Put Thomas Jefferson quotes in proper context

Off-topic
1

Use only true Jefferson quotes, but change the context to reveal deeper truths. For example: Upon developing a “system” for betting on horses, Jefferson said: I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
–Thomas Jefferson

When he came home with a very bad report card, and his father was about to punish him for not studying, Jefferson said: He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
–Thomas Jefferson

When asked whether they should add a law enforcement branch for Fashion Police, Jefferson said: Taste cannot be controlled by law.
–Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson noticed his orchard was doing poorly, and ordered the slaughter of locals, saying: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
–Thomas Jefferson

On the growing National Deficit: Never spend your money before you have earned it.
–Thomas Jefferson

When asked for a comment on the Patriot Act, he said: I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
–Thomas Jefferson

When asked what he thought of the colonists’ schedule of Jazzercize, Pilates and Dance Aerobics, Jefferson said: Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
–Thomas Jefferson

When asked what he thought of the Religious Right restricting internet porn web sites, Jefferson said: Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
–Thomas Jefferson

On learning how the Bush administration allows American workers to be treated like disposable trash, Jefferson said: If God is just, I tremble for my country.
–Thomas Jefferson

Google his quotes for more, or try to use these…
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson

Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson

How much have cost us the evils that never happened!
Thomas Jefferson

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
Thomas Jefferson

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
Thomas Jefferson

I cannot live without books.
Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Thomas Jefferson

2

Upon escaping his post as a travelling candle-bearer for the catholic church, young Mr. Liberty said: In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

3

Mine are actual quotes from T Jefferson, the famous terrorist and founder of the USA. You can check them out, if you don’t believe me.

Oh well, can’t get enough players to make this fun.

4

I wouldn’t say Jefferson was a terrorist, because their tactics weren’t exactly targetting civilians. A guerilla insurgent traitor, sure. But words still have definitions that you have to hold to, even if some people would like to make them meaningless, like they’ve done to “sustainable” or “paradigm shift”.

5

Wasn’t Jefferson a tax evader too?

Certainly a propaganda term like terrorist has meanings that change with the direction of the wind, but it’s generally is used to inflame and indicate the terrorist is bad.

The USA and other allied nations have targeted civilians since before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And in more recent times, they certainly haven’t been too concerned about the many civilian deaths when bombing cities where civilians live.

The 9-11 terrorists would be considered terrorists even if they had been targeting military installations, largely because they have no nation. The pilot who crashed his plane into the Pentagon, a military target, is grouped in with the terrorists, even tho by your definition that pilot does not fit.

If a nation targets a private corporation that manufactures missile defense in the USA, would they be terrorists? If the USA did this against another nation, would that make the USA terrorist? No. A nation like the USA cannot be terrorist, no matter who is in charge or how many civilians they kill.

The main idea is that if two groups do the same thing, but one of them is the USA, the USA is still good, while the other group would prolly be bad.

It’s not what you do, but who you are.

6

Thomas Jefferson on the Seat Belt and Helmet debate:

“Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment and enjoyment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that… the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.”

7

Regarding our resident provocateurs: “Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively.” And possibly: “Most virtues when carried beyond certain bounds degenerate into vices.”

8

Probably.

The problem is that “terrorist” is not a ‘propaganda term’, it has a specific definition that does not change. That definition contains as a necessary condition that your preferred targets are CIVILIAN targets, specifically to cause fear, and furthermore that your attacks are done in a surprise manner rather than using a traditional structure of battle lines, war etc.

False, if they attack military targets, they are not terrorists.

That pilot had two ‘targets’ by definition, and the first was purely civilian - the plane itself. That act was terroristic, even if the attack on the Pentagon was not. Anyone who argues otherwise is in error, and I will freely state that the US government is sometimes sloppy with words. They are not the creators of language.

If they are attacking civilians, yes. If they are attacking infrastructure, no. I’ve actually had that debate before in reference to the people who blow up vehicles and the like then argue that they’re not committing a crime because the vehicles are owned by a logging company or the like. (I’ve had to argue with their many supporters, too, on that specific point.) Blowing up cars and empty buildings does not make one a terrorist, merely a vandal, which is still criminal.

Yes. The USA is not known for having agents destroy targets of no military value as a preferential tactic, they usually use some gadget to blow military targets up indiscriminately instead. The nuclear weapons use in WWII was probably terrorist acts, but as they are in the minority rather than a preferred method, that title slides off of them for the same reason that building a wood shed as a hobby once does not make one a carpenter.

9

Nice try, Bugman.

Again, What was the military value of Hiroshima, and then days later, Nagasaki?

Wasn’t the Boston Tea Party a non-military target?

Most people agree that if you don’t have a nation, and you blow up ANYTHING (even the Pentagon) to further political ends, you’re a terrorist.

Anyway, check Wikipedia. I’m out of this one.

10

After a strenuous day spent alphabetizing his volumes of French dramatists, writing a letter on the subject of the classical languages to Joseph Priestly, and banging Sally Hemings, Jefferson, a man of his time, composed these words from Notes on the State of Virginia:

“They seem to require less sleep. A black after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusemements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of fore-thought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient.”

11

Jefferson said this about on line debate: Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

12

I’m not Bugman. Why would you think I was?

They were civilian targets. As I said above, those would be classified as “terrorist” acts.

Yes, but that was destruction of property, not of the civilians themselves. Thus, not terrorist, though it was vandalism, theft, or what have you.

Clearly, I am not “most people”. Here’s what I got off of WordNet, highlighting mine…
"(n) terrorism, act of terrorism, terrorist act (the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear) "

13

upon hearing about the new-ish emo fad Tom said: “Every generation needs a new revolution.”
Obviously he was kidding.

14

Nice!!!

Beautiful!!

Interesting.

I’ll allow it, because in light of what we NOW know about TJ (banging Sally Hemings–a Black slave), maybe it changes the context.

15

:roll_eyes: I was at the movies with my family when that was posted by the way.

16

Aren’t you the generous one.

17

And what did the family see?

18

Open Season

What else could I see with a 2 and 5 year old?

19

Everybody is packing in The Departed. I thought you might consider it educational. :wink:

Sort of like Romper Room’s “do-bee” and “don’t bee” segment.

20

Nah, I just say things like mmmm deer meat, wouldn’t that be tasty? I wonder what bear tastes like? That might make some good bear jerkey?