Edited for your protection.
July 6, 2008 6:33 PM   Subscribe

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

-Thomas Jefferson

From a letter to Roger C. Weightman on June 24, 1826 (The last letter he penned)
posted by Mr_Zero (17 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: this is a single link blog post that, despite some interesting typographical tricks, is really just an excuse for a "bush, dumb president or THE DUMBEST PRESIDENT?" thread. -- jessamyn



 
I see what you did there.
posted by nightchrome at 6:34 PM on July 6, 2008


BUSH IS TEH STUPID
posted by Class Goat at 6:38 PM on July 6, 2008


A bit light for an FP?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:40 PM on July 6, 2008


And happy 62nd birthday today to our Orwellian, memory-hole utilizing, brush-cutting, mission-accomplishing, head-in-the-sand looking for WMDs and oil incredibly shrinking 24% approval-rated worst-ever president.
posted by orthogonality at 6:41 PM on July 6, 2008


er, front page post is FPP. It would be more interesting if you found other examples of this sort of editing...?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 6:42 PM on July 6, 2008


Inevitably, it seems, we're looking ahead to having another faith based president.
posted by semmi at 6:42 PM on July 6, 2008


Inevitably, it seems, we're looking ahead to having another faith based president.

Obama is a bit more nuanced then that, I think.
posted by delmoi at 6:48 PM on July 6, 2008


And you'd think anyone at all familiar with Jefferson's prose would have to notice his use of the definite article suggests that there's a following clause refering to "the chains".

"...burst the chains and to assume" just doesn't sound right; Jefferson would at worst have altered it to "burst their chains". Even then, the rythm is somehow off compared to the Declaration or the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; it misses Jefferson's rolling and ornate parallelism.
posted by orthogonality at 6:49 PM on July 6, 2008


I knew Thomas Jefferson was one of those pushy, arrogant, didactic, dialogue-addicted atheists who didn't really get it.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:50 PM on July 6, 2008


Previously, The Jefferson Bible.
posted by The Straightener at 6:56 PM on July 6, 2008


I'm not really a big fan of this Bush person.
posted by Citizen Premier at 7:11 PM on July 6, 2008


In all fairness that sentence belongs in the 18th century and should stay there. "Monkish ignorance" is just Enlightenment code for anti-Catholicism. It actually would have been more notable had it not been removed since Bush would come under attack for being anti Catholic. His speech writers did the right thing IMO.
posted by stbalbach at 7:22 PM on July 6, 2008


stbalbach - this is not meant as a challenge - i'd be interested in some examples/context for what you're saying about "monkish ignorance" being anti-Catholic.
posted by facetious at 7:30 PM on July 6, 2008


What an annoying way to format an FPP. I hope someone deletes this just to discourage this sort of thing.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:34 PM on July 6, 2008


I'd be more interested in some examples/context that people still regard the phrase "monkish ignorance" as anti-Catholic and that it was taken out because his speech-writers feared accusations of anti-Catholicism.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:34 PM on July 6, 2008


What's so ignernt about monkeys, anyway?

*double hand chop*

Heh hehh ehh.


/jonstewart
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:34 PM on July 6, 2008


stbalbach writes "'Monkish ignorance' is just Enlightenment code for anti-Catholicism."

It certainly can be, but in can also be Enlightenment anti-clericalism in general. This was written in 1826, so it's before the bulk of Catholic immigration and Know-Nothingism ("Until about 1845, the Roman Catholic population of the United States was a small minority of mostly English Catholics, who were often quite socially accomplished"), but long enough after the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution that I don't think anti-popery would be Jefferson's main concern. It reminds me more of Thomas Paine (a contemporary of Jefferson), who was more anti-religion than specifically anti-Rome. But I could be wrong.
posted by orthogonality at 7:39 PM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]


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