Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
I've noted with interest that many posters here, on both sides of the political debate, often resort to quoting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton etc, as if this gives their argument some additional moral weight.
Using their opinions, which were products of their time and environment, to justify such things as support for fully automatic weapons, hard-core pornography, abortion, prayer in schools or the right to wear a t-shirt with someone's face on it is... well, is just plain stupid. Why the almost revertional breath-taking when someone whips out a quotation?
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Because even with all their faults and the fact that they were a product of their time and out of date, many of us trust their judgement more than the modern day variety of what are loosely referred to as statesmen.
We are inclined to believe that at least for a short period of time, they put politics aside and tried to do the right thing. The times this happens in modern times seems to be very rare.