Newsvine History's Greatest Liberals: Thomas Jefferson By _Matt Rock_ (http://matt-rock.newsvine.com/) Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:43 AM In 1962, President John F. Kennedy invited forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House. During the ceremony, he famously stated that the event was "the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge that has ever been been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." The third President of the United States, the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence, and one of our most famous Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson is considered by many contemporary scholars to be one of the most important liberal minds of all time. Without question, he belongs on the list of history's greatest liberals. When we look at Jefferson's positions today, they seem almost harshly conservative in a number of ways. Jefferson did, after all, support the right to bear arms, wished for the Federal government to be as small as possible, advocated States' rights, and his ownership of slaves was, in his own time, a conservative act. But Jefferson also endorsed a number of liberal philosophies which might not balance out those conservative beliefs, but would certainly prevent him from being labeled as a strict conservative by any means. You could easily paint Jefferson as a great conservative as well, and in the same stroke, you could say that he was a great moderate. But he was a firm believer in agrarianism -- farmers governing their own property and affairs -- and never could have predicted the size and scale of modern cities. Jefferson was undoubtedly politically progressive, and I don't think it would be a stretch to assume that Jefferson, as a philosopher and an objective thinker, would find it easy to adapt his views and develop a new stance based on how the country stands today. After all, Jefferson did say "the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Thomas Jefferson was a firm believer in a secular state. His Deist philosophies were shared by many of the Founding Fathers, but Jefferson took things to a different level than most of the people of his time, writing his own version of the Christian Bible called "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," with all of the superstition, mysticism, fantasy, and dogma removed. It should come as no surprise that Jefferson is credited with having coined the phrase "the Separation of Church and State" when writing a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 (though the line he actually used was "a wall of separation"). Secularism is a long-standing tenant of liberal political ideology, and while many of the Founding Fathers embraced the same principal beliefs, none drove it forward as much or as often as Jefferson. Jefferson's views of corporations and banking have often led to cringing on the part of the far-right and GOP of today. He believed that not only should corporations be heavily regulated, but in his own words, he believed that we should "crush in it's birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." He also famously stated that "banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies," and believed that banks would abuse customers if left unregulated. However, one could also argue that his opinion that individuals should not spend what they don't have also lives up to conservative ideals; this serves as another example of moderation on Jefferson's behalf. In equality, Jefferson presents an idealistic paradox. Like the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, Jefferson believed wholeheartedly in the concept of inalienable rights; that all men are created equally, and that no one can take away certain rights from others. But Jefferson was a slave owner and regularly denounced women's suffrage, acts which defy liberalism at its very core. But his writings on equality, whether practiced or not, have inspired countless writings and acts of equality throughout history, and for this, Jefferson does deserve a significant degree of credit. Also, many of his biographers point out that Jefferson was in debt throughout his life, and could not afford to free his slaves, which caused him a tremendous amount of misery. Many believe that if it weren't for his debts, Jefferson may have been one of history's earliest abolitionists. All told, Jefferson is one of the most difficult founding fathers to accurately and honestly label in terms of political philosophy. In one hand, he was a proud and stalwart liberal, and in the other, he was a staunch and proud conservative. In truth, we'd probably consider Jefferson today to be a "radical centrist," with somewhat extreme views in favor of one side or the other on every conceivable subject. But while we cannot protest conservatives or moderates celebrating him as heroes to their own beliefs, they equally cannot protest our celebrating him either. And with this in mind, I invite you to offer kudos to Thomas Jefferson, one of history's greatest liberals. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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[RC] Jefferson as a Radical Centrist -interpretation by Matt Rock
BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:16:56 -0800
