patrick.net

curious2 says

CL says

curious2 says

Yes, and liberals (e.g. Dan) have a much stronger claim to TJ's ideological estate than conservatives, Democrats, or Republicans

That's what I'm wondering. If you were to list the top reasons you say that what would they be?

Probably all the reasons you listed and more, but I won't presume to speak for Dan - much better to let him answer if he chooses.

My understanding is that Thomas Jefferson like many of the founding fathers were deists. Deism is the belief in a non-intervening clockmaker god. So basically, they didn't believe in the Christian god or Jesus, but didn't want to offend the masses of ignorant people who did. However, they were not atheists, although had they been born in the past 50 years, they probably would be.

Of course, one could argue that a clockmaker god isn't a god in the monotheist sense. After all, there is nothing to imply that a clockmaker god
- Is all powerful
- Is all knowing
- Is good
- Is aware of the sentient beings in the universe he created
- Is the only one of his kind

Put simply, clockmaker god could be Sheldon Cooper running an experiment in a particle accelerator. Even if Cooper created our entire universe, would you worship him?

More interesting, in my opinion, then Jefferson's theological beliefs is that he is an INTJ like me. See here and here

Jefferson thought much like I do, not surprising since INTJs are very systematic and tend to think alike regardless of which nation or century they live in. He's the founding father whose political writings I most agree with. Also, Jefferson and I also both have philosophies very similar to Immanuel Kant, another INTJ.

The following video explains some of Kant's insights into the nature of knowledge. It may sound familiar as some of my arguments against the existence of a god and the fact that we can indeed be certain of the non-existence of god and the afterlife are strongly related to the three types of knowledge.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qk4AGXrmLJw

Some of Kant's quotes.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/VkE8YxHokj8

Back to Jefferson. The one thing that perplexes me about Jefferson is that he was a slave owner even though he advocated liberal philosophy even to the point of including the slave trade as one of the grievances against the king of England in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence -- it was later removed out of fear of losing support for the revolution from southern states.

I suppose one could simply chuck up this contradiction as hypocrisy, but INTJs abhor contradiction. Nor can I simply accept that Jefferson had slaves because it was common practice for the rich to do so in his time. Liberals are rebels; they don't do things that contradict their philosophies simply to conform to conventions. So I really don't have a good explanation of why Jefferson continued to own slaves while advocating liberty and freedom.

indigenous says

Chart is confusing. It shows Jackson as a democrat yet he wanted small government, no tariff protection, no national banks, no fiat money.

As I mentioned, the political parties have changed completely over the past 100+ years. Andrew Jackson was indeed a Democrat. In fact, he was a founding member of that party.

Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States. He is known for founding the Democratic Party and for his support of individual liberty.

carrieon says

This is true, because the two parties switched ideologies in 1980.

More like the 1950s to 1960s.

All Founding Fathers espoused whatever ideology is currently fashionable in the Republican Party.

Everyone knows that!

Dan8267 says

The one thing that perplexes me about Jefferson is that he was a slave owner

Occam's razor: He was an asshole.

No human being is consistent. Those Virginia landowners who were troubled by slavery - as it dawned on them that it was morally, uh, questionable - were in the inconvenient position of choosing between bankruptcy and owning slaves. And when a man is presented with that choice, he almost always sticks to beliefs consistent with his finances. Late in life he was usually at or near bankruptcy anyway - his projects always exceeded his capital means.

I love Jefferson, but people aren't all good or all bad.

Dan8267 says

Jefferson continued to own slaves while advocating liberty and freedom.

All the founding fathers in that time period thought that blacks, whether free or not were inferior to them. But even Jefferson wanted to free blacks however, he wanted to deport them all back to Africa.

Dan8267 says

I suppose one could simply chuck up this contradiction as hypocrisy, but INTJs abhor contradiction.

On your link they list famous INTJs:

Lance Armstrong

Charles Rangel

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Woodrow Wilson

If they are any example maybe that would explain why Jefferson had slaves?

The first Video the sound stops at about 6 minutes.

How is this different than astrology? IOW in a nut shell why is it useful?

Same with Kant's ideas?

Dan8267 says

carrieon says

This is true, because the two parties switched ideologies in 1980.

More like the 1950s to 1960s.

The passage of the civil rights act completely reset the ideology of both parties with the wholesale conversion of conservative southern democrats to the republican party. There is no way to trace the current democratic party to Jefferson or the current republican party to Lincoln.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

El HydroCabron says

All Founding Fathers espoused whatever ideology is currently fashionable in the Republican Party.

Everyone knows that!

All the founding fathers would beg to be sodomized by Ann Coulter if they were alive today.

Wouldn't you? Dikes are a real turn on.

indigenous says

Actually it was the anti federalists who created and pushed for the Republic. The federalists were fine with the Hamiltonian ideas.

To a degree. Remember that the quote I paraphrased above came from the Federalist Papers. Although it might have been Madison who specifically referenced Athens in that quote, Hamilton was one of the authors of the Papers.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

All the founding fathers would beg to be sodomized by Ann Coulter if they were alive today.

As opposed to the current POTUSs who incessantly chant BOHICA...

Dan8267 says

My understanding is that Thomas Jefferson like many of the founding fathers were deists. Deism is the belief in a non-intervening clockmaker god. So basically, they didn't believe in the Christian god or Jesus, but didn't want to offend the masses of ignorant people who did.

Many might have been deists, and many were clearly Christians. Even though Jefferson most probably was a deist, he very clearly believed that rights did not come from government, they came from nature or "God." Grab a book with his writings and you'll find that he uses word "God" all over the place, in a way that you would personally dislike very much.

Dan8267 says

More interesting, in my opinion, then Jefferson's theological beliefs is that he is an INTJ like me. See here and here

Jefferson thought much like I do, not surprising since INTJs are very systematic and tend to think alike regardless of which nation or century they live in. He's the founding father whose political writings I most agree with. Also, Jefferson and I also both have philosophies very similar to Immanuel Kant, another INTJ.

As a fellow INTJ who has actually studied MTBI to a degree, I point out that your use of the MTBI here as some form of validation for your own philosophies is a complete misapplication of it. A little study of what MTBI is really about would teach you that.

As far as INTJ's abhorring contradiction: One way to avoid contradiction is to pretend it doesn't exist, or... try to turn your own contradiction onto those who disagree with you, as if another's contradiction excuses your own.

Paralithodes says

To a degree. Remember that the quote I paraphrased above came from the Federalist Papers. Although it might have been Madison who specifically referenced Athens in that quote, Hamilton was one of the authors of the Papers.

The anti federalist papers were the ones who pushed the republic and insisted on states rights. Hamilton wanted a central bank and central government. The constitution would not have been ratified if not for the anti federalist papers who also required the bill of rights.

indigenous says

Paralithodes says

To a degree. Remember that the quote I paraphrased above came from the Federalist Papers. Although it might have been Madison who specifically referenced Athens in that quote, Hamilton was one of the authors of the Papers.

The anti federalist papers were the ones who pushed the republic and insisted on states rights. Hamilton wanted a central bank and central government. The constitution would not have been ratified if not for the anti federalist papers who also required the bill of rights.

No argument regarding Hamilton and the Federalists vs. anti-federalists. The Federalist papers themselves sold the concept of a specifically limited central government (perhaps to appease the anti-Federalists?). In any case, I interpreted the initial comment regarding republic vs. democracy as the founders being specifically against a direct democracy (e.g., simple majority voting by everyone, vs. elected representatives), for which even the Federalists (via the Federalist Papers) were clear on that matter. Ultimately the Constitution guarantees (to the degree that anything can be guaranteed" a Republic and a republican form of government (vs. a direct democracy).

Paralithodes says

In any case, I interpreted the initial comment regarding republic vs. democracy as the founders being specifically against a direct democracy (e.g., simple majority voting by everyone, vs. elected representatives), for which even the Federalists (via the Federalist Papers) were clear on that matter. Ultimately the Constitution guarantees (to the degree that anything can be guaranteed" a Republic and a republican form of government (vs. a direct democracy).

The specific purpose of the anti federalists was to push states rights which would have been undermined willy nilly if not specifically delineated in the constitution.

In these discussions, the term "states' rights" should be understood as southern landowners' attempt to seize federal power disproportionate to their states' populations. Such power, desirable in itself, was also important to preserve their right to own people against outside meddling by those who did not understand the unique culture of owning people.

The Senate, the electoral college (hence, the presidency), the allocation of at-large reps to states with a population meriting less than half a rep, and the three-fifths rule are all devices to ensure that large slave holders would remain powerful. Now such features have evolved to protect the right to close abortion clinics and deny basic rights to gays.

Nothing was put in the constitution that would prove offensive to southern white supremacists: so began the tradition, upheld through today, of appeasing the offended sensibilities of this most sensitive and, in their own minds, victimized, demographic.

Rest assured, the southern libertarians know this. It was not by chance that Reagan opened his 1980 campaign with a speech about "states' rights" in the south: translate this to "I am as afraid of niggers as you are - wink wink, nudge nudge say no more!"

El HydroCabron says

In these discussions, the term "states' rights" should be understood as southern landowners' attempt to seize federal power disproportionate to their states' populations.

What were the southern states at the time the constitution was ratified?

I don't think so

El HydroCabron says

In these discussions, the term "states' rights" should be understood as southern landowners' attempt to seize federal power disproportionate to their states' populations.

Above is indicative of someone who either through ignorance or through the lens of political ideology either does not understand history or intentionally chooses to reinterpret it.

El HydroCabron says

Occam's razor: He was an asshole.

Occam's Razor does not state that the simplest answer is correct. William of Occam's words were "We should not multiply entities needlessly.". The meaning of these words, in clearer modern terms is...

Whenever there are two explanations and one makes an additional assumption, the one will the fewer assumptions should be preferred if the two explanations produce identical results.

For example, given the question Why does the universe exist?
Explanation 1: The universe existed since the beginning of time. Nothing created it.
Explanation 2: God created the universe. God existed since the beginning of time. Nothing created god.

The two explanations produce the same results, but the second one makes an additional assumption; it multiplies entities needlessly. Therefore the first explanation should be preferred.

Occam's Razor does not say that given two explanations with different consequence, the simpler is probably true. The universe is full of examples where the simpler explanation is wrong and nature is deeper and more complex than first thought.

Paralithodes says

Many might have been deists, and many were clearly Christians. Even though Jefferson most probably was a deist, he very clearly believed that rights did not come from government, they came from nature or "God." Grab a book with his writings and you'll find that he uses word "God" all over the place, in a way that you would personally dislike very much.

I never claimed that all the founding fathers were deists. Of course some of the dumber ones were Christian. But as I stated, many were deists.

Oh, and Jefferson despised the supernatural bullshit foundation of Christianity so much, he literally rewrote the bible removing all such supernatural bullshit.

In any case, appeal to authority is logical fallacy. It does not matter which religious beliefs our founding fathers personally advocated. There is zero reason to believe they were right in their religious beliefs. What is important is they created a secular state that was meant to be free from religious control. The separation of church and state is one of the most important principles of our nation.

As Enlightenment thinkers, the founders adjusted their beliefs as they learned more over the course of their lives. They were raised mostly in traditional religious environments, but became less religious as time went on. Ben Franklin is a particular example: in his younger years, he wrote in religious terms, but then he stopped; when asked at age 84 whether he believed in the divinity of Jesus, he declined to answer, saying at his age he expected to find out soon enough.

Paralithodes says

As a fellow INTJ

If you are an INTJ, I'm Helen Keller.

Paralithodes says

s a complete misapplication of it

Asserting that a proof if incorrect is not mathematically sufficient. One must formally show the flaw.

Paralithodes says

One way to avoid contradiction is to pretend it doesn't exist

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?

Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." - Abraham Lincoln

Paralithodes says

try to turn your own contradiction onto those who disagree with you, as if another's contradiction excuses your own

Only according to Republican philosophy. The rest of us believe that two wrongs don't make a right. And no INTJ would accept the premise you stated.

Dan8267 says

Only according to Republican philosophy. The rest of us believe that two wrongs don't make a right. And no INTJ would accept the premise you stated.

Well, Helen Keller... According to your own standards, given your own behavior in both the discussion about CU as well as your dodging and failure to address contradictions in your military spending thread, by trying to focus on the contradictions of others, you are most certainly a Republican.

MTBI is not a mathematical model. And if you think that you can type someone based on their demeanor on an internet forum, or due to your broad yet absolutist generalities of their political "philosophies," then clearly you know as much about MBTI as you do the CU decision - That is ... absolutely nothing...

Anyone who has even a basic understanding of the MBTI beyond simply knowing their type as determined at a certain time, knows that you have no clue what you are talking about. Go ahead and try to dodge your way out of this one.

Dan8267 says

What is important is they created a secular state that was meant to be free from religious control.

What is even more important was that their philosophy was that the government was not the grantor of rights. Rights did not come from the government, they came from "nature" or "God."
There is zero getting around the fact that this is how Jefferson and others saw it, whether deists, Christians, or otherwise. If you actually pick up a book with Jefferson's writings about this (which you might find interesting if you actually do so - Comedy Central and MSNBC are never substitutes for the real thing), you might more clearly understand them.

Paralithodes says

According

Honey, you bitch a lot, but provide nothing substantial to argue about.

Paralithodes says

What is even more important was that their philosophy was that the government was not the grantor of rights. Rights did not come from the government, they came from "nature" or "God."

Whether or not the founding fathers believed that rights came from a god is irrelevant. In our government, rights are defined by law. They come from Congress, not your fictitious god. Get over it.

Paralithodes says

Comedy Central and MSNBC are never substitutes for the real thing

Honey, Comedy Central and MSNBC are infinitely better than Fox News. But don't make the mistake of thinking that because I post a Daily Show clip showing the absurdity of conservatives that I don't draw from a vast collection of highly respected resources including NPR, PBS, government docs, and peer-review journals.

Speaking of which, you might remember this peer-review journal I quoted in one of our previous debates, In Soviet Russia Bachmann is a professor of current affairs.

Dan8267 says

read this wonderful mathematical proof that Gore won

You remember that argument. It's the one where I quoted the American Political Science Review while you quoted Wikipedia, the go to source for idiots.

You don't get to claim the position of quality when it comes to evidence gathering.

indigenous says

On your link they list famous INTJs:

Lance Armstrong

Charles Rangel

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Woodrow Wilson

If they are any example maybe that would explain why Jefferson had slaves?

I don't see how you would connect Wilson to slavery, but in any case, INTJs can be good or evil just like any other personality type. Here are some more examples of INTJs that I think you'd find to be on the light side of the force.

John F. Kennedy, U.S. President
C. S. Lewis, author
Jane Austen, author
Susan B. Anthony, civil rights leader
Arthur Ashe, tennis player
Emily Bronte, author
Stephen Hawking, physicist
Niels Bohr, physicist
Nikola Tesla, physicist, engineer, inventor

I've never watch the show, so I don't know if the character is really an INTJ.

Many people on this site can attest to that even if they won't admit it.

Funny cause it's true. However, I will concede that ESFPs are more fun.

OK, so maybe we focus on the wrong things sometimes. We're still technically correct.

Overlooked, but very true.

Absolutely true.

Other personality types have admirable members as well.

Not related, but I narfed when I saw this.

curious2 says

and conscripted Americans to fight and die in, seems a poignant and dramatic difference compared to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

Marines were sent to both the Shores of Tripoli and the Shores of Danang.

Obviously, if we had known what we were getting into in 1962-65 we wouldn't have committed as we did. Throw in some troops, kick some commie ass, go home after a year or three.

Bellingham Bill says

Obviously,

Ugh. Read your own Wiki article, the Barbary states were attacking Americans (unlike the Gulf of Tonkin), Jefferson didn't conscript Americans, Jefferson had authority from Congress, and the action was quite limited. Then, read the Pentagon Papers. Or, go back to ignoring me and scores of other people.

LBJ thought he was getting a limited action, too.

And he went to Congress for authority to take care of the upstart communists in Hanoi threatening our national interest there.

"Volunteer" troops bleed and die just the same as draftees so that's orthogonal.

go back to ignoring me and scores of other people.

Probably should, actually. Morons here have overrun the place.

Seeing you defend LBJ's decision to launch the Viet Nam draft, I'm unsurprised you also defend Obamacare. It is funny to see you say that morons have overrun PatNet, I wonder if you are proudly claiming credit for leading that assault too.

Dan8267 says

I don't see how you would connect Wilson to slavery, but in any case, INTJs can be good or evil just like any other personality type. Here are some more examples of INTJs that I think you'd find to be on the light side of the force.

Those people suffer from hypocrisy, maybe not Wilson he was just the worst president the US has ever had, considering how much damage he caused maybe that is hypocrisy in itself.

A lot of verbiage and I still don't understand what an INTJ is? Maybe that is the intention?

Bellingham Bill says

Obviously, if we had known what we were getting into in 1962-65 we wouldn't have committed as we did. Throw in some troops, kick some commie ass, go home after a year or three.

We had the knowledge of what we were getting into. Just like the Iraq war numerous respected high ranking generals wrote extensively about exactly what the situation was and would develop into. Just like the Iraq war these people were marginalized or driven out of the service by a Sec of Def (Mcnamara and Rumsfeld) with unlimited ego and desire for war.

Bellingham Bill says

he went to Congress for authority to take care of the upstart communists in Hanoi threatening our national interest there.

Remember the POS ford EXP version of the escort in the 80's. When ford told the auto press they were dropping it because sales hadn't met expectations someone pointed out that the EXP was a slow, ugly, poor handling, unreliable, two seater and asked what exactly ford's sales expectations had been.

What exactly was the US national interest in a dirt poor agricultural country that was 90% mountainous jungle, 10% rice paddy with no infrastructure, no manufacturing, no natural resources, no geographic signifigance that was 12,000 miles away?

The domino theory was a joke. Communism succeeded so well in the 50's and 60's because it provided a means to drive out the hated repressive colonialists or post colonialist dictators who were ruthlessly exploiting the resources leaving almost the entire population in dire poverty. The US policy then and now is based on force and the big stick. The US time and time again took the position of supporting corrupt, repressive, reviled, self serving governments despised by the population because they were "anti communist" then wondering why they fell.

BTW I've read 2 different accounts of LBJ's presidency that say that he actually had the telegram stating the August 4th incident probably never happened in his pocket while he made his speech to congress asking for the gulf of tonkin resolution. LBJ wanted to go to war and was willing to do whatever it took to get there. Just like Bush.

Dan8267 says

You remember that argument. It's the one where I quoted the American Political Science Review while you quoted Wikipedia, the go to source for idiots.

You don't get to claim the position of quality when it comes to evidence gathering.

I can't recall ever quoting Wikipedia in a previous debate with you. Can you find where I did that? If you cannot, I await your apology for either (a) a false accusation or (b) intentional dishonesty by trying to twist the conversation elsewhere. I also can't recall any conversation with you about Bachmann, nor am I a participant in the thread that you link. You should apologize for your confusion on that one too.

Also, given that you allegedly review government documents, why not give a read of the CU decision a try? You might learn something contrary to your completely incorrect beliefs of it now.

Dan8267 says

Whether or not the founding fathers believed that rights came from a god is irrelevant. In our government, rights are defined by law. They come from Congress, not your fictitious god. Get over it.

But thank you for your post. Claiming that rights "come from Congress" is probably the clearest example in this thread of the massive, irreconcilable gap between Thomas Jefferson and any of today's so-called liberal that believes as you do. Any commonality between today's Democrats or liberals with Thomas Jefferson on other issues is meaningless beyond this gap.

BTW, can you tell us which rights are specifically granted by Congress? Most of them seem to be written in the fashion of "Congress shall not interfere with 'the right of x" where x is not otherwise defined, and therefore assumed to already be held by the people. Perhaps the fact that this doesn't fit into a clear mathematical box is the reason you can't understand it.

indigenous says

A lot of verbiage and I still don't understand what an INTJ is? Maybe that is the intention?

It's the Meyer's Briggs Type Inventory, a type of personality assessment designed in part to help people understand how to work with people of various other types, and that is very frequently abused and applied in contexts where it doesn't belong, or using it in a way to signify something when it is meaningless (such as Dan's comparison of himself with Jefferson). This is one topic that, while I have never looked it up on Wikipedia, is probably one that is safe to look up there, if you were interested. But it's really totally irrelevant to this thread, other than an expression of Dan talking about things which he knows little of, but thinks he does simply because he's smart in general.

Paralithodes says

I can't recall ever quoting Wikipedia in a previous debate with you.

Back when you went by the handle Shrek, before MarsAttacks and the several other handles you used. Too bad Patrick kept nuking your comments. I always thought it was better to keep the posts to demonstrate how ridiculous they were.

curious2 says

Seeing you defend LBJ's decision to launch the Viet Nam draft

The Vietnam-era draft was a left-over from the 40s. Plus the US was experiencing a massive rise of 19 year olds in the 1960s (baby boom really got rolling in the late 40s) so shipping some of them off to fight the godless communist bastards in Indochina seemed like a good idea at the time, just like stopping the communist expansion in Korea was probably a good idea, even in retrospect.

Intervening in Vietnam to save the Thieu regime was a really tough call, given our mostly successful experience in Korea.

Failing to act would give the conservatives tons of ammunition for calling LBJ and the Dems pussies and not serious about containing communism, just like Truman failed to save China when he had the chance.

Against this LBJ had to make the call that our armed forces would prove not sufficiently more capable than the French to defeat the communists in SE Asia.

This would be a priori, in 1965, preposterous!

But after 3+ years of jungle slog, we began to understand that the guerrillas had pretty good freedom of movement within SVN, since the place was so covered with jungle and the interior was mostly uninhabited and the borders with Laos and Cambodia very porous.

Plus the Thieu regime mostly sucked and many if not most non-Catholic Southerners just wanted the wars over already.

And we couldn't really bomb the Hanoi regime to the bargaining table, since they were so poor they didn't have much worth preserving from the USAF & USN anyway.

The only way to win was to isolate the north from its support, which meant going to war with Russia and/or China, or somehow getting China to fight on our side, something our diplomacy was not sufficiently flexible enough to pursue in the 1960s.

So yeah, given our stupid domestic politics -- the conservative mouth-breather vote that appears when war is on the menu -- LBJ was railroaded into intervening in Vietnam as he did.

Obama has always had a nuanced, tactical view of health reform. First get the government involved, then move towards universal single payer over time. He's long said we can't get to there in one jump, and he's clearly right.

We don't have a single Democratic senator in the progressive caucus. Not one!

By the way, this looks like the full timeline, up to Obama.

http://www.davidwalbert.com/2011/07/01/timeline-of-u-s-political-parties/