Which Founding Father is the most popular who isn't George Washington, isn't Benamin Franklin, isn't Thomas Jefferson, and isn't George Washington?

Something amazing has happened. Many posts ago, I told people that Yes, I am open to taking requests for free open source audiobook production and I meant it. I would be curious to know any directions people would like to go - of course, I have my own goals and a much greater lack of manpower than anybody can know. But there's plenty of room for overlap, and that post will never have an expiration date.

But there has been a change recently, and most importantly, the reverse has come true. I've been in contact with someone, and after many discussions, this person helped me with one audiobook related to progressivism as a collaboration and now has taken on an audiobook all on their own, and they're ripping through it like a magician with a flame sword trying to melt butter. It's like watching fireworks in slow motion. Even better than that.

The audiobook we collaborated on is rooted in media bias, and when that book is fully complete, you can be sure it will be announced here for your listening pleasure.

To briefly describe this solo work he's taken, it's a historical account of the British Fabian Society written around 1906. We as conservatives are sorely lacking in knowledge about the Fabians. I've always wanted to do a book about the Fabians myself since they started having crossover with American Progressives in some of the crucial years,(like the 1920s) but I can't take my eye off of the ball. The core of my work must be Progressivism, so Fabians have never risen high enough as a priority. Look at my side bar. That side bar has never changed in over a decade, and it will never, ever change. It is more than anything, my guiding principle.

The more I read the Founders directly and old historians from the mid and late 1800s, the more I realize that, wow, I didn't know squat about the Founders. And this is because of how complete the control over history is, that the progressives have achieved. If you have a history book written about the Founders that's after 1920, you might as well throw that junk in the garbage. No, really. All historians are guilty until proven innocent. Unless you have one of maybe a handful - 20 or so historians who truely are worth more than a salt shaker. Maybe you're lucky and you have one of their works and a sincerely well written non-omitting treasure of a book. But the vast bulk of all history written by historians since 1920 about the founders - It's really smelly fake trash. It just is. Historians are in many ways worse than journalists.

But even in trash, there is some modicum of facts and that's why they get away with it. Progressive historians can omit much, but they cannot outright lie. They couldn't say that Washington was born in 1302 could they? Nah. So their strength is in omission. But it is omission that has led all of us to know so little of the Founders. Most people only really have knowledge of the Federalist Papers directly, and one, or perhaps two Founding Fathers that they've chosen as their figure. We need to know more than this. We just do. We need to know and specialize in knowing what the historians have erased and make it easy for others around us to develop the same specialty.

But, just to round out the converse and hit the complete point that Sun Tzu was making, while some conservatives do have knowledge about the Founders; as to the progressives - the enemy? No. Progressives have owned history and have completely and totally buried their history in ways that even after doing this for a decade, it STILL confounds me how complete the full package that it is. It is so complete. It is so ironclad. I recognize how utterly devious and deceitful it all is, but I cannot help but marvel at how thorough and how completely successful they've been. It just is. You have to marvel at the success. And Fabians are the same way. That's what makes the work that my friend is doing such an amazing thing and such a ray of light and I cannot state in words how excited I am that this book is being recorded at the rate its happening. It does help me point the way in the future though, I can be more pointed toward the Founding Fathers.

That's how all of this relates to the headline question of this posting. Because, of the one or two Founders that people do know, in most instances, it's George Washington. Now, Washington was a pillar of a human being and I'll even go so far as to say he was one of the greatest humans to ever walk the planet. But I still get a little frustrated that, come on, can we really not limit ourselves to anything but three of the Founders?

And that's the crux of my question. I would love to be shown how wrong I am and have a hundred people or more come out of the woodwork and tell me how great John Hancock was - and you're going to tell me this story, and that story, and you'll have all these details about his governorship, and a link to this book and that book. But I'm certain that won't be happening in response. Very few of you know anything about John Hancock. Or how about a Founder like General Joseph Warren and all he did for us? If the only thing you can tell me about is the Battle of Bunker Hill, then, I don't mean this to be brazen, but if you can only talk to me about the Battle of Bunker Hill then you know I'm right and you're just proving it to yourself. You shouldn't feel bad, the Progressives have stolen Joseph Warren from us. We didn't surrender him. We didn't "forget" him. They own history. They erased Warren. And let me tell you, Joseph Warren didn't deserve erasure. He was too important. To heck with the progressives.

They did this to you, the progressives, and they did it to me too. Or how about Rufus King? Will twenty or more of you come up around here and tell me this or that about him? And yes, I mean, without trying to do a quick homework on Wikipedia. You already know it without me saying it - you don't know anything about Rufus king. I'll be honest, I don't either. Look, I'm not omitting myself here, no one man can know all things, and that is fair, and my taking time to record audiobooks does in fact slow down my ability to learn more about the Founders. Here's another, how many of you even know we have a Founding Father named Steven? How few are familiar enough to even know that I misspelled it?(yes, it was on purpose) But the fact that I could easily go down a list and just one after the other, nobody knows the founders - except for Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson. Doesn't that strike you as a problem? How does nobody see this problem? It's an elephant. Right here in the living room! Nobody sees it!!! How can you miss it? An elephant. Right there!

Well, to me, I like challenges. I see this problem, and I say what can I do toward I fixing this problem? Because I can make a difference here.

I want to do an audiobook about a specific Founder, one who isn't Jefferson, Franklin, or Washington. And yes, I did mean to write Washington's name twice in the title. It illustrates the point.

If I had to take a guess, I would suspect that the most popular Founding Father who isn't Washington, Jefferson, or Franklin, is Patrick Henry. That's just a guess! But when I see discussions or hear people I know, I think I hear and see Patrick Henry more than any others. Perhaps George Mason. I would never suspect Nathaniel Gorham of being one of the more popular founders, I just wouldn't. I bet you wouldn't either.

Now, I wish I could do an audiobook of one of the founders that's so random, because I do want to fill this gap. But I also want to make something that people will actually take the time and have an interest to consume, so I am quite certain that I won't be doing anything about David Brearly. And yes, I'm dropping names to catch your attention.

I want to do an audiobook that will be free in the public domain, a biography of one man that's just his story so we can learn just that and then that story can start being a little more prominent. More media is good media. I don't know when it will happen, but soon. But my goals are this:

Universities can't really avoid Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin - while they can certainly lie by omission about these men, that's the formula. We only have three Founding Fathers by the culture of some universities. We're only allowed to learn about or discuss Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington. And oh let's not forget about how racist they all were. -- It's so boring. Because the universities are lying. Historians are frauds.

Second: How can I introduce a new Founding Father to people who want the Founding Fathers, in a way that is creative and engaging?

Even with the importance of a Roger Sherman or a John Dickinson, who may be popular enough to be good choices, am I still just kinda playing to "the formula"? Would I really be doing much good if any if I don't break out and truely teach people something that's quite amazing? Even with as prominent as Madison was, is he really all that popular? How about Richard Stockton? Stockton sounds like a fairly good choice to me.

My time does have value. I mean, not that yours doesn't. I'm just saying, I really think an audiobook about Jacob Broom could be reaching into the territory of I'm wasting my time here, there's not many who would listen to this.

So that's why I'm asking. What's the best value for my time and to be clear, for your your time as well? What isn't repeat work? I can tell you this. We don't need yet another book or audiobook about George Washington as amazing as he was.

And so it's said, I do hope that at some point in the future, others do join me. I hope my new friend doesn't turn out to be my only new friend who sees the value in this endeavor and helps. And yes, he has done one solo audio.(still ongoing) One book is enough!!! Know that - one solo is enough. A full two or three dozen audiobooks about specific founders that we could pass around like candy would be such an amazing thing. So amazing. Free and open source in the public domain, that I could just give to you, and you just could give to someone else, and they could freely give to me, and it keeps repeating and making us all more knowledgable and better voters. But the human lifespan only lasts so long. And even fully focused only on the Founders, I could not do that. I just won't last that long. One person with one commitment can go a very long way. My new friend is proof of that. Ten people with one single committment is a very big problem for progressives - I want to go and create that problem.

Look, I'm going to do this with or without you. The only questions left to ask are when, and who.

Oh, and P.S. What about the Founding Mothers? I couldn't even do a book there. Well, I suppose I could. But I truely think that a woman's voice would fit the bill so much more nicely and be a significant upgrade in quality that for the sake of quality, it should be read by a woman and not a man. So there's that. As much as I want it done, for the reason of quality I won't do it. Perhaps someone needs to convince me otherwise.

In any case, which Founding Father is the most popular who isn't George Washington, isn't Benamin Franklin, isn't Thomas Jefferson, and isn't George Washington? I really would like to know so that I can set an optimum goal for myself.

ProgressingAmerica, this is a grand subject!

Over the course of my life, I knew as much about the Colonial era as just about any school kid. What I learned in school, and that was about it. I read a lot as a kid, but the founding of our country was reserved for schoolwork.

When my father retired from a career as a Navy officer, our family returned to its New England roots, and after I got out of the Navy myself and got married, my wife introduced me to a whole unplumbed range of history in museums and historic sites.

My wife grew up in a family where they probably went to every single museum and site of every kind, and she knew them all in Massachusetts from growing up here. There were very few museums she had never been to in this state, and I had been to nearly none of them. And as we have spent our life together, we have made it a practice to visit as many places as we can.

The reason I mention this is, one can get an impression from reading a book, and one can get a quite rounded impression from reading many books on the same subject. But even with that, you are still looking at the historic figure from the perspective of another person's eyes, even if many sets of those eyes give you a fuller perspective.

But it is still someone else's eyes.

And sadly, over the years, those eyes are more critical and judgmental, and it seems to be some kind of perverse Leftist blood sport to tear people down to make a name for themselves.

Of all the things I might dislike with respect to the telling of history, the one that I have come to despise the most is this concept of judging people who lived centuries ago by the standards of today. I think it is asinine and narrow sighted. I cannot tell you the number of books I have read that I never made it through, simply because as I read, I got a whiff, then a dose, and then finally, a literary tsunami of this idiotic practice.

I like to tell this story about the reading of history, because I do find it humorous, but it displays the pitfalls.

My deceased mother-in-law was, in life, a major-league liberal. She was a community organizer type of liberal. Now, I didn't know this about her before I married my wife, but it wouldn't have made a difference to me.

As the years went on, both my viewpoints and her viewpoints became known to each of us… and we entered a phase where she would say things deliberately to get a response out of me (or to see if I would just sit and say nothing)

Needless to say, I wasn't about to sit and get baited by my mother-in-law, so I gave back in like kind when she initiated something. This went on for a relatively short period of time, then we kind of came to a mutual understanding. Neither one of us said a thing, but the understanding was there nonetheless that we would keep the peace by keeping our tongue. Not to say she wouldn't occasionally poke at me (or me at her) but after that, that was pretty much all it was. I was kind of got the impression she was doing it just to see if I would stand up for myself. (My wife says she read her headstrong mother the riot act on this...:)

In any case, I received a Christmas present from her one particular year. She knew that I was a history buff, and I read history prodigiously, so it was no surprise to me when I opened one of her Christmas presents and saw a history book. It was a fairly good-sized glossy volume, and I figured I'd put my feet up when I got home from the Christmas celebration and begin reading.

When I got home, I did just that. At first, I was puzzled. “What the heck is this?” I read little bit further, and got even more perplexed. “What the hell kind of book is this?” I thought to myself.

I immediately begin skipping through the book, preferentially stopping in key areas in American history. As I reached each section, I would read sometimes only a sentence, or occasionally a paragraph. After I had been through multiple sections in this manner, I stood up angrily and exclaimed “screw this piece of crap!”

I walked out in the garage and through the book in the trash.

The name of the book was “The People's History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.

I was appalled. I had never seen a history book quite like that one. I was even more disturbed to find out later that this was an actual textbook used in public school classrooms all over the country. I'm still appalled at that thought.

In retrospect, it popped into my mind almost immediately as I was throwing the book in the trash, that this was perhaps my mother-in-law poking her finger in my eye. After a few more seconds of contemplation, I guessed that was not the case.

Knowing how my mother-in-law used to gift shop, particularly for Christmas presents, this book was almost undoubtedly on the bargain bookshelf at the front of the bookstore when she walked in. I'd be willing to bet that she didn't pay more than a few dollars for, because I doubt you could find it inside the store at regular price.

So, every time I hear the name Howard Zinn, I think of the anti-American far left political screed that was his book, that I had the pleasure to throw into a garbage can.

So, those are the pitfalls of history. And I will be the first to admit-I love a flawed historical figure. Patton was amazing, but very flawed. Churchill as well. Washington had his flaws, too.

But in all those examples, I felt that it was the inclusion of their flaws that made them truly great, with Churchill being one of the prime examples of that, in my opinion. If I could spend a day with one man in history, beginning to end, I might well chose Churchill.

We are the sum of our good and bad. Good without Bad is pretty boring, and Bad without Good is Evil.

Anyway, getting back to history in my life-it has been my impression that visiting the places that people lived, looking at the chairs they sat in, the landscapes they saw, the books they read, seeing the brick-a-brack around their dwellings and seeing their real handwriting on letters they wrote informs me about those long gone people in ways a history book written by someone else never could.

As a result, I have visited every possible significant site and been to nearly every museum possible in this area. Just a few miles from my house, is this famous bridge which I pass near every day. I was going to be living at work for the next several days due to a major systems upgrade, so I was heading in around 9:00 AM on a bitter Tuesday morning in February, not a time I usually commute at. I decided to take a more relaxing ride through rural Concord and at least enjoy my ride in. The road was blocked due to a bridge issue, so in turning around, I realized I was at The Old North Bridge. I decided to get out and look since there was nobody around, and the bitter sub-zero wind was blowing snow granules across the ground as my eyes watered:

It was starkly beautiful. And as I looked on the bridge, I felt the history in it. Didn't just see it. I felt it.

Another great example of this is the Adams Estate in Quincy, MA. There are two parts to it-the house they lived in leading up to and during the war, and the house they lived in after they left Washington. When you visit the house they lived in during the war, you get an idea that a book cannot convey.

You know the distance between Braintree and Boston where he practiced law (about ten miles) and he rode that many times on horseback, through nasty weather, snow, and rain.

When you walked out his front door, you could see the view his family saw on that fateful day when the Battle of Bunker Hill took place, the dull boom of the cannon, the smoke...it isn't the same, of course, with trees, cars, buildings and such, but...you can get an idea of the distance.

And then, when you visit their home that the lived to the end of their lives in...you see the red chair he sat in for his famous portrait. You see his library, and the books he read. You see the china they ate off, including one crystal piece that had been broken and put back together will metal wire, which tells you something. You look out the windows and you see the fruit trees similar to the ones they likely had.

For me, the sense of history is palpable when I see it. I FEEL it deep in my heart. It isn't just words on paper.

Last year, I visited the museum in downtown Concord, MA. In it, they have one of the two lanterns that were placed in the window of the Old North Church.

I cannot express what I felt as I gazed on that historic artifact. It was deeply emotional for me. Hands had once held that lantern, and placed it in the high steeple of the Old North Church, and set in motion events that changed the world.

As for my favorite Founders? I thought this was a great thread to start, because it occurred to me...I didn't know what the definition of a "Founding Father" was. Someone who signed the Declaration of Independence? That would leave out a lot of people such as Paul Revere. So the more I thought about it, I was impressed with what a wonderful topic it was.

In any case, here are my favorites:

George Washington. Hands down. I even have a copy of his little book sitting on my office desk that he cobbled together as a young man Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior". In my opinion, George Washington is one of the greatest men to have ever lived.
John Adams. He was "unloved" but a great man. Under-appreciated in his time, and in history.
Joseph Warren. What would things have been like if he had lived? A real man.
Ethan Allen. That man was a dynamo. A real stud with a working brain and a leader of men.
Patrick Henry. To be so outspoken, when the noose could go around the neck at any time...
Alexander Hamilton. I know...a Federalist right behind Patrick Henry in this list doesn't seem to fit, but even though he was in favor of a strong federal government, he would be appalled at what we see today, never mind the debt)
Benjamin Franklin. If I could choose one man who could be transported from the 18th Century into the 21st Century and expect him to be fully functional and engaged, it would be Franklin. I often thought he was America's first hippy, but that is an insult to a hard-working man...:)

Note that I didn't include Jefferson and Madison. Both were talented men with much to admire, but...George Washington saw Jefferson as somewhat of a snake, and for good reason considering the way Jefferson undercut him, painting him anonymously as a doddering, out of touch man during the course of Washington's Presidency. Washington found out Jefferson was the source, let Jefferson know that he knew, and their interactions thereafter and for the rest of their lives were perfunctory and completely cold and professional, by all accounts. I can overlook a lot of things, but one thing I have difficulty countenancing is a lack of loyalty when loyalty is entirely deserved. I admire Jefferson's peerless status as an autodidact, his intellect, and his authorship (with some assistance) of The Declaration of Independence. And I love his foresight in commissioning the Lewis and Clark Expedition. But as a person and a leader, he leaves me cold.

I feel somewhat ambivalent about Madison. The man was exceedingly brilliant, no doubt, as the Federalist Papers clearly convey, but he simply doesn't resonate with me as a leader, he comes across as more of a brainiac of the day.

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