by Randa Morris
The repugican cabal misquotes the founding fathers so often it almost seems like
there’s a deliberate agenda to rewrite history and misrepresent the
historical figures that they claim to so greatly admire.
When you
hear one person after another, after another, repeating the same few
made up quotes, it almost seems as if the repugican cabal is testing the theory
behind another
falsely attributed quote:
“If you repeat a lie often enough, the people will come to believe it.”
That quote, which has often been attributed to Hitler’s propaganda minister,
Joseph Goebbels,
undoubtedly came from someone within Adolph Hitler’s administration. We
know that the quote first originated in Nazi Germany. Yet, there’s no
substantiated record that can accurately pinpoint its original author.
These
five quotes have been repeated so many times in the past several years,
and by so many different repugican cabal and tea party leaders, that many people
have no idea that they are completely made up. Especially not your
average repugican voters. They have been trained to accept without
question every lie that comes out of the mouths of wingnut
politicians and shrieking heads, while rejecting all information that comes from
outside of the bubble. Needless to say, fact checking is not a part of
their information gathering routine.
1. “The government that governs least, governs best.”
The wingnuts have repeatedly and falsely attributed this quote to Thomas
Jefferson. This false attribution has been circulated in memes on social
media, repeated at political rallies, even spoken on the floor of
federal and state houses across America, by wingnut frauds, dim wits
and perpetual liars.
This is a real quote, but its author was not Thomas Jefferson. This quote is from the writings of
Henry David Thoreau,
beloved author, founder of the transcendental movement, founder of the
modern day environmental movement, author of modern civil disobedience
techniques, including those practiced by Martin Luther King and Gandhi.
Thoreau was a devoted supporter of racial equality, so much so that he
went to jail refusing to pay taxes in opposition to legalized slavery
and war.
Thoreau opposed
materialism and all forms of waste. He also despised the capitalist
system that the wingnuts worship with all its greedy little heart. He
opposed religious dogma and embraced a form of religion that included
only “the love of nature,” something wingnut 'christians' clearly do
not approve of. The quote appears in Thoreau’s book “Civil
Disobedience,” published in 1849.
Obviously the wingnuts changed
the attribution, mainly so their uneducated base doesn’t figure out
that the quote comes from the writings of someone who would despise
everything that they stand for.
But then again, Jefferson would not embrace the modern wingnuts, any more than Thoreau.
Both
of these men must roll over in their graves every time someone with the
tiny intellect of Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin repeats this quote
in an attempt to justify their political extremism. Clearly few
repugicans have read anything written by either man.
2. “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
Another
quote falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson, this false quote has been
repeated over and over by all the wingnut rock stars, Michelle
Bachmann, Christine O’Donnell, Tim Walberg, Michael Steele, Austin
Scott, the list goes on and on.
This quote has also occasionally
been attributed to Thomas Paine and at other times to Samuel Adams. The
first time this quote was ever attributed to Jefferson was in 1994. The
book that
attributed this quote to Jefferson, ‘It’s All In The Game; Butterflies,
Mind Control — The Razor’s Edge,’ by Gyeorgos Ceres Hatton, is a
typical wingnut fear mongering, conspiracy laden piece of hack
journalism, full of erroneous quotes, paranoid fantasies and flat out
lies.
The first time this quote appeared anywhere in print was in the ‘
Barnhill – Tichenor Debate on Socialism‘,
published by the Rip-Saw Publishing Company in 1914 (page 34). The
author is not any of the founding fathers, but John Basil Barnhill,
someone no-one has ever heard of. Of course if the wingnuts simply
steal the quote from some dead, unknown person, then attributes it to
some famous person, few people will ever be the wiser. By falsely
attributing the quote to Jefferson, the repugican cabal hacks know they have a
better chance of influencing their base and convincing the idiots that
follow them that they really are doing ‘what the founders intended.’
If you want to do what the founders wanted you to do, you might try reading. Jefferson was an avid supporter of education.
As Thomas Jefferson
actually did say, on
May 6, 1810:
“no
one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I
do, and none has greater confidence in it’s effect towards supporting
free & good government.”
Or as he said on
April 24, 1816:
“enlighten
the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body & mind
will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
And on
October 15, 1785:
“what
are the objects of an useful American education? classical knowledge,
modern languages & chiefly French, Spanish, & Italian;
Mathematics; Natural philosophy; Natural History; Civil History;
Ethics.”
Remember kids, tyranny and oppressions are the enemy of enlightenment and education.
3. “Most bad government is the result of too much government.”
Thomas
Jefferson also did not say this. This quote has been circulated by repugican cabal
hacks like Alan West and Joe Scarborough. West himself wrote an entire
book that was so full of erroneous founding father quotes it made
headlines for its stunning lack of historical accuracy.
West’s book
included four quotes that were falsely attributed to Jefferson, along
with a list of quotes falsely attributed to other historical figures,
including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison,
Patrick Henry and a host of other figures from American history.
It
seems to me that if the founding fathers would really support your
totally irrational positions then you ought to be able to find some
actual quotes to illustrate that. Why constantly make stuff up?
4. “The Constitution is not a tool for government to restrain the people. It’s a tool for people to restrain the government.”
This
is a quote that the wingnuts have falsely attributed to Patrick Henry.
It got its start on the internet in 2003. According to Patrick Henry
biographer, Thomas Kidd of Baylor University in Texas, Patrick Henry
never said this.
When asked about the quote, Kidd summed up his feelings about the
growing number of fake founding father quotes being disseminated on the
internet by
saying:
“If we admire these people, then I think we should represent what they actually said.”
I
agree wholeheartedly. Nothing shows how little you actually respect the
founders or value what they said quite like misquoting them time and
time again.
5. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly
or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists,
but by christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of jesus christ!”
Again
a quote attributed to Patrick Henry that is just a flat out
fabrication. It first appeared in a 1950′s magazine article, which was a
commentary on Henry’s christian faith. It’s been falsely attributed to
Patrick Henry by such wingnut blow-hards as David R. Barton (who
retracted it later) and Newt Gingrich (who was content to allow the
false attribution to go unchecked.)
Kidd has a new article out which does a good job of debunking more false quotes which have been attributed to
Patrick Henry, on Huffington Post.
Whenever
you come across a quote on the internet, before you share it, verify
it. If the quote does not come with a reference to a particular date or
publication, that’s generally a first sign that it’s bogus. On the other
hand, some false quotes come complete with false sources, such as the
first quote above, attributed to Thomas Jefferson in
‘The Federalist.’
The Federalist was written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and
John Jay. Jefferson had nothing to do with that work. Additionally, the
quote does not appear in the Federalist at all.
The wingnuts
count on the fact that their base is made up of very low information
voters. They can get away with attributing an erroneous Thomas Jefferson
quote to a source that wasn’t even written by Thomas Jefferson,
confident that their non-reading, education hating base, will happily
distribute the bad information far and wide, without ever questioning
its authenticity.
