Pete Hendrickson (@LostHorizons)

A Few Words About Thomas Jefferson ...in rebuttal of a despicable calumny of which this great man is lately the target. I READ AN OPINION PIECE the other day on the renaming of a school in Falls Church, Virginia from Thomas Jefferson Elementary to 'Oak Street Elementary'. The change is a now-typical effort to appease vicious narcissists who imagine themselves the sole legitimate arbiters of what is worthy of public acknowledgement, much less admiration. In the course of my reading, I was afflicted with several references to Thomas Jefferson as a "rapist". The slur is based on the proposition that Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves (with the subtext being that "consent" is impossible of the subordinate in a power relationship, therefore any relations between the two was automatically rape of Hemings). There are several problems with this reflexive calumny. Continued: https://losthorizons.com/N/154.htm#3