Thomas Jefferson: Scientist, Inventor, Gadgeteer 220
Hugh Pickens writes "Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, whose signing we celebrate today, was considered an expert in architecture, civil engineering, geography, mathematics, ethnology, anthropology, mechanics, and the sciences. Although Jefferson never failed to acknowledge that in science he was 'an amateur,' Jefferson's home at Monticello was filled with examples of his scientific philosophy. An inventor and gadgeteer of great ingenuity, Jefferson's practical innovations or improvements on others inventions included: the swivel chair, the polygraph, letter press, hemp break. pedometer, mouldboard plow, sulky, folding chair, dumb-waiter, double acting doors, and a seven day clock. Throughout his life Jefferson experimented in agriculture with studies in crop rotation, soil cultivation, animal breeding, pest control, agricultural implements and improvement of seeds. Jefferson promoted science as President by recommending to Congress a coast survey to accurately chart the coast of America that later evolved into the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Jefferson's expert testimony before Congress led to the establishment of the Naval Observatory and the Hydrographic Office and Jefferson's report to Congress on a plan of coinage and weights and measures based on the decimal system was expanded into the National Bureau of Standards. Jefferson never applied for a patent, which was consistent in his belief in the natural right of all mankind to share useful improvements without restraint."
Swivel Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
Now I know who to blame for my dizziness. Damn you and your fun contraptions!
Re:Swivel Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
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A sulky appears to be a kind of lightweight carriage. Jefferson probably used it to go driving with the single ladies (put a ring on it). Just kidding. ;-) Thom was a very shy person who barely spoke.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Sulky_racing_Vincennes_DSC03735_cropped.JPG [wikimedia.org]
Dog version: http://www.ikonsuspension.com/images/customer_projects/customer-projects-dog-sulky-4-lg.jpg [ikonsuspension.com]
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I think that's a whooosh. :P
Inventors versus Rent Seekers (Score:2)
When I compare the group of people who started the United States of America, to the current crop of so-called "leaders" in the congress and the White House, I can't help but notice the following:
1. The current crop of "American Leaders" are made up of rent-seekers, such as lawyers
There is no "inventor" amongst the current crop of "American Leaders"
2. Very few of the founding fathers of America were rent-seekers. In fact, many of them were inventors
Thomas Jefferson wasn't the only inventor in the group, btw
B
Didn't believe in the patent system either (Score:2)
Being such a influential and powerful person, it is unfortunate that as president Jefferson didn't go on to dismantle the patent system since he saw for himself that 'useful improvements should be shared without restraint".
It would have saved us all from the broken system we have today where big corps sue each other until one leaves or theres a cross licensing agreement in place to block new players from entering the market.
Jefferson's Opinion of Patents Changed (Score:5, Informative)
Jefferson's position on the granting of patents [1]changed through the years. In his article "Godfather of American Invention," Silvio Bedini notes that in 1787 Jefferson's opposition to monopoly in any form led him to oppose patents.[2] But by 1789, Jefferson's firm opposition had weakened. Writing to James Madison, Jefferson said he approved the Bill of Rights as far as it went, but would like to see the addition of an article specifying that "Monopolies may be allowed to person for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding --- years, but for no longer term and for no other purpose."[3] Also in 1789, while Jefferson was still in Paris, the first patent act was introduced during the first session of Congress and enacted into law April 10, 1790. Under the new law, the Secretaries of War and State and the Attorney General constituted a three-man review board, with the Secretary of State (Jefferson), playing the leading role. Two months after the law was passed, Jefferson remarked it had "given a spring to invention beyond his conception."[4]
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/patents [monticello.org]
Thomas Jefferson was the first patent examiner and granted quite a few patents.
Re:Jefferson's Opinion of Patents Changed (Score:5, Insightful)
As the president, or member of his cabinet, you are supposed to Execute the laws even if you don't like them. The exception being unconstitutional laws (as required by your oath). Since the patent law was constitutional, Jefferson did his job and obeyed the constitution. (Something recent presidents ought to learn to do.) That doesn't mean he approved of patents as shown by the fact he could have granted one to himself but never did.
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As the president, or member of his cabinet, you are supposed to Execute the laws even if you don't like them. The exception being unconstitutional laws (as required by your oath). Since the patent law was constitutional, Jefferson did his job and obeyed the constitution. (Something recent presidents ought to learn to do.) That doesn't mean he approved of patents as shown by the fact he could have granted one to himself but never did.
He could also have granted himself a golden palace and used the army to defend it. The fact that he didn't doesn't mean that he disapproved of gold or palaces, just as the fact that he never granted a patent to himself doesn't mean that he disapproved of patents... Rather, they show that he wasn't corrupt.
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>>>He could also have granted himself a golden palace and used the army to defend it. The fact that he didn't doesn't mean that he disapproved of gold or palaces
Yeah sure if we lived in a vacuum. But we ALSO have Jefferson on record that he did not think copyrights/patents should exist. "There is not in nature a natural right to protection of the thinking power we call an idea." He says that nature "designed" ideas to be freely shareable around the world, for the betterment of mankind. So it's
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But we ALSO have Jefferson on record that he did not think copyrights/patents should exist. "There is not in nature a natural right to protection of the thinking power we call an idea."
Actually, believe it or not, your post is the sole hit on Google for that phrase. Apparently the robots hit Slashdot a half hour ago.
On the contrary, what Jefferson said was:
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs... If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
The quote, from a letter to Issac McPherson, is in context of a discussion as to whether patents are a natural right, like property ownership, that may be passed on to progeny forever. And Jefferson concludes that:
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
Basically, unlike a right to privacy, or a right to speech, or a right to free exercise of religion, patents are not a natu
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Note that he could have granted himself patents on his own inventions quite legally as a patent examiner.
Which would not require corruption on his part.
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As the president, or member of his cabinet, you are supposed to Execute the laws even if you don't like them. The exception being unconstitutional laws (as required by your oath). Since the patent law was constitutional, Jefferson did his job and obeyed the constitution. (Something recent presidents ought to learn to do.)
So..., you're saying that..., so called "signing statements" wherein a President will attempt to put his own spin on legislation passed on brought before him for his signature (or veto) is an inexcusable perversion of the system's separation of powers? Wow. We really are fucked, because there has not been any kind of public outrage that should accompany such an egregious abuse.
Re:Jefferson's Opinion of Patents Changed (Score:4, Interesting)
> Thomas Jefferson was the first patent examiner and granted quite a few patents.
He also DENIED quite a few that would have been approved by the current PTO. He had a much more stringent idea about what should be allowed since in his mind the entire thing was a compromise and all inherently dangerous.
Patents should be treated like the toxic waste they are.
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I am certain he didn't believe in the copyright systems, too. Ever read John Locke's works? Jefferson sure did:
http://www.anesi.com/q0033.htm [anesi.com]
Thank Jebus he can't see the US today (Score:5, Informative)
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Re:Thank Jebus he can't see the US today (Score:5, Interesting)
It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers. Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.
He also granted federal money to spread the gospel to Indians http://vftonline.org/EndTheWall/indian_evangelization.htm [vftonline.org]
Notice that during his administration, Jefferson appropriated funds for Christian missionaries to evangelize the heathen, as Justice Rehnquist noted: As the United States moved from the 18th into the 19th century, Congress appropriated time and again public moneys in support of sectarian Indian education carried on by religious organizations. Typical of these was Jefferson's treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians, which provided annual cash support for the Tribe's Roman Catholic priest and church. The treaty stated in part: "And whereas, the greater part of said Tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven years one hundred dollars towards the support of a priest of that religion . . . [a]nd . . . three hundred dollars, to assist the said Tribe in the erection of a church." 7 Stat. 79.
Re:Thank Jebus he can't see the US today (Score:5, Interesting)
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Treaty of Tripoli. Passed unanimously by the Senate. Three newspapers printed it whole. Each Senator got a printed copy. Not a single letters to the editor in protest. Not a single sermon recorded anywhere in protest. No protest from anyone in the USA. Almost all the founding fathers were still alive. No concern about it even in their private correspondence. John Adams made a special signing statement about this treaty. Against such specific and unambiguous statements, you look for symbolic meaning on their various acts.
I am a Hindu. I am here. I have as much rights and as much American as you are. Deal with it.
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I agree with you about the separation of church and state, but I never hear anyone mention the problem with the Tripoli as evidence for this: we signed the treaty of Tripoli along with sizable ransom payments to convince the Barbary pirates to stop raiding and capturing our ships in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. So, in essence, we were extorted into signing the treaty of Tripoli by a hostile power that disliked the Christian religion. Perhaps, then, something like the Virginia Statute for Religious [wikipedia.org]
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Maybe. I have yet to see any actual historical evidence to indicate that there were no protests, but I would not be surprised in either case, since there was little in the way of mass media in 1797. More importantly, though, remember the context: when this treaty was signed, states continued to recognize and fund, with taxpayer dollars, state churches, and some would continue to do so for decades (particularly Connecticut, which disestablished its state church in 1818 and Massachusettes which had disestabli
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Maybe. I have yet to see any actual historical evidence to indicate that there were no protests, but I would not be surprised in either case, since there was little in the way of mass media in 1797.
So on one hand even the casual routine activities by the founding fathers are to be analyzed for deep secondary and hidden meanings. "Oh! He said Creator in singular not creators in plural, and don't forget the capitalization!" or "He attended a prayer service on public property" or "They allowed churches to bid for public service contracts". On the other hand, explicit declaration like this article of a treaty ratified unanimously by the Senate without provoking any recorded protest should be dismissed, "m
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To start, I think you're somehow missing the fact that I am a big big supporter of the separation of church and state. I just don't think that the historical argument for it is very compelling. And I think the historical argument is beside the point anyway. I don't advance any of the conflicting arguments you suggest I advance.
And, again, there is no serious debate among constitutional scholars about what the establishment clause meant when it was written: it meant only that the federal government could not
Re:Thank Jebus he can't see the US today (Score:5, Interesting)
The word "God" does not appear in the US Constitution, nor is there any other reference to a deity except in the date on the document "In the year of our Lord 1787".
Jefferson and Madison (primary author of the Constitution) had the opinion that there needed to be a very strong separation between state and religion. Madison wrote a famous petition when Virginia was considering the issue of state support of religion which included the phrase "not three pence" which has been cited in several Supreme Court decisions regarding the state support of religion.
The concept of Jefferson granting money to missionaries to spread the gospel to Indians is a MAJOR distortion of the intent. Jefferson needed to convert the Indians from hunter-gatherers to farmers to be able to use the land they owned for the growth of the United States. This required educating the Indians in a new way of life. The fact that the money was granted to missionaries is simply because they were the low bidders; that is they were willing to take less money than anyone else to undertake the job because they had an ulterior motive.
> It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church
Actually that is a gross exaggeration and something both Jefferson and Madison would have been horrified with if anyone had suggested it.
One needs to understand the physical realities of Washington DC in the early days of the Republic. It was in fact generally a wilderness with a few large buildings dropped in. It wasn't a developed city with substantial infrastructure. If you wanted to hold services the only physical structures available were in fact the government buildings.
Also - are you aware that Jefferson and Madison were Deists who denied the divinity of Christ and much of the Bible?
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If you're going to call on "Nature's God" as used in the Declaration of Independence, you aught to realize that it's a Deistic term, representative of a creator who instigates a sort of grand universal clockwork, with a policy of non-intervention in said universe. Jefferson as well as many of the founders, subscribed the Age of Enlightenment philosophies, Deism was a big thing amongst the people behind the scene.
Deists hold that reason and scientific inspection of the natural world allow them to determine t
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I was addressing the supposed issue of separation of church and state, not wondering on the actual views of Jefferson or Madison. They didn't conform to any "orthodox" or mainstream definition of Deism either, but believed the relationship with God to be between each man and the Creator, which was quite Protestant if anything. For some reason they still attended church regularly all their lives, participated in communion and worship services, etc. Perhaps th
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Nature's God can mean a lot of things, not just the clockwork Deistic interpretation. It can also be a reference to the Spinozan agnostic view where God is simply a metaphor for Nature. Jefferson was certainly aware and influenced by these ideas. He CERTAINLY would not feel that his choice of words meant that the reader would be obligated to adopt his personal views on the topic. Ultimately freedom of religion meant freedom of conscience to Jefferson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/opinion/29goldstein.htm [nytimes.com]
Re:Thank Jebus he can't see the US today (Score:5, Interesting)
When Jefferson was alive, his home state had an official religion that all taxpayers were required to support. In the 1800s Jefferson wrote an amendment to the Virginia Constitution to abolish it.
And I take Jefferson's quote from your post and modify it. If he were alive today he'd probably say, "It does me no injury for my neighbor to have insurance or no insurance. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." He'd also probably re-publish his Kentucky Resolutions declaring that, per the 10th amendment, the power to mandate purchase of a private product is reserved to the People and their Legislatures..... not the Congress.
>>>Thank Jebus he can't see the US today
Indeed. In response to the Supreme Court decision he would declare: "When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of state governments on the central government, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated â¦. â" Letter to C. Hammond, July 1821
I fear, dear Sir, we are now in such another crisis [as when the Alien and Sedition Laws were enacted], with this difference only, that the judiciary branch is alone and single-handed in the present assaults on the Constitution. But its assaults are more sure and deadly, as from an agent seemingly passive and unassuming. â" Letter to Mr. Nicholas, Dec. 1821
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>>>Until your neighbor can't afford to give their kid a vaccine, and your kid gets a disease and dies because he was one of those that the vaccine doesn't work on.
The solution is not to mandate 100% purchase of a private product. The solution is to help those who are poor and can't afford a vaccine shot..... just as we help people with food stamps, housing assistance, welfare checks, and so on. Meanwhile the rest of us will buy our shots, food, homes with cash.
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>>>For my neighbor to have no insurance indeed picks my pocket. Do you think ERs are free?
Don't cost us anything.
When a poor person fails to repay the ER bill, it costs the megacorp that owns the hospital. So in effect instead of Kaiser-Permanente earning a 1 billion dollar profit this year, they earn 0.99 billion. And frankly I enjoy that thought..... about time megacorps give something back to the community, rather than just take, take, take (and also pollute, pollute, pollute).
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>>>The Corp pays for nothing: they raise their prices to cover unpaid ER bills, and customers pay handsomely, i.e. our pockets are picked,
Still cheaper than FORCING us to go buy insurance we don't want. Kaiser-permanente having unpaid bills hasn't cost me anything so far (because I don't visit their hospitals). In contrast Congress's new obamacare bill will cost me ~$6000 to buy insurance, or ~$1000 in IRS fines. I prefer to old method of dumping the expense on Kaiser and other corporations. It
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I'm a foreigner and regular critic of the American government and I think Jefferson is simply one of the best Presidents to ever exist.
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Thomas Jefferson
All said or written when he was younger. When he was older ... especially after he was President... he changed his mind on a great many things. Not always completely, but his attitude on religion did a near-180. Jefferson never became a conventional Trinitarian Chirstian, but he did warm up to religion and came to understand it as healthy and necessary in America, to the point where he believed that American liberty might not survive without it. Jefferson recognized that while he wasn't a conventional Chris
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If you find yourself disliking him based on the OP, then no amount of rethinking will do the trick.
Re:Thank Jebus he can't see the US today (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can think of dozens of larger hypocrites, most of whom, in addition to being hypocrites, have also contributed little or nothing to the advancement of society, literature, philosophy, or science.
I'll take him as a hypocrite and day of the week.
What the hell is (Score:2)
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When you take a hemp break, it naturally influences the length of your footsteps as you chill out more. Not so much an invention as a discovery.
The Rolling Paper Chase (Score:2)
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You logged onto this site with a mind full of mush, and left, baked out of your skull.
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Pedometer I think is self-explanatory.
Hemp brake [blogspot.com] (for breaking hemp)
Moldboard plow [monticello.org] (a better plow)
Sulky [wikipedia.org] (a lighteight horse-drawn two-wheeled cart)
and terrorist. (Score:4, Insightful)
a successful terrorist, otherwise known as a revolutionary.
And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
... he was never able to satisfactorily distinguish between "principle" and 'practice".
As in the principle of being opposed to slavery while in practice shagging the property.
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And thus formed the template for all modern politics, profoundly condemning in others those things that they tacitly cherish the most.
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The Great Wiki mostly disagrees:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson-Hemings_controversy [wikipedia.org]
tl;dr: all but a small handful of scholars consider the weight of the evidence is strongly in favour of Jefferson as the father, particularly in the context of the culture of the time. Humans have a great deal of trouble with deductive closure, and there's no reason Jefferson was any better at it than the rest of us.
On the other hand, isn't it remarkable that someone who was still so deeply embedded in the evils of h
Jefferson and friends also were the ANONYMOUS (Score:4, Insightful)
maybe EFF could use that as a propaganda tool
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I've been reading Ron Chernow's exceptional "Washington: A Life" and have been struck by how venomous the press was in the days of the early republic – and how it was made more so by the common practice of prominent men taking pseudonyms to launch near-sadistic attacks on their opposition.
This wasn't just relegated to the rabble of 18th Century America, either. Washington's own cabinet member, Thomas Jefferson, was one of his harshest anonymous critics, along with James Madison and others among the founding fathers. The attacks were often willfully false, cruel, and only possible because of their anonymous nature. Jefferson, indeed, opted to launch his attacks through intermediaries, rather than sully his own hands.
However, the same anonymity that drove Washington to distraction (and an earnest desire to leave office after just one term, though he was persuaded to remain for two) was also critical in fostering the republic in the first place.
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay used pseudonyms to argue the case for a constitution and a harmonizing of interests in a grand republic, rather than a weak federation of sovereign states. They needed anonymity to be able to argue freely, allowing their arguments to be decoupled from the actual people advancing them.
Indeed, this Janus-faced anonymity problem/opportunity is well-expressed by Madison's writings. He did profound good with anonymity in the Federalist Papers, and then put anonymity to destructive use against Washington throughout his presidency.
As much as I hate the bile that web anonymity encourages, it's the price we have always paid to ensure free speech. Sometimes that speech is hateful and wrong. But that isn't sufficient justification to close mouths to establish a marketing bonanza for Google(+) or anyone else.
Happy Birthday USA
What life was like in 1776 (Score:2)
In the spirit of Independence Day, there's an article on WSJ about what life was like in 1776 [wsj.com], in case you want to see just how much has changed since Jefferson's times and why we no longer have Jeffersons.
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Or you could summarize why, per the article, we no longer have Jeffersons.
Amazing man (Score:5, Interesting)
It was not quite hyperbole when JFK jokingly addressed a group of Nobel winners at the White House: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
Man, he accomplished so much, yet still found time to regularly impregnate the help!
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"Man, he accomplished so much, yet still found time to regularly impregnate the help!"
As with Bill Clinton, fucking the public was the job and fucking the help was for fun. Republicans are just the opposite.
Um, Lewis and Clark? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are going to mention the coastal survey, why not also mention the Lewis and Clark expedition? The "Corps of Discovery" was a huge cartographic, biological, geological, and sociological enterprise. They took the best scientific equipment they could, charted rivers and mountains, kept daily records, and brought back samples. They didn't know what was in the Rocky Mountains, and Jefferson told them to find Mastodons.
Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary, and Jefferson made sure that Lewis had all the scientific training possible at the time. I'd say that pushing through the funding and planning of the mapping of the the Rocky Mountains, Missouri River and Columbia River ranks up there with the dumb waiter.
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It's interesting how Jefferson wanted them to seek out animals known only from fossils, like the woolly mammoth and giant ground sloth. He assumed there must still be living examples, for some reason; I think it was part of the intellectual mindset of the time.
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Those and more were in the [ahem] article.
And to think that (Score:2)
Common trait of national heroes (Score:3)
Not to take anything away from the Man, but being a polymath [wikipedia.org] appears to be a necessary qualification to be a national hero, one of the Founding Fathers, or the Great Leader [wikipedia.org] of a country. Why is it necessary to prove that a man is a larger-than-life expert in everything?
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That's a very interesting amalgam of implications. It makes me wonder how you actually personally define a number of the terms you use.
Are you ranting about conservatives and those who want society to provide them with everything, or are you implying they are one and the same? If the latter, I believe you'd be hard-pressed to make a substantive case that your typical conservative politician is any different from your typical progressive politician in the quantity of other peoples' money they would like to s
For someone so allegedly opposed to patents... (Score:5, Interesting)
Metric System (Score:5, Interesting)
The Constitution contains a clause empowering the government to establish a system of weights and measures.
Jefferson, in part because of his experience as a surveyor using chains divided into 100 links, and also from reading 'Disme: the art of tenths by Simon Stevin' was familiar with the benefits of doing measurement calculations in decimal units, and proposed that the US adopt a decimal system of weights and measures.
Unfortunately Congress did not appreciate the usefulness of this idea and failed to act on the proposal setting a really bad precedent.
As ambassadors to France he and Ben Franklin had access to French intellectuals and brought up this topic to the French. Whether the French would have developed this independently or not I don't know. Certainly they may have known about the idea from other sources.
But if Congress had heeded his ideas the US would have had a decimal measurement system before any other nation. Jefferson may also have been the catalyst for the French adoption of their decimal measurement system.
Because of Jefferson the US had the first decimal system of any type in its currency thanks to Jefferson, predating the metric system.
So please add this quote to your list:
⦠every branch to the same decimal ratio, thus bringing the calculations of the principal affairs of
life within the arithmetic of every man who can multiply and divide plain numbers.
- Thomas Jefferson
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According to Andro Linklater, Jefferson actually proposed a form of the metric system where the unit of length was something that could be determined in a well equipped laboratory - the rod with a period of one second at 45 degrees latitude. The French decided on the length of the Paris meridian, which effectively required the meter standard to be an artifact (i.e. the platinum iridium bar with two scratches on it. "Science" (metrology) didn't catch up with Jefferson until 1960, when the meter was redefined
His meat ration was just 225 grams per week! (Score:2)
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Second Law of Food Science: Salt makes fat taste better.
Monticello (Score:4, Interesting)
Monticello is really worth a visit. I thought the clock at the main entrance to the building was fascinating. It uses weights that look like cannon balls to power the mechanism. However, there wasn't enough room for the weights to descend downward to allow the clock to run for a full week at a time. Jefferson's solution? Cut holes in the floor and allow the weights to travel down into the cellar / basement area. He decided to leave the weights exposed because boxing them in would have blocked some of the windows. However, by leaving them exposed he was able to make additional use of them - he marked the days of the week on the wall, so that the position of the weight showed the day of the week.
It's also interesting that the clock has two faces - one on the interior of the house, and the other above the main entrance on the exterior. Jefferson decided that the exterior face should only have an hour hand. Now, the reasoning given by the tour guides is that the slaves and farm hands didn't need to know the minute, only the hour - precision to the minute wasn't necessary for them. However, the more I've thought about it, I think Jefferson had a more practical reason in mind. With two hands, and from a far distance, it's difficult to make out which is the hour and which is the minute. With just an hour hand it would be easier to tell the time from a very far distance. That fits in more with his sense of invention and practicality.
Some will never hear of him (Score:2)
If the Texas School Board Association had its way, school pupils in Texas would never hear of Jefferson. Instead, they'd learn how great a contributor to America was (wait for it...) Phyllis Schlafly.
It is truly a strange world in which we live.
Thomas Jefferson: Scientist, Inventor, Gadgeteer (Score:2)
no vampire hunting? not even as a hobby?
Jailed in turkey for smuggling hemp (Score:2)
along w the rest of the founders he was an avid supporter of growing hemp and smoking weed
and yes he was jailed in turkey for smuggling mandarin hemp seed
Jefferson Bible (Score:2)
He was also a non-Christian Deist at best, who perhaps accepted a Creator but considered Jesus merely a great philosopher. Reflecting those beliefs, late in life he penned what is now called the Jefferson Bible, his own personal rewrite of the New Testament which excluded what he termed the "mystical" elements but retained the ethical and philosophical teachings of Jesus which he admired. Allegations of atheism apparently dogged him throughout his political career, and he was quite keen to keep his true e
Not signed on the 4th... (Score:2)
Wasn't the declaration signed on the 3rd?
It was first read to the people on the 4th, and thus celebrations happen on that day, but the actual signing was the 3rd...
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No, it counts how many steps you take in any given period of time. Some people use them as exercise devices and attempt to take at least 10,000 steps in a day. Not sure how many miles that translates into, but i am sure a quick google search or some math whiz from here can figure it out.
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Why yes. Funny you should ask that. .It was one of his black projects for the US government to use on TOR.
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Not to detract from Jefferson's accomplishments which were many and various, but Monticello and the grounds of the University of Virginia were built with the hands of slaves.
This wouldn't even be a problem except TFS notes Jefferson was "an expert in [. . .] ethnology, anthropology" among other disciplines. Jefferson
shared contemporary racial views that Africans were inferior to whites and needed supervision. This became his rationale for justifying slavery, although he had condemned the institution under his Enlightenment ideals. [wikipedia.org]
Jefferson's post-Enlightenment views regarding blacks and slavery rules out any claims he was an "expert" in the human sciences, especially ethnology and anthropology. Sort of like calling Johan [wikipedia.org]
Re:Slave owner ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jefferson's post-Enlightenment views regarding blacks and slavery rules out any claims he was an "expert" in the human sciences, especially ethnology and anthropology.
Please elaborate. Why do his views rule out such claims? The past wasn't just the present with funny clothes. We have plenty of ideas, experiences, and insights now that people of that time didn't have. I think it's foolish to judge them on a modern basis (especially, when that basis will radically change with future generations).
And there were human sciences experts a century later who had similar beliefs to Jefferson's (for example, John Dewey). Jefferson's beliefs on ethnicity wasn't an ideological aberration that was quickly discarded, but something that stayed legitimate for a long time.
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Indeed. Moreover, Jefferson himself fought in Congress to abolish slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery [wikipedia.org]
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You live in the context of your time. As a head of household, inheriting an estate that included slave, you were not really free (even legally in some places) to manumit your slaves.
Jefferson personally disliked the slavery, but recognized that it was an issue to hard to resolve at the time with the slave-holding states. He considered slavery an injustice, but couldn't risk dissolving the federal union to end slavery.
"But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let hi
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America's 'founders' consisted of hundreds of men who disagreed on many things. Jefferson had many issues with the Constitution but he used his influence to make sure the Bill of Rights were included. In his words:
Half a loaf is better than no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.
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Actually, he did a great deal to oppose slavery for someone living in Virginia society. Many of the very specific pressures faced and exactly why he decided to act in the ways he did will never be known. At the end of the day, he was at the very forefront of the socially progressive part of Southern society.
Usually, those bringing up the slave trade are doing so as a means to discredit parts of his ideas they do not like. Usually, this is without regard to whether slavery has any bearing on those ideas, but
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There's a lot of evidence that Jefferson had a long term relationship with a female slave - Sally Hemings, and fathered 6 children by her. Jefferson gave all 6 children their freedom when the came "of age".
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Minor nitpick; freed 4. Two of his children by her did not survive to adulthood.
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I got your higgs boson right here.
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Not sure if alluding to your penis as being the size of a sub-atomic particle is REALLY the way to go on this.
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It's not the size that matters. It's how massive it is.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what? Three hundred years from now you might be remembered as an ass who actually drove around in a big thing which continuously generated carbon dioxide even though you should have known it was wrong to do so.
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Uhm, yeah, the realization that slaves weren't in for a better time of it, being free and on their own must've set in at some point, just like it is for you, right now. Then all his other activities regarding slavery, make more sense now. uhm hmm.
In 300 years abortion seen worse than slavery. (Score:5, Interesting)
In 300 years fertility will be like a light switch. Turn it on and off as needed. People will look back at abortion as an unbelievable horror because they won't be able to understand the concept of an unwanted pregnancy.
It isn't like slavery was invented in the US. People were held in slavery since the beginning of time and still are in certain parts of the world. Heck even the 13th amendment allows it as a punishment.
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And since they will be able to synthesize meat in a lab, just how horrified will they be to think that we slaughtered animals and ground them in machines on an industrial scale to get meat. Will some idiot writing on the 2300 equivalent of slashdot scream "Einstein?! That animal eating piece of shit! And he himself said it was wrong and he still did it!"?
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He put his penis in a woman who did not have the legal right to consent or not.
She was a slave. Legal property. She did not have at the time any rights. Today she would have full protection under the Constitution, and today Jefferson would be a rapist. But today is not yesterday.
Re:Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
He put his penis in a woman who did not have the legal right to consent or not. He abused his position of power as a slaveowner (which is another issue altogether) to have sex with a slave. In no case did this woman have any legal protection to object. You can argue whether she loved him or not. That is unknown. Would she still have had sex with him if he didn't own her and she had full citizenship rights?
In any case, he is clearly a rapist. These morals should have been evident even centuries ago.
Until very recently in human history, the vast majority of women were first the property of their fathers, and then the property of the man their father gave them to, called her husband, who could put his penis in her without her having any legal right to consent or not. That is, if she wasn't just taken from her father or husband by someone with the power to do so.
Many women are still in this position today. Your outrage would be better targeted on their predicament, instead of on a man with few competitors for liberating mankind from oppression.
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That may very well be the cause, but unless the Haudenosaunee made up a sizeable fraction of the worlds population, "the majority" still stands.
And your characterization of Haudenosaunee women as holding "equal rights" isn't correct on the face of it, except in the Orwellian sense: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". You describe them as having rights their men folk did not.
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He fathered children from a slavewoman. There is no evidence that he treated her any different than family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemings [wikipedia.org]
He was also opposed to slavery, but did not think the south could handle integration and continued to own slaves.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no evidence Jefferson ever raped a slave.
There is much more evidence that in an age of slave maltreatment and subhuman living conditions, Thom treated those in his care with the kindness that he would hirelings. More so, in fact. The slaves quarters, nicely designed along with Monticello, were engineered as nicely as a working mans house could be expected to be. His Mistress/slave had her own "apartment" and bore him a child that he cared to send to college. His "slaves" were taught skills not often relegated to slaves or indentured servants . From fine furniture making to advanced agriculture from mechanics to various sundry other crafts, Thoms knowledge poured into them. Remember, this was a man so impressed with Jesus Christ's character, that he edited down the bible to only include Christ's input so that his life could be seen as a whole for philosophical reasons. Google " Jefferson Bible". We can conclude only that Jefferson liked the Negro ladies and cared enough about Negroes to treat them as well as everyman. The kindness in this, you will note , is that his "slaves" didn't have to put up with the inhuman bullshit their fellow slaves did at other owners hands. Turning a slave loose back then was no panacea. The slave had to be ready to operate in a white world and have almost independent means. I commend Jefferson as a humanitarian activist and refute the general disinformation spread by opportunists victimizing the gullible. Liars have to cover up and hide, the truth can walk around naked all day.
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Absolutely. However, evidence suggests that this was not the case with Thomas Jefferson. Sally Hemings went with him to France where slavery was illegal and if she desired she could have left him and remained in France. She chose to stay by his side. That their relationship had to be secret during their lifetimes is tragic, and we can never know the full story. Evidence suggests Thomas Jefferson was a good man living in bad times.
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besides its more about how he treated his slaves and not that he owned them.
did he treat them like people or like vermin??
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"back then it was actually kewl to own people."
It's still kewl to own people. The masters are corporations and government. The public are the slaves.