Warren Throckmorton reports that the group ForAmerica, which was founded by right wing looney L. Brent Bozell, has been spreading a fake quote from Thomas Jefferson all over Facebook. This one isn’t about church and state though, it’s about the scope of government:
Throckmorton links to the Monticello website, which debunks this quote:
Quotation: “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
Variations:“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government.”
Sources consulted: Searching on the phrase “bad government” and “too much government”
Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition
Thomas Jefferson Retirement Papers
Thomas Jefferson: Papers and Biographies collections in Hathi Trust Digital LibraryEarliest known appearance in print: 1913
Earliest known appearance in print, attributed to Jefferson: 1950
Other attributions: John Sharp Williams
Comments: This exact quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It bears some slight resemblance to a statement he made in a letter to John Norvell of June 14, 1807: “History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.” However, the quotation as it appears above can definitely be attributed to John Sharp Williams in a speech about Jefferson, which has most likely been mistaken at some point for a direct quotation of Jefferson.
He also notes that when an atheist group used a fake Jefferson quote last year, they owned up to it when corrected. Will ForAmerica?
12 comments
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busterggi
June 28, 2012 at 12:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You know that the most Bozell will do is say that Jefferson may not have said it but he thought it. Retroactive psychic powers you know.
Larry
June 28, 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Jefferson said it in that same speech where he declared that the United States was founded as a christian nation.
daveau
June 28, 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I got bombarded from my few remaining Republican friends sharing this on my FB page. I replied that Jefferson never said any such thing, and a tiny bit of research would tell them that.
It was also the perfect place for the quote: “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.” –Abraham Lincoln
imrryr
June 28, 2012 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“I predict that one day a man named L. Brent Bozell will be born in the glorious Jesus loving country and he’ll be like the most smartest and handsomest dude on the planet and you should do whatever he says and give him all your money.” – Thomas Jefferson.
imrryr
June 28, 2012 at 2:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
whoops, I should mention that any typos are Jefferson’s own, of course.
longstreet63
June 28, 2012 at 2:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What do these people think government was like circa 1775, anyway?
Too much government was hardly likely to have occurred to anyone at that point in time, when the problem was often the private contractors who paid the crown(s) to perform government functions, like tax collection. Commerce tended towards royal monopolies, obtained by paying off the right official, but these were private companies operating for their own profit at everyone else’s expense.
Unless by ‘government’ one means the unrestricted power of money to bribe unaccountable officials into using the state to support your business.
Except the right seems to think that’s the proper state of affairs for a government.
Reginald Selkirk
June 28, 2012 at 2:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I see there’s a new documentary on Lincoln in the theaters now.
TGAP Dad
June 28, 2012 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No.
fastlane
June 28, 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Place your bets, folks. I’ve got 20 to 1 against that FA will even acknowledge, and 10 to 1 against that they will issue some kind of notpology.
John Hinkle
June 28, 2012 at 4:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There’s a simple way to settle the source of this quote. Ask Barton.
dingojack
June 29, 2012 at 3:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Reginald Selkirk – ‘… but about from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the documentary?’
Dingo
—–
‘Like it was a fully sick tempura tyranasaurus, dude!’ – John Wilkes Booth.
Some other stuff I just made up. Prof. Emeratus Lord David Barton OFM, MRSoE, DSO (with bar of soap), VC (with grape clusters) & etc.
Vanity Press: Centervlle Ohio, 2010.
democommie
June 29, 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Will For America?”.
Oh, Ed, you have the most snarkliciously sardonic sense of humor.
Was it Benjamin Franklin who said:
“Bong hits are proof that GOD loves man.”?