Comments on: WWT”FF”T? And who wants to live in their world, anyway?

By: Monday Meanderings « Blue Lyon

Monday Meanderings « Blue Lyon — Mon, 24 May 2010 12:41:08 +0000

[...] Jefferson in 1801 to “prove” that the U.S. has always been about free enterprise. (Because as we’ve already established, many editorialists, especially of the conservative variety, are apparently incapable of recognizing or understanding the fact that there was no such thing [...]

By: The jaw-dropping stupidity of opinion journalism today : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Sun, 23 May 2010 15:13:10 +0000

[...] in 1801 to “prove” that the U.S. has always been about free enterprise. (Because as we’ve already established, many editorialists, especially of the conservative variety, are apparently incapable of recognizing or understanding the fact that there was no such thing [...]

By: Rad Readr

Rad Readr — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:46:19 +0000

In response to Paul Zummo, How did we go from “flooding Wall Street” to “government that reached into every nook and cranny of American life”? For those of you whose American life is on Wall Street, then celebrate your big bonus this weekend!

As far as “out of control spending,” man there are lot of Lexi and BMW (5 series) in my county!

By: Paul Zummo

Paul Zummo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:34:18 +0000

My bet is that Alexander Hamilton and most of the Federalists would be well pleased by the firehose of government money flooding Wall Street in the past year under both Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

No, they most certainly would not be well pleased. I know it’s the standard argument that Hamilton was some big government pushing monarchist, but he did not advocate a government that reached into every nook and cranny of American life. He desired a more energetic and efficient government, but one that was efficient in carrying out its limited powers. Perhaps Newt is guilty of slight hyperbole here, but I think that his general take on what the Framers would have thought of such out of control spending is generally on the mark.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:11:18 +0000

I’m looking at a copy of Vol. 1 of the 1978 Edition of _Directory of American Scholars_, p. 244, and the entry for Newton Leroy Gingrich gives his research specialties as: “Futurism, process of change, management and communications.”

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:44:29 +0000

Liz2–I remembered that. Since his Ph.D. was from the 1970s, that would barely have qualified as history, right? Can’t we palm him off on Political Science?

By: Liz2

Liz2 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:03:14 +0000

For the record, Gingrich’s thesis was “Belgian Education Policy in Congo 1945-1960″. Please don’t ask me why I know that, I have to live with the shame…

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:49:26 +0000

Heh. Jefferson on Springer/Povitch/Tyra Banks. People don’t realize that the “Founding Fathers” would look more like John Edwards now than the “Founding Fathers” of sacred memory.

By: Lance

Lance — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:17:45 +0000

It was magical to read this thread last night even as I watched the episode of 30 Rock where Tracy learns that Thomas Jefferson was his ancestor, and then dreams that he meets Jefferson after a paternity test on the Maury Povitch show. When Jefferson (played by Alec Baldwin) walks on stage and is booed, he flips the double bird to the audience. WWTFFD? Indeed. We should put that episode in Gordon Wood’s hat and smoke it.

By: Paul S.

Paul S. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:19:42 +0000

On a tangent, I grew up practically within a stone’s throw from the birthplace of the guy generally credited with inventing the cotton gin (although he spent the majority of his life elsewhere). Eli Whitney is definitely the most prominent figure of the early U.S. to come from my hometown. Since his invention may have helped reinvigorate slavery in the USA by making cotton growing much more profitable, I’ve generally considered it prudent not to brag too much about this local success story.

I think that some historians now claim that Whitney didn’t actually play such an important role – he may have gotten some of his ideas from others, and a couple of other inventors developed their own cotton gins around the same time, and at least one of them was a better design than Whitney’s (which ended up being the most widely used design). So maybe the fame and the blame are both exaggerated.