Admittedly Wead's lies are not particularly important but this video is useful as it does depict a distorian at his evil craft. This man is a polished, professional liar, who has been selected to tell these lies because of his smarmy, oleaginous demeanor.
Weed is a "presidential" historian, which means he knows a good deal about the life and ideas of Thomas Jefferson. Yet he says a few things which anybody who knows anything about Jefferson would know were untrue.
He says that Jefferson lives and he is Ron Paul. As the Weed knows, there are striking differences between the two men.
Paul is an anarcho-capitalist, or Libertarian as they have taken to calling themselves. He believes that government should stay out of the economy. Jefferson did not. In fact one of his acts as president which was and still is roundly criticized by the free-marketeers like Paul was his Embargo Act of 1807. The details needn't concern us here, but the Act forbade American businesses from participating in international trade. Jefferson said that the interests of the nation as a whole trumped the rights businesses. In this moment and in others, Jefferson made it clear that government had the authority and duty to regulate commerce. Clearly this is an area of major disagreement with Ron Paul, as Wead well knows.
Jefferson also believed that government should act in such a way as to steer business in such a way as to create income equality, in other words wealth redistribution. Paul and the Libertarians strongly oppose this idea. One might say it is one of their core principles.
Wead also links Paul to Jefferson by saying that the latter too was opposed to the Fed. This is true but Jefferson believed that the tasks performed by the central bank should be done by government. While Paul occasionally refers obliquely to the Constitution's provision which says the task of monetary policy resides with Congress, he wants to put that power directly in the private hands of the banksters. Paul wishes only to break up the Fed's monopoly and open up money creation to the market. Jefferson roared his objection to this idea. He spoke and wrote in heated opposition for decades. It was perhaps the issue about which he cared most. If Jefferson were alive today, he'd be denouncing Ron Paul, not supporting him. There is no room for debate here, Jefferson thought democracy couldn't survive with the nation's money supply in private hands. He said so.
Wead also says that if Jefferson were alive today he'd have his own show on Fox News.
Now that was funny. As Wead admits, Jefferson would be against all these wars we are now engaged in. Fox has supported each one rabidly. How many anti-war activists have their own show at Fox?
Fox has supported the theocratic trend in our governance. Jefferson would scream in protest.
Fox has supported teaching Intelligent Design in public schools. Jefferson predates Darwin and this controversy, but Jefferson rejected Christianity for Deism. It is inconceivable that he would have heeded the objections of theists in this matter. Jefferson was a free-thinker.
Fox supports the Patriot Act. Jefferson would have pissed on it.
There are more areas of difference between Jefferson and Fox, but why bother.
Wead says Ron Paul says you sacrifice liberty for security and you lose both. Actually this quote belongs to Ben Franklin, and goes more like this: He who would surrender liberty for security will have, and deserves, neither. Wead gets the quote wrong and attributes it to the wrong person.
Now, I ask you, do you think this guy is as incompetent as all this, that he actually believes what he says, or is he a liar? You decide. In either case, anything this "distinguished" historian says must be taken with a grain of salt.
