Should We Forget Thomas Jefferson?

About a week ago, a listener sent me an article from National Review that encouraged its readers to declare their independence from Thomas Jefferson.

He was outraged and wanted my thoughts.

I could just call it stupid, but the article provides a teachable moment for Americans interested in anything that resembles the American tradition. We could call these people conservatives or paleo-libertarians. The traditional term “republican” would be best if it had not been hijacked by the Lincolnites.

The article’s author, Akhil Reed Amar, is one of the most prominent leftist progressive scholars in the United States.

Let that sink in for a moment. “Conservative” National Review published a piece on Thomas Jefferson from a dyed-in-the-wool progressive.

That should be exhibit one guadrillion that mainstream “conservatives” are no better than the leftist progressive they seem to despise.

The piece is loaded with typical leftist talking points about the beauty of democracy and equality (thank Harry Jaffa for “conservative” embrace of that concept) and free education. Those are the “positives” about Jefferson’s life according to Amar.

The negatives were laughable.

Jefferson should be forgotten because he favored nullification and secession. You read that correctly. This is straight out of the progressive playbook. These things are bad because…SLAVERY!

I wish conservatives and “conservative” publications weren’t this stupid, but they are.

Jefferson also had 50 kids with slaves and was a evil man because he never freed his slaves even though he spoke a great game.

If you’re shocked that this was published in National Review, don’t be.

The editorial board liked it, I’m sure, because Amar insisted that we shouldn’t dump all of the Founding Fathers.

Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin deserve our praise.

And then we should add Lincoln, Douglass, Stanton, and other great “second founders” to that list as well.

I’m not making this up.

The sad part? This could have been written by any West Coast Straussian or the dopes that produced the 1776 Commission Report for the Trump administration.

They say the same things.

South bad, North good. Lincoln GREAT!

You see, R.L. Dabney correctly pointed out in the late 19th century that modern (Northern) conservatism was little more than the discarded intellectual trash of the left.

National Review has long been intellectual trash, but this takes it to another level.

But understand that both the modern left and the modern right, particularly the establishment jerks, have the same heroes, worship the same Lincolnian “United State”, and believe that the root of all evil in America was, and still is, the South.

Their bogeymen are John C. Calhoun, Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Davis (whom Amar cites in his idiotic polemic), and anyone who really believed in a real federal republic.

If only they could persuade all of those hicks below the Mason Dixon and their rebel flag waiving drones in the rest of the United States that they need re-education, a baptism in the Holy Water of the Lincoln Spirit, we would be saved.

Sherman, Sheridan, and Wilson tried a baptism by fire. They–both progressive leftists and progressive conservatives–are just angry it didn’t work.

I discuss Amar’s joke of an article on Episode 873 of The Brion McClanahan Show.