I don’t understand this… stupidity. And yes, I know stupidity is a strong word that stings, but the truth is there, available, easy to access from every computer, tablet or smartphone on the planet, but, too few are willing to make the effort. It is too easy to let some talking head, teacher or professor tell you what you need to think. One talking head, Mika Brzezinski said it was the media’s job to “…control exactly what the people think.” What is sadder still is, no one disagreed with her.
Somewhere not that far back, we abandoned “The” truth and came up with the idea of “my” truth and “your” truth, as if a fact could be bent to the will of the person’s personal beliefs.
Our entire history has been reduced to this kind of thinking.
One such re-writing of history has been the attempt to say Thomas Jefferson said we need to toss out the Constitution every 19 years and start again. I am a huge fan of Thomas Jefferson. I have never read anything that says he said or wrote such nonsense. I have searched his quotes and writings, and still, I am unable to find a source other than one man’s opinion that this is what he believed Jefferson wanted. That is not say, I have read everything he wrote, but I can say with certainty, there are a host of others that cannot find any source for this either.
Thomas Jefferson never said it, but this person’s truth is a belief that he did and he is willing to bend what was said to fit “his” truth.
The truth is documented by the words Jefferson wrote himself;
"Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419
"Happy for us that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions." --Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1787. ME 6:295, Papers 12:113
"The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the State instead of assembling armies will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had given them." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:322
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the people can not be all, & always, well informed. the part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. we have had 13. states independant 11. years. there has been one rebellion. that comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. what country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure. Letter to William Stephen Smith, Paris Nov. 13. 1787
The truth in Thomas Jefferson’s own words, is that he favored amending the ordinal document over starting again.