In the comments to Return of the Dysfunctional Duo, Dick says:

“this bromide is nonsense”, “it seems ignorant”, “dogma nearly a century old” –actually it is over 2 centuries old and was first uttered by Thomas Jefferson. This is the first time I have ever heard his statements called “nonsense” and Jefferson was anything but ignorant. Others, such as Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman, have said the same type of thing

Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant, brilliant man. I used to have quite the case of hero worship when it came to ol’ TJ. Still do to some degree. However, I have long recognized that not everything Jefferson said or thought was right or brilliant or even useful. You can fill whole books with things he was wrong about and many have, starting in his lifetime and continuing on to the present day. It’s nice to have a recourse to an authority figure when making an argument, but even geniuses sometimes say things that are utterly stupid, especially when yanked out of their historic context and dragged a few centuries into the future. Consult Jefferson on race (his comments on the biological qualities and mental capabilities of those of African descent are vile) or having a military establishment (against it, which left us naked just in time for the war of 1812) or just about dealing with your associates honestly (Jefferson’s sense of personal loyalty was spectacularly limited) or the French Revolution (where he rooted on a bloodbath) or presidential powers (bad when he wasn’t president and expansive when he was) and you’ll see what I mean–and this is a very truncated list, just off the top of my head.

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