Time to bulldoze the Jefferson Memorial?

[Max Sawicky]

> I agree with Doug. Crimes purposefully committed against humanity, however
> justified, are timeless. If we are going to allow him a
> historical-conditions defense, how do we account for the discord between
> TJ's limited definition of 'man' with the period's religious edict against
> bestiality? Jeff
>  ----------
> From: Doug Henwood

To all you turbulent priests, I don't care if you
want to call TJ a crumb-bum.

His role in history seems to me an entirely different
matter.  A recent Nobel (in chemistry, I believe) was
exposed as a child-abuser.  What does this mean for
his work?  I would say zilch.

In a slavocracy a slave-owner could in principle
favor abolitionism and actually help bring it about.
Would this event be diluted by his personal hypocrisy?
I would say not.  How his character is assessed, or how
his legend contributes to the bourgeois panaroma of U.S.
history is another matter.  Isn't there a difference?

Unsentimentally yours,

MBS