Yea, well to hell with Jefferson and his gang of thieves.
That’s an email I received in response to our discussion of Thomas Jefferson’s “agrarian vision” yesterday. Clearly this individual is not a fan of Mr. Jefferson.
I very much value feedback. We all have different perspectives. And the more we can understand and consider different perspectives, the better.
So when this email came to me, I had to stop and think – why did this person feel it important to push back against my piece yesterday?
At first I thought… is this a woke thing?
I know the woke crowd has been peddling the systemic racism narrative. And they suggest that the American founders were racists unworthy of our attention because most of them owned slaves.
But Jefferson drafted legislation to ban slavery in Virginia during his stint in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1774. The House of Burgesses was Virginia’s legislature prior to America’s declaration of independence in 1776.
Granted, Jefferson never put that legislation forward for a vote. After speaking to some his colleagues, Jefferson realized that it had no chance of passing. People weren’t ready for it yet.
Plus, we now know that Jefferson likely fathered a child with a woman of African American descent. I don’t think this has been proven unequivocally. But it’s widely believed to be true.
So I don’t think it’s fair to paint Jefferson as a racist. And speaking of fair, nothing in this person’s comment to me suggests that it’s coming from the woke/systemic racism angle.
Instead, my guess is that it has to do with Jefferson’s efforts to expand American territory westward during his presidency. These efforts included the Louisiana Purchase of 1803… the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806… and the Zebulon Pike Expedition of 1806-1807.
I’m sure one could make a case that these items each infringed upon the sovereignty of the Native American tribes living in the American West. Perhaps that’s what the “gang of thieves” comment refers to.
And you know what, I’m not completely hostile to that view. I don’t know enough about the nuances to have a strong opinion.
But I do know that the great economist and underrated historian Murray Rothbard found Jefferson’s presidency to be lacking.
Rothbard’s coming from the perspective of individual liberty and non-intervention with this. And he said that Jefferson was great with most of what he wrote and accomplished both before and after his presidency. But Jefferson often contradicted his own principles while in office. That seems to be a common dynamic throughout American history.
But here’s the thing – we can’t change the past. All we can do is learn from its ideas and lessons.
And Jefferson’s agrarian vision for America is very much worthy of our attention. I say that from first-hand experience.
My first career was in the corporate banking world.
I resided in a major banking hub on the east coast. And every morning when my alarm went off, I had to jump out of bed and rush to get ready for work. My goal was to catch the 7:05 train so I could be uptown and logged into my workstation by 8:00 am.
Then, when quitting time came around, I rushed to catch the 5:35 train so I could be home before 7:00 pm. That gave me a couple hours to make dinner and relax before doing it all over again the next day.
That’s the rat race. And I put up with the rat race because I had to. I was completely dependent upon wage labor, just as Jefferson had feared.
I walked away from the rat race ten years ago. I threw away my corporate banking career and sold my home. Then I bought five acres way up in rural Virginia… where the cost of living is incredibly cheap.
It was a bit of a transition at first. But I’ve found that the agrarian lifestyle is far preferable to the rat race. Especially now that we’re plugged into the local agriculture community.
We now buy most of our meat and eggs from local farmers. The quality of their product is far better than anything found in the supermarket. That’s because the animals are not subjected to any industrialized practices.
What’s more, we take comfort in knowing that we have a resilient local supply chain. No matter what happens with the wider world, the good people raising cattle and chickens up here in the mountains will keep at it.
My point is this… Even if we disagree with some things that a historical figure may have done, we should not throw out the ideas and lessons they’ve passed on to us.
As a wise man once said, “Take what makes sense and leave the rest. Use it as inspiration for another exploration, another inquiry, another possibility”…
And so we shall.
-Joe Withrow
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We’re all conditioned to pour our savings into financial assets held in retirement accounts – 401(k)s, IRA, and even Roth IRAs. But this approach is terribly fragile.
For one, our investment results are likely to underwhelm us. And worse, there are all kinds of restrictions around when and how we can access our money if we need it.
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