doc mcb | 16 Jul 2022 11:06 a.m. PST |
link "The globalist billionaire who funded the woke transformation of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello paid for a similar overhaul of James Madison's house — where the author of the US Constitution has been shoved into a supporting role, while slavery and racism take center stage. No American flags fly at Montpelier, Madison's plantation home in rural Virginia, and not a single display focuses on the life and accomplishments of America's foremost political philosopher, who created our three-branch federal system of government, wrote the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers, and served two terms as president. Instead, blindsided tourists are hammered by high-tech exhibits about Madison's slaves and current racial conflicts, thanks to a $10 USD million grant from left-leaning philanthropist David M. Rubenstein. "I was kind of thinking we'd be hearing more about the Constitution," one baffled dad said when The Post visited the president's home this week. "But everything here is really about slavery." |
Bunkermeister | 16 Jul 2022 11:42 a.m. PST |
Destruction of the nation is the goal, our heritage, our history, and our rights. This is how it happens. Mike Bunkermeister Creek |
Col Durnford | 16 Jul 2022 11:54 a.m. PST |
Where are all these Bond villains getting their money from? |
doc mcb | 16 Jul 2022 2:23 p.m. PST |
Frank Vandiver had his seminar watch it; it gets a lot right. The criticisms would be more in terms of what it omits than any problem with what it includes. |
Au pas de Charge | 16 Jul 2022 2:47 p.m. PST |
Destruction of the nation is the goal, our heritage, our history, and our rights. This is how it happens. Can you supply an example of where this has happened? Although, given your bent, If you really want to flip out, read this. Woohoo! PDF link
|
doc mcb | 16 Jul 2022 3:08 p.m. PST |
Interesting, but to the extent they associate with the Southern Poverty Law Center I would have nothing to do with them. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any much discussion of the considerable printed sources we DO have. or of classic works of history like Genovese's which used extensive slave sources, fifty years ago. |
Au pas de Charge | 16 Jul 2022 3:19 p.m. PST |
Well doc, you can pick up new classics: link link I am tempted to get this: link |
Bunkermeister | 16 Jul 2022 3:49 p.m. PST |
Can you supply an example of where this has happened? Every nation that has become Communist transfers loyalty to family and nation to loyalty to the party. The process includes destruction of the family unit and of loyalty to the nation by destroying their history. Then that loyalty is replaced by loyalty to the party which is infallible. Mike Bunkermeister Creek |
doc mcb | 16 Jul 2022 4:03 p.m. PST |
|
35thOVI | 16 Jul 2022 4:06 p.m. PST |
APDC I suggest you get the bobble head. Then you will have someone who agrees with all your views, every time. seriously buy it. It should make you Infinitely happy. |
Thresher01 | 16 Jul 2022 4:42 p.m. PST |
Sickening. +10 Bunkermeister. Every institution of the USA is currently under heavy assault, including even family units, our Constitution, the US Supreme Court, our court system, and our law enforcement and military organizations and personnel. All are intended to weaken, if not outright destroy our nation from within. |
Au pas de Charge | 16 Jul 2022 4:51 p.m. PST |
APDC I suggest you get the bobble head. Then you will have someone who agrees with all your views, every time.seriously buy it. It should make you Infinitely happy. Ha! Although I don't think Jefferson was either a racist or a white supremacist, I do think he fathered SH's children. |
Mister Tibbles | 16 Jul 2022 5:54 p.m. PST |
Thresher01. |
doc mcb | 16 Jul 2022 5:56 p.m. PST |
Charge, I DO think TJ was both a racist and a white supremacist, as was pretty nearly everyone else back then. Posing the question is kind of an anachronism. Those were givens, unexamined assumptions. TJ's critique of slavery is very much focused on its evil effects on whites. |
doc mcb | 16 Jul 2022 5:59 p.m. PST |
We know quite a lot about the mind of Jefferson. We know, for example, that he had no concept of extinction of species, one reason why Lewis and Clark were ordered to be on the lookout for mammoths. Trying to put him or anyone into modern categories, and especially disputed categories, is an offense against history. |
Grattan54 | 16 Jul 2022 7:18 p.m. PST |
The left pushes three things Race, Class, and Gender. In race the US is bad. In Gender the US is bad. In class US is bad. If this is all you focus on you do get a vary distorted view of US history. Even though, yes, we have had racism, we did hold women as second-class citizen and the lower classes have often gotten screwed. But what is never then shown is how much the US has changed. All that has been done to correct this. How current Americans condemn all this. Yes, a few don't but they are the minority. |
Der Alte Fritz | 16 Jul 2022 9:23 p.m. PST |
|
Old Contemptible | 16 Jul 2022 9:48 p.m. PST |
I just looked over the Montpelier website seemed to be a balance presentation of James and Dollie Madison. The Center for the Constitution is located there and is a resource for educators. There is a new emphasis on slavery. Madison was a slave owner as was several of the founders. There is no way to square that circle. You can't ignore it. There is still much on Madison and the Constitution. Looks like a balance presentation to me. link link |
Old Contemptible | 16 Jul 2022 10:09 p.m. PST |
I think this is much to do about nothing. Having spent my working life in museums I have found that they are not immune to prevailing tendencies or inclinations. Slavery is a subject that quite frankly, had been pushed to the background in our museums and historic places. Now there is a redress. Eventually balance will be restored. I don't understand why some feel threaten by this. I doubt Madison had an American flag flying at his home. National Trust for Historic Places: link |
Dn Jackson | 17 Jul 2022 5:55 a.m. PST |
"But what is never then shown is how much the US has changed. All that has been done to correct this." Grattan54, I would also add that it is rare for the US to be put in context when discussing these issues. For example; yes the US had slavery that ended in 1865 – other countries practiced slavery well into the 20th century yes women couldn't vote when we became a country – but they couldn't vote anywhere in the world then. Even after we adopted universal suffrage most of the world didn't have the vote for anyone, including women yes, the lower classes in this country often had it very rough, but the ability was there for them to advance and, in some cases, to become rich. Was that an option anywhere else? Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. – George Orwell |
Au pas de Charge | 17 Jul 2022 6:23 a.m. PST |
Slavery is a subject that quite frankly, had been pushed to the background in our museums and historic places. Not just there but everywhere. There does seem to be a certain chic for the slavery experience.
I don't understand why some feel threaten by this. One could suspect it is a matter of familiarity. For example, if slavery and the African-American experience hasn't been focused on much, its sudden introduction can make it seem that everything is now about it and them which might reflexively produce jealousy. Also, to generalize, socially Americans don't always care as much about their situation as they worry about certain groups they feel superior to not getting ahead of them. The idea that a previously marginalized group is getting attention might produce some anxiety. You can see from the "whataboutism" posited above that some people find complex issues unattractive to deal with head on and thus cook up rationalizations. It would be easier to understand that if there weren't also fights to preserve the reputation of the Founders because they were special and the documents they produced were also special which theoretically would eliminate the USA from comparisons with other countries. However our "specialness" appears to get readily forgotten for an immediate fix of justifying certain deeds. The Orwell quote is most interesting here as a sinister touch. Should we take it in context? Does anyone think that teaching about slavery is a form of brainwashing to make us forget our past? Especially at places where the slavery took place? Now that would be an extraordinary viewpoint. |
Father of Cats | 17 Jul 2022 3:10 p.m. PST |
I went there for the first time Friday. True, there is no flag flying. I don't recall that being different than some of the other Presidential homes in Virginia. I took the tour, rather than just buy a grounds pass. The tour emphasizes that this is the place where much of the thinking behind the Constitution and Bill of Rights originated. They also remind you that all that leisure and the lavish (for the era) surroundings were in large part due to profits from slave labor. I thought that the Madisons took a hit because they made no effort to free any of their slaves at death. Dolly Madison, who I had always seen as a clever organizer in Washington circles, apparently made sure that slaves were working just outside the windows when bankers came to discuss loans, so that the bankers could see the collateral she had. It makes you shake your head at authors like Madison and Jefferson, and Dolly Madison who loved to plan dinners with guests of different views sitting beside one another, but who had such a complete blind spot when it came to African chattel slavery. It spurred quite a discussion in our car over the extent you can separate the person from their philosophy or beliefs. As for the "high tech wokeness," there are two buildings marked as "slave quarters" that run a looping audio-visual presentation. Nothing obtrusive, and certainly appropriate. If you didn't take the tour or stick your head in the two buildings, you could tour the grounds and bookshop and either ignore slavery, or imagine it as a 1960s version of happy singers and bluebirds, without the uncomfortable reality that all this was brought to you by slavery. To put it in perspective, the guide told of a letter that Dolly Madison wrote to s friend. Dolly thought her personal servant (slave) was stealing from her. So she sent her to work in the fields. But then she had to bring her back, because it would cost $800 USD ($35,000 today) to replace her, then have to train a replacement. There are so many levels of bad that it is hard to figure out where to start. |
Father of Cats | 17 Jul 2022 6:31 p.m. PST |
Apparently we missed some displays in the basement. There was almost no signage for it, and if our guide mentioned it, it was not emphasized at all. |
doc mcb | 17 Jul 2022 7:34 p.m. PST |
Father, thank you for the report. It heartens me. |
Zephyr1 | 17 Jul 2022 9:45 p.m. PST |
Anybody who doesn't like Thomas Jefferson or Monticello's presence on their currency may send it to me at… ;-) |
35thOVI | 18 Jul 2022 4:15 a.m. PST |
And send me all your other Objectionable US currencies, including those Madison's. 😂 |
35thOVI | 18 Jul 2022 9:12 a.m. PST |
We must remember that our founding fathers to those on the opposite side, in the words of "Momma" in the movie "The Waterboy", are "The Devils". 😈 Momma would say: "Thomas Jefferson is the Devil!" Those of us like me, just must adjust. 😉 |
Parzival | 18 Jul 2022 4:48 p.m. PST |
yes women couldn't vote when we became a country – but they couldn't vote anywhere in the world then. Even after we adopted universal suffrage most of the world didn't have the vote for anyone, including women Actually not quite true. The original US Constitution never denied women (or anyone) the right to vote. (Read it; it's true.) Gender isn't mentioned in the Constitution, and the only time a gender-assigned pronoun is used is in reference to the President of the United States, who, as an individual, is given the pronoun "he," there being no gender-neutral third person pronoun for singular persons in the English language at the time (there did use to be, in the early Middle Ages—"hir"—but it vanished from use). "They" could not be used (as it is plural), and "it" could not be used, as referring only to objects, not persons. So in effect, the US Constitution placed no limits on the sex of persons either voting or electable to office in the United States of America. In fact, the original US Constitution never defined who could or could not vote— the Constitution only states that the members of the House of Representatives are to be selected "by the People"— a general term that applies to all citizens of any gender or for that matter, race. The States, however, held the right and duty to regulate how elections were handled, and thus the right to vote was granted individually by the separate states to their populations. For the record, women did vote in certain locations in the US, and the first woman to be elected to Congress (and to serve as well), Jeanette Rankin, was elected to office in 1916, three years before the 19th Amendment was ratified! Similarly, the US Constitution never made any restrictions on voting based on race, age, or social status; again, this was entirely left up to the individual states to determine. (For the record, it is false to say that black people were denied the right to vote prior to the 14th Amendment. In fact, free black citizens in many states could and did indeed vote from the very founding of the nation! And, also for the record, there were nearly half-a-million free black citizens of the US in the late 18th and early 19th century. The only reference to race in the Constitution doesn't apply to the black race at all— it applies to Indians, when defining the apportionment of representatives and electors based on population. "Indians not taxed" is the key phrase here, and that is because "No taxation without representation" has a reverse principle as well— "no representation without taxation—" that is, if you don't pay taxes, you don't have a say in how taxes are raised. In historical context, the phrase is not actually a reference to race, but to citizenship, as Indians who were citizens of their own nations were not eligible to be citizens of a state, unless they paid taxes, in which case they were citizens and thus earned representation. Yes, this passage is also the source of the 3/5ths Rule; however, again, that is not a rule based on race but rather on a status of servitude, slaves (of any race) not being taxed and therefore not permitted representation. And while the vast majority of slaves were black, not all were. (By the way, I am not excusing these ideas at all— I am merely pointing out the facts of the situation and what the Constitution says.) Technically, the status of blacks being able to vote was more or less a default circumstance of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, as the 3/5ths rule could no longer apply. But of course, since the states themselves controlled the status of who could vote, the 14th Amendments and eventually 19th Amendments were required to fully grant franchise to all Americans, and rightly so. |
Editor in Chief Bill | 18 Jul 2022 5:57 p.m. PST |
I do think he fathered SH's children. Apparently the DNA evidence only shows that he is one of several candidates, one of whom by behavior seems more likely to me. |
doc mcb | 19 Jul 2022 4:13 a.m. PST |
In Puritan New England, local government was by town meetings, who elected the few officers required. The general rule was that each HOUSEHOLD had a vote. Normally that would be a man as head of the household, but sometimes when a woman filled that role -- as a widow, typically -- she voted. |