Don't lie, by this time on this Thursday you're just limping to the barn at work. Waiting for when the clock runs up so you can get the party started by calling in sick tomorrow and enjoying a three day 4th of July weekend. What better way to kill the time than to lay some facts on you about our founding fathers you may not know.
These fun facts can impress your friends as you get drunk at this weekend's BBQ or while you're in the hospital waiting room on Sunday night waiting to see if they can put your nephew's hand back together. So take some notes - But since I'm over estimating our public schools, let's just lay one thing out there.
The term 'Found Father' conventionally refers to the signers of the declaration of independence or to high-profile patriots during the revolution. Hillbillies a century down the road, as influential as they may have been in modifying how the extant state operated, are not founding fathers.
George Washington's teeth were made of expensive African ivory, not wood. Wooden teeth? Get the fuck out of here. That would be very uncomfortable. What can I say, the man liked expensive things.
Though he was a notorious haggler who hated to pay full price. So you'd probably see him right at home in Glendale. He only went to war with England because the king wouldn't break treaties with the Indians and give him fuckloads of land in the Ohio river valley.
Washington probably died from all the bloodletting he went through in what would now be considered alternative medicine. His actual illness probably wasn't the thing that did him in.
Ben Franklin was a fat atheist (yet you religious freaks still love him) who had the gout and loved hookers. Hookers were probably Ben Franklin's favorite thing in the world. He also wanted the flag to be that "Don't tread on me" snake thing you see at tea parties and wanted the national bird to be a turkey.
When Ben Franklin got old, he was assigned a personal assistant to follow him everywhere to keep him from just going on about banging hookers and dirty government deals because he was one of those "I don't give a fuck anymore" type of old guys.
Thomas Jefferson was a drunkard and a hypocrite who managed to somehow run a slave plantation into the ground. He pretty much invented contemporary racism single handed. But he loved fucking black chicks. Must have been trying to keep all that fat asses to himself. He thought that sending all the children of slaves to die in the Caribbean was a good plan, but it was too expensive for him to actually carry out.
On that note, almost all of the founding father's thought slavery was the natural order of things. To the founding fathers wage labor was seen as dehumanizing and "white slavery" and they imagined most Americans would always be farmers or merchants controlling their own meagre means of production.
It's also comical with regards to health care. Seeing as even though doctors existed back then, chances are that if you got sick you died no matter how fucking rich you were. John Adams and the 5th congress still saw fit to levy a Mandatory Tax on ship owners to fund the marine hospitals
For you gun nuts out there thumping your second amendment - The founding fathers didn't give a fuck about personal gun rights and wanted a militia instead of a standing army because they hated standing armies. Well, let me correct that. Jefferson hated standing armies. Hamilton, Washington, and Adams loved war and believed it was a primary route to glory and achievement. Especially Hamilton. Madison and Monroe were more pragmatists about it, largely because they held power as the war of 1812 approached.
And since I need a page break, here's some stupid rap
Let me get back on Jefferson a little more. He was a bit of a complicated guy, but in essence he was
1. Anti-slavery, but skeptical about race relations
2) Anti-capitalist, and deeply worried about the effect of large scale industry and finance on political and social relations.
3) Radically pro-rights, for everything from expression to religion, in a way other founders sans Paine could not match.
4) Pro-revolutionary -- he believed the revolution had not gone far enough in some ways, that monolithic powers should not be built on a democratic foundation, etc.
Thomas Paine was socialist as fuck. Tea baggers would call Obama a conservative god compared to Paine, if they actually did any sort of research. His mentality was "Fuck welfare, EVERYONE gets money when you turn 21 no matter what. "
The famous "Tree of liberty" quote that Teabaggers have claimed so rightfully theirs was actually written to conservatives in America and French exiles about the importance of the French revolution.
Alexander Hamilton sucked at dueling.
Patrick Henry kept his wife chained up in the basement and was a strong advocate of Fourth wave feminism. His wife had post-partem depression and she was never in a straight jacket. Though, to be fair, while she lived in the basement she had a HUGE fireplace, servants and all the comforts she could ever want. Not to mention a pretty nice view of the garden.
Lincoln did mor to shape the current state of the nation than any of the old white guys in Philadelphia... Just sayin'.
Zachary Taylor is a president you may not know about. He's the 12th president and he should be known for one thing. He is literally the best president for one reason. He died from eating too much on the 4th of July and shitting himself to death.
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