At least he was honest with himself or something
by DataSittingAlone
At least he was honest with himself or something
by DataSittingAlone
25 Comments
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I think we can all say the fathers were flawed all in their own ways as people back then were
You’d love Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence.
**beating someone’s head in with a brick** Man, I am so sorry, this is such an awful thing to do. I really wish it would stop. It’s just terrible.
Still wild that antimonarchist abolitionist Ben Franklin had two slaves called King and George.
I don’t remember the details for Virginia, but several of the Slave States literally had laws making it almost impossible to emancipate slaves except under very specific conditions approved by the State government. Some of them additionally required anyone freed to GTFO of the State forever within a certain period of time, which was seldom possible since there wasn’t anywhere they could go anyway. IIRC, Virginia was one of the GTFO States, but don’t quote me on that.
At least he manumitted them at the end of his life.
And here I am in modern day not liking AI, not wanting AI, but still having to get the certs and adopt it to add to my resume to have better job potential in my field and locality.
Any historical records which says he treated them harsh or cruel ?
I’d like to know how he was as an actual person , especially as a person who fought for Individual liberty .
Oddly it was the managing of Mount Vernon that made him uniquely qualified to hold the chaotic and piecemeal Continental Army together almost singlehandedly, as well as its almost impossible logistics. It was Mount Vernon’s administrative tasks, like knowing every tree on the property and where every sapling should go, his cool appraisal of each slave’s abilities and personalities, to distribute them to tasks and living quarters to get their “best work,” even when they didn’t want to be moved, but avoiding huge personality conflicts.
It translated well to dealing with army regulars and a constant mishmash of coming and going militias, food, horses, and scraping the bottom of the barrel to just eke out resources where nobody else could have. And dear god, the administration and paperwork while still having Congress up his ass.
John Adams would never
Freedom for me, but not for thee.
Belief. The alchemy of ethics. Where is it? It’s got to be here!
He can’t have morality getting in the way of his wealth
you might not want to look at how we get cobalt then
Me rolling up to Popeyes in my sweatshop-made shoes then reading this post on my child labor made brain rot machine.
Don’t think too hard about who makes your clothes or consumer electronics.
I think about this every time I order chicken or pork in a restaurant. I KNOW the industrial agriculture system in the US causes suffering and I can’t call consciously participating in it anything but sinful. I try to reduce my consumption and find humane alternatives. But sometimes I order the chicken. Obviously chattel slavery is much worse and I am not equating them. Maybe a better comparison would be Western economies being propped up by sweatshop labor. But either way I have a hard time thinking of myself as morally superior when I also make choices that perpetuate suffering because it is convenient or because I feel trapped inside the current economic system.
This is why those people who trot out the “you can’t judge people from the past by the standard of today” are missing the point.
For many people, BY THE STANDARDS OF THE DAY, slavery was wrong. First the millions of black folks enslaved were presumably against slavery. Plus there was always a vocal anti-slavery movement. So during the time there were millions upon millions of people who realized slavery was an ungodly evil.
So yes you can judge folks from the past on our standards, that isn’t the same as saying you can’t judge folks from the past.
I judge slave owners.
Didn’t they say save the man kill the Indian?
One of my favorite books on Washington is “An Imperfect God” and it gives an in depth look at how his ideas on slavery and black people in general evolved over time. Early on he had no qualms about slavery, but by the end of his life he felt powerless to stop it and hoped his deathbed emancipation of all but a few of the oldest for his wife would set an example for others to do the same.
The biggest influences on his evolution of thought were fighting with black continental troops, meeting Phyllis Wheatly (honestly my favorite part of the book), and TJ’s scandal with Sally.
I think gambling is evil and destroys lives
I still own lots of gambling stocks
Fucking companies print money.
What can I say
Edison worked by candle light and Henry ford rode a horse to school. Living and working within the systems available to you while you work to innovate and change them does not make your contributions somehow irrelevant.
Most people also think animal cruelty is bad and still eat meat it’s fairly human to ignore and hide from your own ethics so you dont have to change your habits.
Capitalism sucks. Yet we’re forced to live in this system.
Shit like that has been happening for thousands of years.
I’m sure there were people in societies that sacrificed people who thought that was a bad idea.