Founding Fathers are not simply just a bullet point list of policy prescriptions in a spreadsheet. They were actual human beings and they really did accomplish amazing things on our behalf that we still benefit from to this day. It's that human element that has been more than any other under assault. The progressives are keen to beat down the Founding Fathers whenever it is convenient for them to say oh they were SlAvEoWnErS *gasp!!!* but the progressives never trot out that card about things they have a fondness for, such as the No Religious Test clause in the Constitution. You'll never get a progressive to pull the slave card on that clause which was indeed given to us by the slave owners. So its a situational, tactical use case for them but the important point isn't the politics of when or not that card was used.

All of the Founders get smeared this way, even those who were active abolitionists. The advantage that the progressives give to themselves is if they have defeated the Founding Fathers as men, then the progressives never even have to bother arguing the merits of various ideas under review. And let's look at what have the progressives done. They, those progressives who have a complete control over all of U.S. history? They have buried and covered up the fact that there were so many abolitionist Founding Fathers, and even just, many outside of the entire sphere whatsoever. Not that it matters. "They were all racists"

So with burying the abolitionism, burying the Founders' life stories, and then using the pointy-headed historians to restrict all available information in our days but one singular fact and then abusing that fact incessantly - this is not anything but a full-scale dehumanization campaign.

And what do we have to combat this? I won't tell you that one single audio-recorded letter is all of a sudden magic and that's it we have solved the problem. Rather, what I do think is that an incoming future where there is an abundance of these open source audio books free for anyone to download and share, which contain both subtle as well as the impressive details of their lives will go a long way toward discrediting the dehumanization campaign.

We also get other negative claims as well, such as oh well the Founders could not have foreseen........, oh but those ideas are old and out dated 18th century............, as well as other generally ridiculous notions. None of the notions are counter balanced. This is not just politics.

This is probably a mostly philosophical question(s).

We know the download numbers are there. But is it enough? Is it something?

We know there is a power in the spoken word.

We know the download numbers are there. Is it something?

2 posted on 03/15/2026 10:35:56 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. Progressivism is a suicide pact.)

I have read some of the letters of my parents, the relationship deepens because of the content.

So the challenge is to just read ONE of these letters from the founding fathers.

The other challenge is to read more of your Bible to deepen God’s relationship with you.

3 posted on 03/15/2026 10:51:35 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)

We've had public domain audio books since, when, the 1970s? Is that when they were first released on cassette tapes? Later on CDs.

Lots of Great Thinkers available for free download, in a variety of audio and video formats, throughout the internet.

It's not that they're unavailable, but that most people don't want them. Most people would rather watch free porn, video games, Influencers, and cat videos.

t’s not that they’re unavailable, but that most people don’t want them.

Then it is our job to educate them. But we can’t teach what we don’t know.....................

5 posted on 03/15/2026 11:15:11 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)

Thank you for your thoughts, Angelino97.

"But we can’t teach what we don’t know"

Right. And that's where an expanding tool set comes in. The more tools we have, the easier the job becomes. (in theory)

It should be pointed out, a "public domain"(commercial) is not the same as a "free, open source public domain", which were most certainly not available in the 70s especially not widely.

6 posted on 03/15/2026 11:41:48 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. Progressivism is a suicide pact.)

I don’t like audio books. I prefer an actual book, or book on Kindle where I can manually access the footnotes and sources. You can’t do that with audio books.

7 posted on 03/15/2026 1:01:00 PM PDT by mass55th (“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ― John Wayne)

To be fair, our audio books have the footnotes read into them.

Usually.

But that is alright I know most prefer the paper and I respect that. Thank you.

8 posted on 03/15/2026 2:02:06 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. Progressivism is a suicide pact.)

"To be fair, our audio books have the footnotes read into them. Usually."

Thanks for the info.

9 posted on 03/15/2026 2:25:00 PM PDT by mass55th (“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” ― John Wayne)

The only time I prefer paper/print is if the subject involves complex concepts that I need to explore via other sources. One such publication is “The Psychology of Totalitarianism”.

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