tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post115203027169469605..comments2023-10-07T03:49:20.045-07:00Comments on Porlock Junior: Nothing important happened todayPorlock Juniorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1152344916793024842006-07-08T00:48:00.000-07:002006-07-08T00:48:00.000-07:00Some confirmation, then, of my impression that it'...Some confirmation, then, of my impression that it's in fashion nowadays. It's useful to keep in mind that fashions change. Yeah, duh, but sometimes it's too easy to take the official right answers too seriously. I'll refrain from describing the stuff that was in my high school history textbook, written by the genuinely distinguished historian Samuel Eliot Morrison (or anyway his name appeared somewhere on the title page). But some of it was garbage that would shock you.<BR/><BR/>There's surely a good case that the colonists tended to be opposed to paying any taxes at all; the problem is in making that a single-factor theory to account for the revolution, and just incidentally, to trivialize it.<BR/><BR/>Jefferson's piece, as I say, took this on frontally at the time. So much for the idea being a great recent intellectual advance; it was political propaganda 230 years ago. It could be true nonetheless. It could also be BS as it was before. Jefferson's case is reprinted, I think, in <I>The Portable Jefferson</I>, but I don't have time to dig out a proper citation just now. A good work of political rhetoric, as one might expect based on his other work.Porlock Juniorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16791629233605877049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201368.post-1152320875967741522006-07-07T18:07:00.000-07:002006-07-07T18:07:00.000-07:00Now it's very interesting that you mention the cur...Now it's very interesting that you mention the current fashionable treatment of the founding fathers as people who just didn't want to pay taxes; that was certainly the image I was left with when I completed AP US History not so long ago. It was my impression, though, that there was some tacit recognition of this point by the founders themselves, viz. John Jay or one of them in the lesser-read Federalist Papers. When I get a chance I'm going to look this up. It is fascinating, is it not?<BR/><BR/>Happy fourth!Anagrysishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05507072447934516844noreply@blogger.com