Dude, Jefferson said a lot of great things. Some of the stuff in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, in particular, holds up really well. He also was a slave-raper. History is complicated like that.

I have, over the years, known a number of people of color who were skeptical about being reverent toward the Founding Fathers who owned slaves. I get where they're coming from. Owning slaves is, in my moral universe, really really bad. (And comparing it to adultery is just obtuse. You can do better than that.) In some ways, Jefferson was the worst of the bunch, because he, unlike some of his less brilliant contemporaries, was fully aware of the moral indefensibility of slavery (but persisted in it anyway).

Pope Benedict probably does some great things, but as a Jew it bugs the shit out of me that the fucker was in Hitler Youth. I know he was just a kid, but I hold it against him anyway.

I construe your quote from Omooex as his flippant way of deflecting the notion that Jefferson is an unimpeachable authority.

Years ago, before the DNA confirmation, I undertook some historical study of this issue. (I was once a Ph.D. student --repeat, Ph.D STUDENT -- and I still remember a few things. I think the circumstantial evidence of Jefferson's paternity of Sally Hemmings' seven children was pretty overwhelming. There was a long time in which TJ was at the plantation only rarely, and every time he visited, SH gave birth to a half-white child 9 months later. (Go figure.) Jefferson's plantation birth records ordinarily identified the father; not so with Ms. Hemmings' children. Ms. Hemmings and her extended family received special treatment and had favored status among Mr. Jefferson's slaves. There was more, but I forget, and no I'm not going to research it further for you. Suffice it to say that most historians who've researched the matter have little or no doubt that TJ fathered her children. (As to the DNA, I'm no expert on the science -- all I know is what I read in the papers. It appears that the scientific evidence confirms the already compelling circumstantial evidence).

Jefferson: great leader, brilliant thinker, noble pioneer of religious and intellectual freedom, slave-raper. So it goes... what can I tell ya?

that I DO NOT have a Ph.D., and have never claimed to have one, and would never claim to have one. (Damn you WinSmith for making that necessary...)

If you don't think a man banging a woman who is his chattel slave constitutes rape, I guess we just disagree.

It is true that, in antebellum white southern upper-class culture, slaves were widely regarded as subhuman animals who could be bought, sold, whipped, raped, maimed and mutilated at the discretion of their owners. Sorry, I don't respect those cultural values. If a slave-owner purposely killed a slave, I say he was a "murderer" even if his fellow slave-holders would likely not have thought so.

Furthermore, there were plenty of white people in Jefferson's time who recognized the evils of treating black people as chattels. Indeed, Jefferson himself was among them. But he was unwilling to give up the luxuries and privileges afforded him by slave-ownership, including but not limited to a privately owned harem of dusky beauties who were in no position to refuse his advances.

>>>I often wonder how many other supposed Pro-Palestinians are merely camouflaging a deep seated animosity towards Jews, and how many more prejudices lay beneath.

Sometimes one cannot help but wonder. The possibility has also crossed my mind that certain supposedly pro-Israel folks dig Israel partly or primarily because Israel from time to time gets to do stuff to Arabs that the so-called pro-Israel folks can only dream about.

There is something about Jews that attracts a certain type of nutter like moths to flame. You of course are familiar with the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well, if some of your enemies happen to be Jews, then you will inevitably find yourself with some weird friends despite your own sincere good intentions and total lack of bigotry.

You, as critics of Israel, probably find Steele embarrassing. I genuinely (if I dare use this word) empathize. Steele is a complete shithead, but to be honest, he's only marginally worse and slightly more obviously crazy than Marty Peretz or Charles Krauthammer, and those fuckers are Serious Public Intellectuals and mainstream media titans. Sigh.