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KomradeX posted:No but everyone did have a good laugh at the guy who didn't seem to know that Jefferson raped his slaves. He was probably looking forward to a similarly coercive relationship with some poor trafficked Chinese woman.
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May 20, 2014 13:30
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I would like to know where I can read more on "Jefferson is lovely" instead of Kens Burnsian hero worship. It's weirdly rare, you would think that more historians would be interested in the Jefferson as Villain approach. Because I mean is there a better arch-villain in history than supergenius Thomas Jefferson? He was basically Mirror Doc Savage.
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May 21, 2014 00:59
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Captain_Maclaine posted:*It's hard to overstate just how badly Haiti scared the poo poo out of Jefferson. He does a total 180 on his position about the French aristocracy, which in his romantic love of the French Revolution he had previously despised, to seeing those who fled Haiti as poor dispossessed refugees worthy of pity and succor. "What you readin' 'bout marse? Whoop, didn' mean ta sneak up on you like that, looks like you done messed yourself again. I get the sponge 'n bucket."
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May 21, 2014 02:20
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Last Buffalo posted:I wouldn't consider Jefferson particularly evil for his time. A lot of the founding fathers owned slaves and people who owned slaves were big on loving them. He's not some special case. it's more that his other qualities were quite remarkable and the slave poo poo really is in sharp contrast to that. Yes, the slaveowning founding fathers, and all slave owners were some of the wickedest men who ever lived. That must have been your point, right?
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May 21, 2014 04:30
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Last Buffalo posted:American chattel slavery is certainly one of the most wicked institutions that ever lived. But the people who participated in it were not mustache twirling villains. In fact, a lot of them saw themselves as good people, and some of them even did important, good things. Jefferson and his class were blind to a whole section of the country they created, and chronically abused them en mass. However, they fought for a number of progressive values and certainly were important for creating some of the more important parts of America. This doesn't absolve them of the bad things they did, but I wouldn't call Jefferson one of the most wicked men who ever lived. Even Hitler built the Autobahn. Plenty of Nazis saw themselves as good people. Godwin has his place, but I don't see why it's ridiculous on its face to say that chattel slavery ranks with the Holocaust and its proponents were personally the height of evil.
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May 21, 2014 06:03
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Last Buffalo posted:Dude wrote good stuff, did some good things, also was a lovely dude to lots of people. The world is complex. Yeah, you're sure diving into the complexity there 
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May 21, 2014 06:38
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Last Buffalo posted:Ok, by how would you prefer the biography of Jefferson read? He was a vile manic, a saint, a monster? What would you describe him as? You're really invested in saying "things aren't perfect but they're getting better" for some reason. What the hell does that have to do with Jefferson or the rest of the founders? Are you trying to say they get credit for this gradual improvement somehow? In any case, I think your main problem is that you feel like it's necessary to put Hitler in some special category of inhuman evil. Like Jefferson, he was just a man, a product of his time, a part of a larger structure, etc. But he was an evil poo poo personally, and maybe Jefferson was moreso than Hitler, because he enslaved his own kids.
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May 21, 2014 14:03
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Last Buffalo posted:Not really. All slave owners who had children with their slaves and didn't free them are not equal to someone who intentionally killed some 20 millim people with the intention of killing some 20 millim more. Sorry, but I find a fundamental difference in the values of the individual as well as the consequences of the actions. Going off what I've read, Jefferson had a lovely worldview where blacks, even his kids, were not seen as people to him and, though he treated them with a certain paternal duty, they were seen as property. However, he did not want to kill them, or work them to death, and clearly had some conflicting thoughts on how to deal with the institution of slavery. Hitler, however, had no deep conflicts that we know about when it came to murdering millions. If we're going off of numbers, millions may have died on the middle passage. And does anguish and inner conflict really count for anything? If you end up committing monstrous acts but make like you felt lovely about it, you're just a hypocritical monster instead of a consistent one. But you're not a very deep thinker. I see your brain running into your high school history lessons over and over again.
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May 21, 2014 19:57
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Kaal posted:Nonsensical Hitler equivalencies is probably the stupidest direction that this thread could have taken. Thanks for that SedanChair. Take your internet debate preconceptions and stick 'em somewhere, because we're talking about a group of men who engineered the rape of multiple continents and the people therein. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 21, 2014 20:11
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Ardennes posted:Jefferson wasn't Hitler, he also isn't a man we should form a cult of personality around. The founding fathers are useful for historical perspective (both positively and negatively) and the only reason to "follow their words" is if you want to wrap yourself in nationalism to get something you want. Hitler wasn't Jefferson either. They were two different people. But Jefferson did in fact engineer a massive genocide.
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May 22, 2014 00:58
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Pauline Kael posted:You're implying here that Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers were directly responsible for the middle passage. You realize that had been in place for a *really long time* before them, don't you? Founding fathers are to the middle passage as Hitler is to the Holocaust? That's really what you mean to say? No, that was only the ongoing holocaust they gleefully participated in. The holocaust Jefferson personally engineered was Indian Removal.
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May 22, 2014 14:02
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asdf32 posted:There are good reasons why we elevate hitler up to be one of the arch villains of history. Purging 10's of millions of otherwise well integrated members of your society who are connected to no tangible threat whatsoever, for no tangible gains whatsoever is significantly different and/or larger in scale than any other example of people killing people in history. Is that what's getting you? Is it better to relocate and slaughter people who aren't *koff koff* "well integrated"? Pauline Kael posted:Do you feel as strongly about what the Mongols did to (pretty much everyone) or is this more of a "no, gently caress YOU Dad!" kind of thing? I might if American culture expected me to praise Genghis Khan as some kind of flawless visionary inspired by god to improve humankind. (e: and you can totally make that argument, the caravans ran on time at least)
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May 22, 2014 15:43
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Pauline Kael posted:That's about the dumbest description of the founding fathers that I've seen since 2nd grade. That's the problem, that you get it in 2nd grade. That's why it's so tough for you to come around to the fact that they were monsters. quote:Let me change this around a little bit. Since there is always going to be some individual or group to which a culture looks up, if it shouldnt be the founding fathers (worse than hitler!) than whom should it be? This is some sort of bizarre poo poo. "There's always going to be somebody, and if you complain about the slavemasters well NOBODY'S PERFECT ARE THEY??" But OK I'll play. Frederick Douglass. That's who you should look up to. That about covers it.
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May 22, 2014 15:59
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I haven't been comparing them blindly at all, I've pointed out that they are completely different multiple times. Somebody's blind though.Pauline Kael posted:You're really sort of a stubborn child. The difference between you and, say, a normal average educated person, is that the rest of us realize, and are able to pivot between, the simple facts you learn as a young child with the more nuanced view you get with additional education and experience. It's possible to recognize the contributions of the founding fathers as individuals and as a group, while also recognizing that they had aspects to their lives that are unacceptable to us today. That's fantastic for people who can get some perspective, though you don't appear to be one of them. But lots of people pretty much stick to the worldview with which they were propagandized at an early age. Is your argument really that poisonous interpretations of history being taught to children aren't a problem because it's possible--not likely, but possible--to grow up and question them?
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May 22, 2014 16:22
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You stupid motherfuckers are just getting mad that I mentioned Hitler. You can't get over it, it's hilarious to me. The truth stings.SedanChair posted:Hitler wasn't Jefferson either. They were two different people. But Jefferson did in fact engineer a massive genocide. God's truth and nothing but.
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May 22, 2014 16:38
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TJ posted:You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach. TJ to the Secretary of War posted:If we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down until that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi.
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May 22, 2014 17:09
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asdf32 posted:This text is actually less damning than the actual reality. Yes, that's what genocide is.
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May 22, 2014 17:49
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wateroverfire posted:ITT we learn that warding off aggression from a hostile polity that is attacking your citizens is literal genocide. In response to the attacks, he implemented a policy of genocide. There's a direct order in the second quote to carry out extermination. What's to be debated here?
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May 22, 2014 17:57
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slogsdon posted:This is literally the definition of genocide, so yeah, I'll call it genocide. But genocide is what Hitler did! 
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May 22, 2014 18:02
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wateroverfire posted:That's not what that quote says, for one thing. Until they GTFO of their ancestral lands?
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May 22, 2014 18:05
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wateroverfire posted:Until they GTF out of range so they can't raid settlements. I believe TJ's exact words were quote:driven beyond the Mississippi Which makes it pretty clear that the policy was a pretext to remove all Indians completely from their lands. The alternative was extermination. That's genocide. There is no arguing that.
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May 22, 2014 18:09
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So we're down to: -Not even a million Indians were slaughtered -Other nations also committed genocide -There's no way those Indians were going to keep those lands, might as well get it over with Anything else? Anything that makes what happened not genocide?
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May 22, 2014 18:12
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Pauline Kael posted:You're the one drawing lines connecting Jefferson with Hitler, while absolutely everyone else in this thread is telling you you're wrong. You can keep dodging the point, but it's all pretty clear. The "everyone" in the thread with me right now is pretty much a rogue's gallery of aggrieved whitesplainers.
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May 22, 2014 18:29
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Wow, sorry I got busy at work for a bit. Let me run through...oh nope, just a bunch of arguing with holdouts who don't want to admit the US was founded on genocide.
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May 22, 2014 19:51
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Pauline Kael posted:I'm certainly not justifying it! We've moved a long way from the original point, but simply put, there was nothing *uniquely* evil about early America, no matter how much Sedan and friends want it to be so. Nobody claimed it was uniquely evil. I mean it's unique, and it's evil, but it's not like the last page on salon's click through "TOP TEN EVIL FOUNDING ORIGINS." It's probably like number five at best.
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May 22, 2014 19:54
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Pauline Kael posted:To be fair, you mostly were going on about the founding fathers were no better than Hitler, I guess trying to fit in with the cool kids like the OP. If you meant to say that perhaps Europeans should have stayed in Europe and left the Native Americans to their own devices, then you should have said that. Was the United States founded upon genocide? No need to bring up any other historical regime. Was it?
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May 22, 2014 20:00
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Pauline Kael posted:So in your mind because slavery existed, the United States should not have? Would slavery have gone away if the colonies had never formed a nation? Are you placing some sort of value in the creation of the political entity "the United States"? Why would you do that? It's a wicked nation with a wicked origin, why would I spend time defending its creation?
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May 22, 2014 20:44
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OK, but Indian Removal was genocide.rkajdi posted:The real solution is not to teach Baby's First History to kids, but that requires destroying the idiotic cults of personality that many people spent way too long building up, so it's doubtful that it'll ever happen. How fukken dare you suggest that the teaching of history trades in cults of personality. Why at my preschool in rural Kentucky, the nice lady spend a whole month telling us how bad slave owners were.
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May 22, 2014 21:09
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Mustang posted:Haha I'm not getting angry but there is very much a distinction between ethnic cleansing and genocide among both scholars of genocide and the UN. Yup and by that standard Indian Removal was genocide.
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May 22, 2014 21:33
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Mustang posted:You seem to have difficulty with reading comprehension. Once the Indians had fled, did the killing cease or did it continue?
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May 22, 2014 21:48
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asdf32 posted:Being unable or unwilling to use comparison to generate reasonable standards is an utterly useless position to take up. Is there any reason we should choose other standards than those of the Janjaweed? Just "fitting in" I guess?
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May 22, 2014 22:24
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Last time I taught a World in the Twentieth Century survey, none of my students even knew what a personality cult was, nor could name any historical examples beyond the two I'd just used (Stalin and Mao, as it was a USSR-and-China lecture that day). I sensed some uncomfortable shuffling when I suggested some of the founding fathers were revered in a similar fashion by some Americans, particularly though not exclusively on the far right. They couldn't give you any more examples!? There's a bunch more examples listed in the song! You know, the song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTjKWq9Gges
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May 23, 2014 03:00
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asdf32 posted:And what use is the conclusion that everyone is bad? Why do you keep coming back around to "everyone is bad"? Not everyone is bad. Jefferson and most of the founding fathers were pretty bad though, worse than most people alive at the time. Jefferson for example engineered a genocide, raped slaves and enslaved his own kids. Even at the time some people were like "drat." Some slave owners were like "drat."
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May 23, 2014 13:49
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Pauline Kael posted:And yet, here we are still operating successfully under a system/government established by Thomas 'worse than hitler' Jefferson and a bunch of like minded fellows. Perhaps this brings us back to the OP. Maybe the reason why we should care what the Founding Fathers wanted is that they, despite their flaws, were able to put together a set of ideas, even if they weren't followed perfectly in practice, that allowed for a flexible approach to governing a new and expanding nation. I realize that isn't a popular notion in D&D and can be deconstructed in an effort to prove otherwise, but in a sense the results speak for themselves. The US Government, which is really what the FFs were responsible for, has been intact and continuous for what, almost 230 years? After all, Governments don't exist to be graded by goons, they are there to assure the survival of their society, ideally. The system set up by the FF's has done that. Nobody said Jefferson et al weren't brilliant, and their ideas and actions a revolutionary advance. Of course we should care about their ideas (as if it were possible that veneration of their lives and ideas would somehow cease anytime soon). It's just that Jefferson raped slaves and enslaved his own kids and engineered a genocide, as well. Your continuous attempt to mitigate these atrocities is troubling.
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May 23, 2014 14:15
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Pauline Kael posted:The OP asks... why should we care what the founding fathers wanted. That's the point, really. They wanted slaves, property and freedom from taxation. They wanted to be rulers of a new nation. Of course it's important to know what they wanted.
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May 23, 2014 14:24
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Pauline Kael posted:This is the problem. I, and lots of other Americans, have family that were effected by the Holocaust. Literal blood relatives that got tossed in the ovens. You think it odd that something that's still in immediate memory for millions of Americans, horror caught on film for all to still see today, has a larger cultural effect than what happened 200+ years ago to a group that's pretty fundamentally out of the picture today? Are you dumb?  Reservation in South Dakota, "fundamentally out of the picture" with alcoholism and diabetes rates 800% above average.
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May 23, 2014 18:08
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computer parts posted:I know for Mao the message the CCP allows is that while he was a great leader/general and had the right ideas, he was pretty bad at actually running the country and caused a fair amount of misery (actually criticizing the current CCP is still a big no-no though). Don't they say he was "70% good"? Using this metric I am willing to say that Thomas Jefferson was 12% good.
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May 24, 2014 00:31
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e: nooothing
woke wedding drone fucked around with this message at 01:17 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 00:49
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Pauline Kael posted:You're reading what you want into it, have at it. You're free to question the Founders all you like, until your dad gets his comeuppance, for all I care. Jews don't need more deference/sympathy, but they'll get it, in the US at least. Pauline Kael posted:This is the problem. I, and lots of other Americans, have family that were effected by the Holocaust. Literal blood relatives that got tossed in the ovens. You think it odd that something that's still in immediate memory for millions of Americans, horror caught on film for all to still see today, has a larger cultural effect than what happened 200+ years ago to a group that's pretty fundamentally out of the picture today? Are you dumb? As far as I can tell, your main point is "I'm biased, things that affect people I'm close to feel more important to me and you should understand that." Sure I guess.
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May 24, 2014 02:47
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