McCain or Obama?

[fort]

Joe the taxed ( happy end )

Joe Francis, plumber texan, rub the hands (the frequentation of its Internet site does not cease increasing, and its telephone does not stop sounding since...you know what...)

http://www.joetheplumber.com/

Nice !

 

[Andy44]

I'd love to participate in this conversation, but I can't keep up with you guys. Everything I want to say Greg beats me to it.

(BTW, Greg, I think it was Washington who freed his slaves upon his death, not Jefferson, wasn't it?)

 

[Urwumpe]

(BTW, Greg, I think it was Washington who freed his slaves upon his death, not Jefferson, wasn't it?)

Jefferson freed 5 slaves (of the many he had) shortly before his death. Other slaves had been sold to pay his debts after death - they had not been freed at all. It is theorized that he had many pretty personal reasons for not doing so, from having mortgages on his slaves, to a sexual relationship with one of them.

Washington freed his slaves after death.

 

[Andy44]

Jefferson is very complex character, more complex than Washington by far, IMO. Washington was a very straightforward man with a strict sense of honor, which he maintained in public and private, and he wasn't particularly intellectual.

Jefferson, on the other hand, was much more layered. His philosophical beliefs were very deeply held, but in his personal life he had many failings. He liked to spend too much money and was always in debt, which would match up with your explanation, and he had a mean streak in him when it came to politics, which showed itself in the way he treated John Adams by spreading lies about him during the presidential campaign. This in turn led to Jefferson being blackmailed, which he tried to cover up and which caused great scandal. And he is rumored to have had children with one of his slaves. None of these personal issues take away from his philosophical contributions to both his country and to the greater western world, and he remains one of my favorite hsitorical figures. One of those people that makes me wish I had a time machine.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, Jefferson was like all great persons. Where you have light, you also have shadows.

I think Washington also had some shadows in his vita, but of course, different.

 

[dougkeenan]

That's easy, George grew hemp. Oh wait so did Tom. Never mind.

 

[GregBurch]

Jefferson freed 5 slaves (of the many he had) shortly before his death. Other slaves had been sold to pay his debts after death - they had not been freed at all. It is theorized that he had many pretty personal reasons for not doing so, from having mortgages on his slaves, to a sexual relationship with one of them.

Washington freed his slaves after death.

This is correct, and I shouldn't have made this mistake, having read a number of biographies of both men -- it's hard to confuse the two of them, other than that they were both Virginians.

BTW, it's not a theory about Jefferson's sexual relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. It's a fact. Genetic studies were finally done on samples from descendants of the two of them that put the chance of it not being true at a microscopic level -- so much so that I think the Monticello foundation now accepts Hemmings' ancestors as members.

An interesting side note: Sally was Jefferson's wife's half-sister, if I remember correctly. (Or they shared a grandfather -- at any rate, the relationship was very close.)

 

[pattersoncr]

That's easy, George grew hemp. Oh wait so did Tom. Never mind.

Hemp had dozens of uses in those days and smoking wasn't the primary one. All the miles and miles of rigging on any sailing ship were hemp rope.

 

[dougkeenan]

Hemp had dozens of uses in those days and smoking wasn't one of them. All the miles and miles of rigging on any sailing ship were hemp rope.

Smoking was certainly one of the known uses. I may know a little about Orbiter but I know a lot about hemp. Wanna play history? Let's start with Washington, since the case for Jefferson is easier to make. (Or not, I'm not interested in dragging us off-topic, just more than willing.)

 

[Urwumpe]

An interesting side note: Sally was Jefferson's wife's half-sister, if I remember correctly. (Or they shared a grandfather -- at any rate, the relationship was very close.)

Which, by the standards of the English royal family, means they are not related at all. :lol:

The Sally Hemmings stuff is still, even if the chance for being wrong is not high, just a theory (to be correct). Just like gravitation has to be only a theory, though practically we don't notice the difference.

There is a small chance that the genetic information which is identical with Jefferson's arrived in the DNA of Hemmings children over other ways, just like for example the mother sharing a grandfather or by pure chance.

There is still enough open questions to be researched left, but some questions might need a time machine...

 

[Andy44]

I thought the DNA tests made it about an even chance that it was Jefferson or his brother? Not that it matters, really. Having illegitimate kids was probably not the worst thing he ever did, and I'm happy for the folks who always thought they were related and are now welcomed as part of the family.

 

[replicant]

It's a bit surprising that Joe would have been investigated, after his conversation with Obama, and the details of Joe's life, publicized. They don't seem to be the source of Obama's philosophy, and they don't seem likely to affect it, either. But I suppose that investigating Joe, and establishing public criticism of him, has a purpose of some kind.

I have wondered the same thing, as he seems more of a sideshow than anything. The only thing that I can come up with is that he might be percieved as the "American success story" that Obama is somehow hindering. Maybe someone thinks that by discrediting him it reflects poorly on McCain using him as an example of a "True patriotic economy boosting American". This may or not be true, but perception is reality, and in an election, perception is everything.

 

[Urwumpe]

Maybe someone thinks that by discrediting him it reflects poorly on McCain using him as an example of a "True patriotic economy boosting American". This may or not be true, but perception is reality, and in an election, perception is everything.

I think from experiences in German election campaigns, that some people also suspected Joe to be hired by the republican party. We have many examples how such public events are used by undercover followers of the other party.

 

[David]

I have wondered the same thing, as he seems more of a sideshow than anything. The only thing that I can come up with is that he might be percieved as the "American success story" that Obama is somehow hindering. Maybe someone thinks that by discrediting him it reflects poorly on McCain using him as an example of a "True patriotic economy boosting American". This may or not be true, but perception is reality, and in an election, perception is everything.

He is significant, insofar as his encounter with Obama, resulted in Obama's being explicit in describing his intent to use the U.S. government as an agency by which to seize and redistribute, in general, the personal wealth of Americans (thereby exceeding the usual explanation that merely, "there should be social safety net").

Joe is irrelevant, personally, to the Presidential campaign. He was simply a vehicle for having provided information about the candidate's political philosophy. It is likely that attempts to discredit him, represent a sort of ad hominem approach to any arguments asserting that Obama said what he said - as if a discrediting of Joe, personally, would discredit the whole proposition that the conversation was meaningful (or, at least, distract public attention from Obama, to Joe, as being the principally significant aspect of the event).

 

[GregBurch]

Joe is irrelevant, personally, to the Presidential campaign. He was simply a vehicle for having provided information about the candidate's political philosophy. It is likely that attempts to discredit him, represent a sort of ad hominem approach to any arguments asserting that Obama said what he said - as if a discrediting of Joe, personally, would discredit the whole proposition that the conversation was meaningful (or, at least, distract public attention from Obama, to Joe, as being the principally significant aspect of the event).

That's just crazy-talk. Who would do such a thing? Who could possibly have a motivation to do such a thing?

 

[Urwumpe]

Senator Palpatine....I mean... Karl Rove. Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.

 

[GregBurch]

Senator Palpatine....I mean... Karl Rove. Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design.

Rove must really be a genius to have engineered the media's dirt-digging campaign on Joe-the-Plumber in order to make them look like the shallow partisan hacks it has revealed them to be.

 

[tonykattvc]

Quick, who's the governer of Michigan?!
I'm rooting for Obama. I think all of the muslim rumours about him are just because he's black. Besides, i don't want another Bush.

 

[David]

BTW, one of the British newspapers reported that the allegation, about someone at a Palin speech, having yelled "kill him" (purportedly, about Obama, or maybe William Ayers), was investigated by the Secret Service. Agents who were there, said that they had not heard or seen any such thing, and they were unable to confirm that there was such an occurrence. The reporter who originally made the allegation, says that he stands by his story, although he also says that he only heard it, and couldn't provide any visual description.

 

[tonykattvc]

(BTW, Greg, I think it was Washington who freed his slaves upon his death, not Jefferson, wasn't it?)

Nope, it was Jefferson. BTW he didn't free them upon death, he freed them because he was a Republican/Democrat (that party later split into the Republican and Democrat parties, the main party they opposed was the Federalist party.) and that party opposed slavery and too much government. Here check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson.