Category Archives: Media Criticism

Jefferson And Slavery

“Maybe Lincoln didn’t understand what was going on as well as Paul Finkelman now does, but I regard that as unlikely.”

So do I. The notion that the nation could have been founded as one without slavery is profoundly historically ignorant. The Founders did the best they could do under the circumstances, and even with such an atrocious flaw it was still the best design of a government in human history up to that time.

Or since, despite the fact that about half the nation seems willing to abandon it.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related.

Revolutionaries

Spending

…is the root of the problem.

Per capita federal expenditures have almost doubled since Carter, and go up almost regardless of which party is in the White House. Ironically, it was steady only under Bill Clinton, but that’s only because he gave himself a Republican Congress in the second year of his first term. George W. Bush had an opportunity top get it under control, but he was a disaster on that front (the biggest reason he lost the Congress in 2006, which led to even more disastrous spending).