Jefferson got out of the box once.... would he be capable of getting out of the box again?
We shall never know, because there is no modern day version of TJ. Nothing remotely like it.
I'm thinking that if he were alive today, he'd probably just put a pistol to his head, saying 'all hope is lost'.
Oh he could deal with the technological advances, that's how smart a man he was, but he wouldn't be able to deal with society as it has as come to be. It would be completely alien to him.
That's just my take. I don't know any more than the next fellow does about what TJ might think.
Put a pistol to his own head? That wasn't his response when dealing with the most powerful army and the most powerful tyrant in the world......
Perhaps... just perhaps.... he would think there may be a better way than the method previously employed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Now.... at what point do you think that he might begin to entertain the idea that vesting coercive authority in an organization of men might be a mistake?
A difference-- I worked my axx off from the time I left high school to make my way in the world. During much of that time I was working in excess of 80 hours a week. I did not have time to deal with overthrowing a government.
Jefferson-- though no doubt he worked at making a living-- was not out on a daily basis busting his hump to make a living while also writing the Declaration, and otherwise attempting to overthrow King George.
I think that one of the large misconceptions of the time was that people who were struggling to keep food on the table and roof over head had the time to strictly supervise 'government'. Or, they didn't think that weedy people would supervise government at all. That was the job of the elite. And to that, I suppose they were of good will, but if so, they overestimated the morality of the elite who would take the place of those who founded the country.
So... Jefferson noted that the former method of organizing society-- a monarchy and lesser royalty-- wasn't getting the job done. So he proposed a different method.
Now, we wee that Tommy Jeff's method didn't work out all that well, either.
Would you think that Tommy Jeff, faced with modern reality, would simply off himself?
Mike Kemp
