Category: WTF?

This morning, I was looking for a quote from Thomas Jefferson.

It was a quote I vaguely recalled but couldn’t recall exactly or where Jefferson had written it.

Jefferson had been involved with negotiations to stop interference in American trade and shipping by the Barbary Pirates. Jefferson recommended that we simply build a navy and go to war with them.

Others in the newly formed government chose to go the European Route and pay the Muslims tribute to leave our ships alone.

Jefferson believed that in the long run, it would be cheaper to build the navy and destroy the ability of the Barbary Pirates to be troublesome.

That’s a short summary from what I recall reading decades ago in the UK Library in Lexington, KY.

If I recall correctly Jefferson didn’t trust that the Muslims would honor any treaties. He worried that our country would forever be mired in the internal politics of the Pashas, and various kingdoms vying for control of shipping. He thought there’d be never ending ransoms to be paid for captives or unmolested passage in and out of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Mostly, he was right. Treaties were violated and when questioned it was always some excuse. The 3rd cousin of the Pasha didn’t get the message, or some other bullshit. Followed by worthless apologies, “I’m so sorry the ship and goods were stolen, you lost how many crew? The Pasha sends he condolences, and expects this year’s tribute payment on time.”

Jefferson owned a Quran and other middle Eastern books.

I suspect these books were an attempt on his part to understand the thought process of the people he was negotiating with as Secretary of State, and later as President of the United States.

I remember reading in the library, copies of  documents written in Jefferson’s own hand, and the florid language of the time about his dealings with the Pirates. They were more properly called Corsairs, and operated as agents of their king, Pasha or whatever. He didn’t like them, he didn’t trust them, and warned very clearly about issues dealing with people of the region.

Yeah! Imagine that! I can actually read cursive, old English, and understand what the hell was being said. Why? Because guess fucking what, I was taught a lot of it in school. More, I was taught at home by my parents (both of whom had to take Latin in high school).

Surprise, surprise, English, while evolving over time, was near enough to the English I was taught in school, that aside from slight spelling changes and characters that have fallen out of use, the definitions of the words remained the same.

As an aside, there’s a lesson there. Redefining words wily nilly is problematic to say the least.

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Here’s the point.

When I searched for the quotes from Jefferson. The internet says that Jefferson was a Muslim!

WHAT?

Jefferson was a Christian. He said so in his quotes and papers. He was a skeptical Christian, to be sure, but a Christian nonetheless .

He had a dim view of organized religion in general because so often in history, religion had been used to control and enslave people. Religion had, time and again led to the priest class entering into politics and holding sway that they weren’t entitled to have.

Jefferson said his beliefs were between him and God and therefore not the business of anyone else.

So how the hell is it that Jefferson is now suddenly a Muslim?

Oh, because he owned a Quran! Well then, I suppose that explains him owning slaves! Now, we can’t talk about what a piece of shit Jefferson was because he owned slaves. It was part of his religious beliefs!

BTW owning slaves is still part of Muslim / Islamic belief today, so all you Muslim sympathizers… FUCK OFF! You can’t have it both ways.

My query was, “Thomas Jefferson Muslim quote”. Then It was, “Thomas Jefferson on Barbary Pirates”. Then I tried, “Thomas Jefferson on the Corsairs”.

All of which presented me with no less than 4 pages of search results, all of which said Jefferson was a Muslim. Which is more than slightly unlikely.

Jefferson was first and foremost about individual liberty and freedom. Specifically his own. He openly advocated questioning even God himself.

I cannot see Jefferson submitting to a religion that is as much about governance of its adherents, as it is about religion.

No, Jefferson wasn’t a Muslim. I’m sure that the Palestinians, anti semites, and Islamic/Muslim Jihadists in our midst would love to have people believe that as a recruiting method, I don’t believe it.

It’s simply too farfetched, based on what I remember reading. I also notice that finding original sources on the internet has become more difficult.

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This is why the internet is circling ever closer to a point of information entropy. (Yeah, I coined the term, I think. Pretty cool.) By which I mean that the accuracy of information on the Internet will eventually degrade to the point of uselessness.

The data will become so corrupt and randomized as to be no better than a soothsayer casting bits of bone or colored rocks on a “sacred” cloth.

I could suggest that actual original sources of information always be indexed in all search engines before the various interpretations, comments, or scholarly works. No-one will take that path because it’s about marketing & pushing ads into potential consumers faces.

Maybe it’s time for a new internet, something that only contains real and verified information. Nah that wouldn’t get any traction either. It would be called racist, and destroyed the minute it disputed the existence of Wakanda as a real place.

I think it’s time to eschew the internet for anything other than entertainment. It’s time to buy real books, real encyclopedias, and real dictionaries again. Although I’m going to be partial to reference material printed prior to 2000. Anything newer is likely to have been corrupted by Information Entropy.

I’ve warned about the corruption before. I had no idea it had progressed to the point it has, much less that we’d see rewriting of the Founding Fathers.

I’m going to have to start looking for a copy of The Jefferson Papers printed before 1960 to avoid any nasty edits or reinterpretations.

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P.S. I never did find the quote I was looking for.