JEFFERSON GETS CANCELLED

JEFFERSON GETS CANCELLED<br /><br />New York City's "Public Design Commission" [PDC] unanimously voted to remove a 200-year-old statue of Thomas Jefferson from the City Council chamber by the end of the year. The PDC is a nine-member council appointed directly by Mayor Bill de Blasio.<br /><br />The decision was made after four lawmakers testified that his status as a slaveholder was an affront to the council’s many African American members. <br /><br />It's a stupid decision because not only was Jefferson<br />a Founding Father of our nation<br />the third President of the United States<br />author of the idea that every human had the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”<br /><br />The kicker is: Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence included a passage strongly attacking slavery, despite owning slaves himself. It read:<br /><br />"[King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.'<br /><br />In the end, Jefferson had to remove the passage because delegates from certain states would not sign it unless it was removed. <br /><br />Trump warned us this would happen. And as usual, he was right. Early in his presidency, Trump got into an argument with the press over removing statues and he said:<br /><br />“Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? Do you like him? … Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner.”<br /><br />The