Political Animal
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July 04, 2012 11:48 AM
Independence Day Readings
If you have some spare time today, I have three recommendations for your appropriate Independence Day reading:
* At Hullabaloo, David Atkins’ brief but startling collection of lefty quotations from the Founding Fathers.
* Religion Dispatches’ “reader” of recent articles on America’s heritage of church-state relations and efforts to misuse it today.
* Kevin Drum’s fun-pack of writings and charts on the recent struggles for and against the right to vote.
Enjoy.
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danimal on July 04, 2012 12:27 PM:
Here's an article from Charles Pierce that I highly recommend: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/fourth-of-july-state-parks-10284053
jjm on July 04, 2012 1:18 PM:
One note: the NYT published the text of the Declaration of Independence today, as is their usual practice, and we read it through this time. "Taxation without representation" as a grievance is lower on the list than the king's not permitting FREE IMMIGRATION to the Colonies.... Pretty ironic, heh? Since the main complaint of the tea party is against immigrants, legal and illegal.
Joe Friday on July 04, 2012 11:44 PM:
"At Hullabaloo, David Atkins' brief but startling collection of lefty quotations from the Founding Fathers."
My favorite is from an 1813 letter to John Adams, in which Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy."