Thomas Jefferson
- Thread starter GlennQuagmire
- Start date
There you go again Gags!!!!!!!!
Can't believe you posted such a stupid statement!
Some con you are!.....
Of course the argument can not only equally be made for lower tax rates stimulating the economy and hence providing greater tax revenue for the government, but also that liberals big and small L, make a fetish that bigger government and hence higher taxes are always better.
That has got to be one of the strangest and most idiotic arguments I've heard yet. Honestly Fuji I know you are more intelligent than that.
Aardie you NEED folks to watch the crooks in business.
Don't know how you could have missed that, that after the last 8 years...
Don't know how you could have missed that, that after the last 8 years...
As mentioned I despise Thomas Jefferson. That doesn't mean that everything he said or did is tainted.
You are going to end up living in a very, very strange world Fuji is you insist that the quality of ideas is somehow dependant upon the moral purity of those who state them.
If the majority votes to enslave a minority in a democracy (or the majority votes for represenatives that decide to enslave a minority in a representative democracy), does this constitute a legal framework that can justify slavery?
Pretty sure this was in the very post you replied to:
"just because the man who wrote those words was wrong doesn't mean that the words themselves are wrong."
I was pretty explicit in my point: The idea may have merit, but it needs to stand on its own merit, it cannot be supported by reference to Jefferson as an authority, as he is not one.
I stand by it, I am no moral relativist:
Slavery is a crime against humanity. It always was. It may not always have been UNDERSTOOD that it was, but nevertheless it was. As time has gone by we have become progressively enlightened, and that is the correct word: When the lights come on and you see the skeletons of the victims rotting in the previously dark corner of the room it's not the case that they were created by turning on the lights--you just hadn't noticed the victims' skeletons in the darkness, but they were always there. Slavery was always a crime against humanity and it was therefore NEVER legal.
It does not matter what laws or constitutional amendments a nation may enact--if it commits a crime against humanity those responsible can and should be prosecuted. It's a historic fact that the founding fathers of the United States weren't tried for their crimes. It's a fact of physics that we cannot go back and change it, it will remain a historic fact until somebody invents a time machine.
The fact that it went unpunished does not make it right.
Another twist on this: If a nation has an unconstitutional law on its books, and this law is used to imprison people, what is the status of those people when a more enlightened court finally repeals the law? My assertion: Retroactively, all of those convicted under the unconstitutional law ought to have their convictions overturned. You cannot be guilty of an unconstitutional crime. Even if in your day people asserted that you were those people were wrong. The fact that it wasn't recognized as unconstitutional at the time is irrelevant--the salient fact is that the law was unconstitutional and therefore of no force or effect.
Why not, it entirely depends upon how you mean that statement. Albert Einstein treated his first wife like s__t does that mean that I can't cite Einstein to support varies theories or statements of his?
Suppose the majority vote for representatives who decide that a minority, young able bodied men, should kill and die fighting the Vietnamese (irrespective of what the majority of young able bodied men might vote on the situation), is this not a crime against humanity? Is a person enslaved when he is forced to kill and die?
And likewise the fact that it is "not right" or that more and more people come to see it as repugnant doesn't mean that those in the past should be "punished."
Fortunately for the U.S.A. neither President Lincoln nor President A. Johnson saw it your way and the Radical Republicans did not succeed in creating a situation where the South would have burned with resentment to the present day.
Not on marriage anyway. God you guys take yourselves way too seriously. Oh, and you can say "shit" on this board, literally and to a point figuratively. It's OK.
I'll accept that if someone is discredited in one field they may remain an authority in another. Jefferson has been discredit with respect to freedom and democracy. He is therefore not an authority on any topic relating to liberty or government. So, for example, he is not an authority with respect to the quotation in post #1.
Perhaps it's time. I gather their descendants to some extent still enjoy their ill gotten gains. What is done in other cases, where it is determined that children are enjoying wealth that was reaped by their fathers illegally? At what point is that wealth still returned to those it was stolen from?
Yes Comrade Fuji.
It sounds like you are all ready for a rousing chorus of Ça Ira do you have your rope ready to hang people from the street lights as you sing?
You really have lost it anymore!
I wasn't asking you about war.
I was asking you about conscription.
Why is a majority voting for a minority to be conscripted to kill and die not a crime against humanity,
while a majority voting for a minority to pick cotton is a crime against humanity?
