So, I was doing my usual browsing of digg the other day, and found what seems to be an actually interesting topic, rather than the slew of lolcats and recycled 4chan memes. It was an article (or a blog; digg can’t seem to find actual news articles anymore) depicting on just another of Bush’s follies as a person and a president.
Now, usually I’m pretty adamant that I am tired of all the Bush bashing. We all know he’s a terrible president, has an IQ below average, and looks like a monkey. We don’t really need to be told that on every single media genre, type, sub-category of that specific genre, etc. that he is so. But, this story seems to be a greater metaphor of how the world treats history and its icons.
The blarticle (see what I did there?) goes on to say that our president, at an Independance-Day themed underground rap battle at Monticello, made quite an interesting* speech. And I quote:
“Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind. And he looked to the day when all people could secure them. On the 50th anniversary of America’s independence, Thomas Jefferson passed away. But before leaving this world, he explained that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were universal. In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, ‘May it be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all — the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.’”
Alright, seems like his speech writers did a pretty decent job at giving it a Bush-style religious undertone, gave him plenty of hard two syllable words to stumble over, jabbered on about America the brave and the true. But, luckily for me, the blog-writer is a conniseur of sorts on Jefferson quotes. The actual letter reads:
“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”
Well, I guess we know why they edited that part out. Kind of contradicts the whole religious undertone every Bush speech has. And, that makes perfectly good sense and I am fine with it. I happen to know of Jefferson’s thoughts about religion as the opiate for the masses and I happen to know that this remix of his quote is plenty chopped and skewed, but the greater danger is that the world will eventually forget of Jefferson’s true ideals. Much like if George Washington actually told lies or not and chopped down that cherry tree, our views on past leaders, even as recent as JFK, are always tampered and screwed with due to people’s ability to make gods out of men.
It makes it hard for a young person to actually know who these men were who founded our countries, led us into battle, and laid down peace if half the crap the tell you is entirely made up. And of course, the stuff they feed you in history books, which one would think would be un-biased and made up of entirely of facts and void of random commentary, are crockful of useless information that is supposed to skew your political/worldly views on a myriad of topics so you end up thinking however the writer wants you to think. And I’m sure Bush’s speech writers weren’t considering this when they chopped some of the most meaningful words in the section out his speech. They probably have no idea that they, who probably consider themselves to pretty intellectual and wish other people were the same, are contributing the massive dumbing-down of the world. Yes, the world, not just the United States, you hipster.
It is far too easy to tweak information, statistics, graphs to fit whatever view you’d like to force on people. Why give them the facts, pros and cons, and leave it up for them to decide when you can create zealots out of them? When money is on the line, there is no good reason to fight for the common good of man when you can create thousands of people who all think the same because they watched some movie. In conjunction with that, you also have thousands of pseudo-intellectuals, ready to regurgitate any sort of “information” you have told them through your various forms of brainwashing. What is there not to like?
But, I digress. It’s very important, more than ever, to be very wary and skeptical of any sort of crap you hear. From big-wigs to your closest friends, they all want to mold your opinions for you to think like they do. Hell, I do it all the time. It’s human. But, for your own self-interest and self-esteem, it’s far better to think for yourself rather than let some asshole do it for you.
