There is no such thing as a perfect human being, of course; we all fall short of the glory of God, and that is certainly true of the men who founded America. They were brilliant, inciteful, good men, who understood much about history and the nature of God and man, and they established the best system of government the world has ever seen, a system which subsequent generation have largely warped, and the current Democratic Party is utterly trying to destroy. Good men?
Yes. Great men? Often. Perfect? Far from it.
To quote Jefferson’s statement above, “equal rights for all, special privileges for none” will immediately bring forth a charge, not wholly unjustified, but not wholly fair, either, of “inconsistency” and “hypocrisy.” “How can slave holders speak of ‘equal rights for all and special privileges for none’?” the modern Leftist asks. And indeed, Jefferson’s “all men are created equal” seems irreconcilable, at best, with his own slave-owning lifestyle. What the Left has done, however, is fall into the error of suggesting that any inconsistency in the life of the messenger automatically frees us from having to accept or believe any truth he might otherwise utter. “The Founding Fathers were slave-owners!” doesn’t mean that anything they say is thus unworthy of consideration and should be ignored. As noted above, inconsistency and imperfections exist in every human being, including—and especially—Leftists.
Truthfully, the modern Left isn’t the least bit concerned with Jefferson’s inconsistency; indeed, with its defense of DEI, Leftism is wholly erratic. The motivation with the Left is to decimate the system established by America’s Founders—a limited government, virtuous Republic—in order to establish a totalitarian regime. Limited government is what the Leftist hates, and imperfections in the Founders is simply an excuse to smear them in the eyes of those whose favor they seek to gain. The Leftist doesn’t care about black people any more than Thomas Jefferson did, in fact, probably less. The Left’s only concern is how black people vote. But there is much more to fault the Leftist for regarding “equality” and “special privileges” than just an unfair criticism of Jefferson and the Founders.
Recommended
For, indeed, the Left’s censure of the Founders is largely dishonest and wholly hypocritical. There is no attempt by the Left to put history in its context and understand the times and season in which earlier generations lived. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and was looking at history and society from that date. We are nearly 250 years beyond that, and, frankly, have made very little moral progress. Dichotomy is an historical reality evident among all peoples, times, and cultures. For example, the people of Christopher Columbus’s day saw no contradiction in the dichotomy of stealing gold from Indians and trying to convert them to Christianity. That was the “zeitgeist” of their age; it crossed the mind of very few of them to think that such actions were inconsistent or inhumane.
In 1776, there was indeed a dichotomy between “all men are created” with its right to “liberty,” and the practice of human slavery. That was beginning to sink into the people of America, but was far from the established “zeitgeist” of the day. The greatness of the Founding Fathers was in announcing this grand “all men are created equal” principle and pointing humanity in that direction. It became the established standard for nearly all the world. It took time to filter down; history is a process, not an event. But what we take for granted today (or should) began in 1776. Our Founders may have been “behind” us in their actions (debatable), but they were far in advance of their time in their philosophy of government. That should be understood and appreciated. However, the Left doesn’t, and doesn’t care to do so.
There are actually few people more inconsistent than the modern Leftist. They shout loud and long about their concern for “women” and “children,” but then support men beating up women in the Olympics and stealing rewards that women athletes should have. “It Takes a Village” to raise a child, Hillary Clinton wrote, yet is a member of a political party that mutilates them, allows sexual predators to prey upon them, and believes they should be allowed to read pornography in schools. Dichotomy is not just a feature of previous generations; and the Left should know better.
Another Leftist hypocritical dichotomy is the quote from Jefferson as the subject of this column: “equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” When are “affirmative action” and DEI going to end? Is discrimination wrong or not? It was wrong, says the Lefty, when our Founding Fathers practiced it, as they believed, for the good of their society, but it’s not wrong for us to practice it for the good of ours? If it is wrong to discriminate against black people, it is wrong to discriminate against white people, males, and straight people, too. “They did it first!” is a horribly lame excuse for practicing the very thing one condemns.
Discrimination has existed in America (and worldwide), and still does, and always will. Evil will never be fully removed from the human heart. But practicing discrimination to eliminate discrimination only shoves the solution farther into the future. Are we going to have to practice more discrimination in the future to overcome the discrimination we are currently practicing to eliminate the discrimination of the past? Where does it stop?
For the Left, it doesn’t and won’t. “Affirmative action” was intended to be temporary. DEI, a form of affirmative action, thus should only be temporary. But it won’t be because it has absolutely nothing to do with “equal rights” and everything to do with political power.
The Founding Fathers’ ideal, though flawed in practice, was grand in its vision. And the Left wants to totally destroy it for their own selfish reasons.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member