Am I a Classical Liberal?

[Kulindahr]

If the Jefferson being referred to is Thomas.........

Thomas Jefferson Feared an Aristocracy of Corporations
The author of the Declaration of Independence warned against the threat to democracy posed by big banks and big corporations. Too bad the Supreme Court does respect the original intent of the founders.
http://www.thenation.com/article/thomas-jefferson-feared-aristocracy-corporations/

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 (attrib)
https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/end-democracyquotation

Yep. Jefferson held three great threats to liberty, and didn't name any as greater:

• government
• organized religion
• corporations and the "aristocracy of wealth"

He and Madison actually worked on an amendment which they wanted to add to the Bill of Rights, which would have forbidden monopolies, corporations spanning more than a single state, or any political activity. Corporations would have been limited to actions "for the common good", and nothing else.

We need that amendment brought up, dusted off, and passed.

 

[LittleDove]

^^ ????????

I think it's an oblique reference to a certain poster who has nightmares about little brown people from south of the border swarming over our frontiers, flinging tortillas hither and yon, mariachis a-twang under their quivering sombreros, trying to turn good, old-fashioned white America into a mud-coloured Marxist Banana Republic.

That last is, I realise, if not an oxymoron, certainly a contradiction in terms, but logic, common sense, and even common decency seem to fly out the window when some people contemplate those lesser breeds without the law, especially in any darker shades than white.

 

[Benvolio]

Geez what a Mexican.

You should have read on at your link: "Status: This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It may be a mistaken amalgamation of the author's comments in the above 1994 reference with a real Jefferson quotation."

The alleged quote was invented by Noam Chomsky who infamously hates America.

 

[otters]

You should have read on at your link: "Status: This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It may be a mistaken amalgamation of the author's comments in the above 1994 reference with a real Jefferson quotation."

The alleged quote was invented by Noam Chomsky who infamously hates America.

Hm. I'd have thought you were knowing what libel and slander is? Or haven't they taught you that particular field of law?

 

[jbrown329]

You should have read on at your link: "Status: This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It may be a mistaken amalgamation of the author's comments in the above 1994 reference with a real Jefferson quotation."

The alleged quote was invented by Noam Chomsky who infamously hates America.

Jefferson's words:
Jefferson wrote in 1825 to William Branch Giles of "vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry."

 

[Kulindahr]

Hm. I'd have thought you were knowing what libel and slander is? Or haven't they taught you that particular field of law?

He doesn't care.

Ben has become the right-wing version of the old General Alfie, who labeled anyone who disagreed with him as "hating America". I'm convinced, given how often ben gives us links that don't way what he claims or even contradict it, that he has never read anything by or listened to anything from Noam Chomsky. For anyone who has listened to him, it's clear that he passionately loves this Republic.

 

[Kulindahr]

You should have read on at your link: "Status: This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It may be a mistaken amalgamation of the author's comments in the above 1994 reference with a real Jefferson quotation."

The alleged quote was invented by Noam Chomsky who infamously hates America.

You never tire of lies, do you?

This time you're lying by misrepresentation: Chomsky never misattributed anything at all to Jefferson. He never "invented" any Jefferson quote. He made a comment on something Jefferson did say, nothing more and nothing less.

Any conservative with any moral integrity at all would refuse to even associate with you, since you besmirch the reputation of all conservatives regularly, consistently, and with great enthusiasm.

 

[Benvolio]

What you have missed is that the Monticello source cited for this quote says that the exact quote has not bee found in the writings of Jefferson and it first appears in print in a work by Chomsky.

 

[thewiz]

What you have missed is that the Monticello source cited for this quote says that the exact quote has not bee found in the writings of Jefferson and it first appears in print in a work by Chomsky.

But that is based on similar language Jefferson did use. And you are a lawyer interpreting laws?

 

[Kulindahr]

What you have missed is that the Monticello source cited for this quote says that the exact quote has not been found in the writings of Jefferson and it first appears in print in a work by Chomsky.

You lie again by misrepresentation -- your statement asks us to believe that Chomsky invented something from Jefferson. But anyone who actually read the link knows that's false: what it says is that the quote appears to be a conflation of Chomsky's comment on Jefferson with a quote from Jefferson, NOT that Chomsky made a false claim about what Jefferson said.

So, according to the very link you want us to think you rely on, your assertion that "the exact quote... first appears in a work by Chomsky" is totally false.


So when you say "what you have missed", either you're lying about me, or lying about the source, or your reading comprehension gets an F. Which is it?

 

[Benvolio]

You lie again by misrepresentation -- your statement asks us to believe that Chomsky invented something from Jefferson. But anyone who actually read the link knows that's false: what it says is that the quote appears to be a conflation of Chomsky's comment on Jefferson with a quote from Jefferson, NOT that Chomsky made a false claim about what Jefferson said.

So, according to the very link you want us to think you rely on, your assertion that "the exact quote... first appears in a work by Chomsky" is totally false.


So when you say "what you have missed", either you're lying about me, or lying about the source, or your reading comprehension gets an F. Which is it?

You and Chomsky are both lying. The link says: "Chomsky's 1994 book quotes Jefferson's 1825 letter to Giles and then comments that "[Jefferson] warned that that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution."

No. Jefferson did not say "that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution," or even words to that effect. Jefferson did not say anything like that. Chomsky lied and you lied about what Chomsky said.
Jefferson said that young recruits look to an Aristocracy etc etc. Jefferson made no predictions as to any effect.
You need remedial reading lessons. And you need to get over your bizarre obsession with corporations.

 

[TX-Beau]

You and Chomsky are both lying. The link says: "Chomsky's 1994 book quotes Jefferson's 1825 letter to Giles and then comments that "[Jefferson] warned that that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution."

No. Jefferson did not say "that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution," or even words to that effect. Jefferson did not say anything like that. Chomsky lied and you lied about what Chomsky said.
Jefferson said that young recruits look to an Aristocracy etc etc. Jefferson made no predictions as to any effect.
You need remedial reading lessons. And you need to get over your bizarre obsession with corporations.

(emphasis mine)



One has to admire such brazen hypocrisy.

Beennnn, Jefferson DID say exactly that and Chomsky was paraphrasing. But then I at least suspect you know that and are just constitutionally unable to acknowledge anything that contradicts the fantasy with which you like to spank one off.

 

[Kulindahr]

You and Chomsky are both lying. The link says: "Chomsky's 1994 book quotes Jefferson's 1825 letter to Giles and then comments that "[Jefferson] warned that that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution."

No. Jefferson did not say "that would be the end of democracy and the defeat of the American revolution," or even words to that effect. Jefferson did not say anything like that. Chomsky lied and you lied about what Chomsky said.
Jefferson said that young recruits look to an Aristocracy etc etc. Jefferson made no predictions as to any effect.
You need remedial reading lessons. And you need to get over your bizarre obsession with corporations.

Chomsky summed up concerns Jefferson expressed in the quote Chomsky used and elsewhere. Jefferson and Madison both wanted an amendment that would have limited corporations to a size small enough that they couldn't influence legislators even at the state level, a thought Jefferson expressed in multiple letters to different people.

So... bullshit on your claims here. Jefferson DID consider large corporations a threat to democracy, as did many of the Founding Fathers. That's why the "Boston Tea Party" picked the ship they did for their stunt: it belonged to the East India Company, a monopoly that owned Parliament to the extent that they could get a tax law passed the only objective of which was to guarantee that Company a profit.

You love to complain about regulation. Harry Browne and others have shown that a huge portion of regulation propagated by the federal government comes from giant corporations which push it to build a structure in which existing large corporations are benefited and competition is stifled. Yet you refuse to see the danger of allowing corporations to meddle in the political process!

 

[Benvolio]

Nevertheless, Chomskys quote was spurious. You do yourself discredit trying to defend a phoney quote.

Beyond that it is silly to refer to Jefferson's absurd economic preferences. He wanted no manufacturiong in the US and wanted us to remain only an agrarian nation of farmers and plantation owners. His aversion to corporations was ridiculous.

 

[Kulindahr]

Nevertheless, Chomskys quote was spurious. You do yourself discredit trying to defend a phoney quote.

Beyond that it is silly to refer to Jefferson's absurd economic preferences. He wanted no manufacturiong in the US and wanted us to remain only an agrarian nation of farmers and plantation owners. His aversion to corporations was ridiculous.

Chomsky quoted Jefferson properly and then commented -- that's in the link! The "phoney quote", according to the link, came when someone conflated Chomsky's comment with the Jefferson quote Chomsky used.

Why do you insist on lying about it when we can all read it?


BTW, Jefferson didn't oppose manufacturing, he opposed massive corporate manufacturing -- he was quite happy to have a multitude of small shops doing the work. What he didn't want was a "false aristocracy of wealth", as he called it. Nor did he want everyone to be farmers, just the majority, since those who live on the land have a better understanding of self-reliance and such.

 

[TX-Beau]

Nevertheless, Chomskys quote was spurious. You do yourself discredit trying to defend a phoney quote.

...Jefferson never said that...

Beyond that it is silly to refer to Jefferson's absurd economic preferences. He wanted no manufacturing in the US and wanted us to remain only an agrarian nation of farmers and plantation owners.

...O.K. he did say that...

His aversion to corporations was ridiculous.

...But he was crazy!!

 

[jbrown329]

Oh, Ben............

For those who need more evidence, how about statements from the founding fathers themselves. As we all know, big banks are also considered corporations and here is what Thomas Jefferson thought about them. In an 1802 letter to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin, Jefferson said,

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Thomas Jefferson, one of the most prominent founding fathers, also said this in 1816,

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

Jefferson wasn’t the only one of the founding fathers to make statements about corporations. John Adams also had an opinion.

“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/06/09/founding-fathers/

And don't get me started on how they felt about religion.

 

[Benvolio]

Again, Jeffersons economics were absurd. Ma and Pa can't manufacture trucks in the out in the barn.

 

[Benvolio]

You are studying economics from a man who owned 200 slaves but thinks corporations are evil?

 

[thewiz]

It's amazing that Republicans like Ben point to the Constitution and Founding Fathers whenever it is convenient to support their crazy ideals. However, they usually just tend to ignore what has been written when it meets their fancy. These same people now want to interpret Jefferson and the Founding Fathers like they do their bibles -- literally. Unfortunately, their small minds can't begin to fathom the vastness of that which they seek to interpret.

And from them, the Republican Clown Car has become a sad lot as has the entire party. I would note that one of their own -- and a friend of ours who created GoProud -- today came out in support of Hillary Clinton. Gotta be some heads exploding.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jimmy-lasalvia-/hillary-clinton-president-_b_8698000.html