onegoodmove

Norm, I think you meant HBO.

it's on HBO not PBS...

i swear sonderweg's comment wasn't there when i left mine!

Adams penned the Alien & Sedition Acts. Jefferson sent Marines to Tripoli. Ben Franklin enjoyed the company of a 14-year-old prostitute. Washington owned slaves.

Quite a group of role-models we've got there.

I love that portrayal of Jefferson. He was reported a very soft-spoken, gentle person. I've got to see this miniseries.

"Quite a group of role-models we've got there."

I actually think we do. They were about as good or bad morally as Americans are today, but intellectually and politically a lot better.

Washington freed his slaves in his will, at massive cost to his surviving family, at a time when few of his peers would have demanded it of him. It was the right thing to do morally but not easy or socially necessary.

The camera work makes me nauseous. How is it that dutch angles and a drunken hand-held camera wiggle-fest in any way enhance the scene? Are they trying to show that this is a 'unstable' conversation, or is this just some hot-shot cinematographer trying to take a page out of the Bourne Ultimatum's book?

dende blogger:

I'm actually a pretty hardcore Jefferson-phile, I'm just offering up some snarkiness before I am accused of "founding father" worship.

Also, re: Washington's slaves. If I am not mistaken, these slaves came from Martha's family, and Washington himself never directly engaged the slave trade (unless I am confusing my history again).

The ideas behind the revolution were truly awesome, and IMO, more relevant today than ever before.

My mantra du jour:

Join, or Die.

Which is to say: we need to come together for the greater good. And, for what its worth, for the first time in a long while, I feel very optimistic about America's future.

"I'm actually a pretty hardcore Jefferson-phile, I'm just offering up some snarkiness before I am accused of "founding father" worship."

I find it sad that you'd have to resort to such a contortion to secure your bona fides, lest your progressive peers mistake you for someone who actually likes the 'founding fathers' from the get-go. At the same time, I understand what you mean but it's such a repressive kind of political genuflect and doesn't speak well for our times. All this makes me think there's still many contemporary hypocrisies to get snarky about without have to cast it hundreds of years back through our collective "enlightened" lens.

"I'm actually a pretty hardcore Jefferson-phile, I'm just offering up some snarkiness before I am accused of "founding father" worship."

I find it sad that you'd have to resort to such a contortion to secure your bona fides, lest your progressive peers mistake you for someone who actually likes the 'founding fathers' from the get-go. At the same time, I understand what you mean but it's such a repressive kind of political genuflect and doesn't speak well for our times. All this makes me think there's plenty of contemporary hypocrisies to get snarky about without have to cast it hundreds of years back through our collective "enlightened" lens.

FritzHeadSaid:

I feel as though I am living in 1984, and you are the narrator, and we are stuck in some bizarre form of creative writing.

Back to the scene above; I find it interesting how the "will of the people" can serve as the ultimate justification of anything, and yet, it has not been consistently represented by any form of government in the history of civilization.

That is one hell of a paradox.

If religion isn't the greatest threat to rationality and scientific progress, what is?

The greatest threat to science is stupid people. There are plenty of theists who are pro-science. And there are plenty of right-wing pro-corporate domination conservative athiests

I wonder if we took a poll which compared the majority liberal, young, educated pro-Obama supporters and compared that to the older, more religious, conservative HIllary supporters, which demographic would be more pro science?