Thomas Jefferson - still relevant

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Griff

Yep it was good guys (Jefferson) vs bad guys (Hamilton) and in the long run the bad guys won because the good guys compromised their integrity on stuff like human bondage and developing a landed aristocracy.

Yep, I had a political discussion with someone recently who opined that voting should be limited to property owners. I couldn't figure out where this atavistic notion came from, until a month or so later I saw some talking head spout the same lunacy.

Add to this the chatter about actually redefining or repealing Section 1 of the 14th amendment and there seems to be an ugly trend towards advocating disenfranchisement.

In other words, the idea that being a Republic is not enough, and that we must somehow measure the fitness of citizens to vote.

It's ironic that this idea is being spouted amongst some conservatives, when some of them are already incensed over the election of a President with whom they disagree. The idea that in the midst of these people are others who hold the view that some of them should not be allowed to vote is ironic.

There is a basic contract implied in Jefferson's writings - that in exchange for a representative government, the people shall not take up arms. That even if you disagree with an administration, you can redress your grievances at the ballot box. If that right of these people is abridged, then that contract is broken.

From the time I was able to vote at 18, I believe that I voted for less than half of the presidents who took office. While I disagreed with them, and while I believe that one of them was the worst president in the past 80 years (I stopped at Harding), I tempered my disagreement with the knowledge that I was able to make my choice.

I can't even imagine what it was like to be living under Jim Crow and technically be allowed to vote but be cheated out of the opportunity. And now some idiots are proposing two discredited ideas that will take us 50 or a 100 years backward.

I was watching Condoleeza Rice explain why she became a Republican. It was mostly because Southern Democrats denied her father the right to vote. How ironic is it that there are voices coming from within her own party that would take us back to that time and those practices.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.