Penny Thoughts: The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson—Part I

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. — Thomas Jefferson

I am and always have been an admirer and devotee of one of our greatest minds and presidents in our history – Thomas Jefferson. I have his complete works and have read them voraciously for the past four decades.

Jefferson’s wisdom is so profound and so impacting for our contemporary social, political, economic and practical atmosphere that I wanted to share it with you. Many of you may be familiar with his observations, but for those of you who “know” him only through our history classes and, perhaps, The History Channel, perhaps you will gain something with this trope.

Thomas Jefferson was an “American” not only through his contributions to the cause of the Revolution, his “Louisiana Purchase” from the French and his authorship of the “Declaration of Independence”, but he was a “Natural Born Citizen” as well, having been born in Shadwell, Va., in 1743.

Of his portfolio of achievements–first secretary of state, second vice president and third president of the United States–we can see the tendrils of his thought being put into action. Ultimately, it is his thinking and the articulation of those thoughts put into action which helped frame our democratic American Republic.

Still, Jefferson was keenly aware of the difficulties which festered in Europe and England and prompted the departure of so many from those difficulties to the opportunity they believed could exist in the New World. So, it was with Jefferson’s father who settled his family in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Jefferson could see the yearning which accompanied each new wave of arrivals from the rest of the world, but more, he could craft and articulate the implications of that yearning first in his writings and then in his actions.

Today, we look at the concentrations of population in America and see that they are primarily on the coasts, east and west.  Jefferson warned against such concentrations of population as he observed, “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” Does this ring a familiar bell to you?

Researchers have studied rats who live in concentrated masses and note that violence and deceit within those rat concentrations increases immeasurably. Our own statistics indicate that the same kinds of behaviors exist in large concentrations of humans.

Well, perhaps, deceit can exist everywhere, but there is no doubt that there is a clear increase in violence when we live on top of each other in large cities. Something in the human DNA seems to revert to anti-social behaviors – behaviors which favor personal survival over a societal structure – and manifest themselves in any corruption one can imagine.

On the appropriation of taxes, Jefferson notes, “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Let’s look at some of the legislation, limited in volume, but vast in the scope of human endeavor, which came out of Washington, D.C. during previous administrations. Were we, as a Nation, truly satisfied with much, if any, of it? Poll after poll indicated a negative response to that question. As a consequence, Donald J. Trump was elected president.

This quotation is not only philosophic in content but is indicative of Jefferson’s antipathy toward a strong central government, as well as his apprehensions about taxes and their appropriations.

As I see it, personal income taxes are immoral. Period!

To rob from a person the sweat of that person’s brow, to my way of thinking is to violate the seventh of the Ten Commandments–“You shall not steal”– but that is fodder for one my future cannons in this column. Suffice it to say now that taxing one’s work is taxing one’s very soul.

Given that context, then, if you take from a person that sweat, then use it for purposes which are diametrically opposed to that person’s beliefs or needs is, indeed, “sinful and tyrannical.”

Currently, there is the debate raging about what form of socio-political-economic form America is to take. We now know that the Obama Administration was hell-bent on some form of socialism. The result was, of course, an unwieldy, sprawling federal government established by a political class and actually run by a cabal of bureaucrats.

Our Founders must be rolling in their graves when they hear phrases such as, “Each must pay their fair share”, or, “We need to ensure that there is an equal playing field”, which really mask the intentions of those who utter such locutions.

Jefferson’s observation on such a practice was clear: “There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

America was not built by those who did not work.  Even prior to July 4, 1776, Captain John Smith of the ill-fated Jamestown Colony ordered that if someone did not work, he would receive no food. Yet, today, we have volumes of legislation the result of which is an egregious entitlement program – taxing those who work and giving to those who do not, even to those who have come here illegally.

To this approach, Jefferson pronounced, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

Now, does any of this sound familiar to you? And Jefferson saw this well over two centuries ago!

Every time I read Jefferson, I hear the words coming from my favorite song about our nation, “America, the Beautiful”–“O beautiful for patriots’ dream, that sees beyond the years”– and, indeed, our Founders had the capacity to “see beyond the years.” That is our blessing–and the Founders left it with us to preserve and to protect, because they seemed to know the consequences if we did not.