As far as I’m concerned the real revolutionaries of the American Revolution were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. They fully supported the Republican movement both in the US and in Europe. My favorite President is by far Thomas Jefferson. Although he had his faults, he knew that revolution could be both violent and necessary. He and Paine understood the need for the over-through of aristocracies. The move from feudalism to capitalism was revolutionary in the 1700s. Capitalism is obsolete today, but we had to break from feudalism before we can hope to break from capitalism to socialism to communism.
-史蒂夫 奥多
Here are some excerpts from a writer who looked at the revolutionary side of Jefferson:
Here are some excerpts from a writer who looked at the revolutionary side of Jefferson:
“A “Terrific Threat” to Regional StabilityJefferson, Mao, and the Revolution in Nepal”
by Gary Leupp, April 18, 2005
To his death in 1826 Jefferson upheld the French Revolution.
Some might find in Jefferson callous disregard for human suffering, and hypocrisy in any talk of freedom by a Virginia slave-owner. But I see Jefferson as a humanist, about as sensitive and thoughtful a man as you might find among his class during his time. He was merely coupling a passionate commitment to a better world with a realistic understanding of what deeds flawed human beings might perform in its pursuit: “……rather than [the Revolution] should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it now is.” Better a less populated world that is free, than a world populously unfree. Better revolution replete with errors and crimes than no revolution at all.
“The Oppressed Should Rebel”
What would Jefferson think of the revolutionaries of today, the serious, violent, bloody revolutionaries such as the Maoists in Nepal charged with the slaughter of innocents, vilified in the mainstream press and even in some of the alternative press? We can only speculate on the basis of his writings. In his “Notes on Religion” written in 1776, a Jacobin Jefferson wrote, “The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed.” His reference to restoration reflects the Enlightenment Deist belief that “Nature’s Law and Nature’s God” gives human beings rights at birth that governments sometimes take away. But he’s basically saying what Mao Zedong did three centuries later: “It’s right to rebel.” Mao declared “Revolution is not a dinner party.” Jefferson in 1790 noted, “We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather-bed.”
When you decide that it’s necessary to violently destroy a state apparatus and build something else in its place, you’re probably, in Jefferson’s words, going to make errors and even commit crimes. Errors and crimes are always regrettable. But those committed by the oppressed seldom rival those committed by the oppressors.
Some might find in Jefferson callous disregard for human suffering, and hypocrisy in any talk of freedom by a Virginia slave-owner. But I see Jefferson as a humanist, about as sensitive and thoughtful a man as you might find among his class during his time. He was merely coupling a passionate commitment to a better world with a realistic understanding of what deeds flawed human beings might perform in its pursuit: “……rather than [the Revolution] should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it now is.” Better a less populated world that is free, than a world populously unfree. Better revolution replete with errors and crimes than no revolution at all.
“The Oppressed Should Rebel”
What would Jefferson think of the revolutionaries of today, the serious, violent, bloody revolutionaries such as the Maoists in Nepal charged with the slaughter of innocents, vilified in the mainstream press and even in some of the alternative press? We can only speculate on the basis of his writings. In his “Notes on Religion” written in 1776, a Jacobin Jefferson wrote, “The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed.” His reference to restoration reflects the Enlightenment Deist belief that “Nature’s Law and Nature’s God” gives human beings rights at birth that governments sometimes take away. But he’s basically saying what Mao Zedong did three centuries later: “It’s right to rebel.” Mao declared “Revolution is not a dinner party.” Jefferson in 1790 noted, “We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather-bed.”
When you decide that it’s necessary to violently destroy a state apparatus and build something else in its place, you’re probably, in Jefferson’s words, going to make errors and even commit crimes. Errors and crimes are always regrettable. But those committed by the oppressed seldom rival those committed by the oppressors.
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