From the terminal, these commands will change things:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop 0

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView 0

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList 0

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest 0

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign 0

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle 0

I’m using the bottom two because I don’t like being forced to have a “add bookmark” button on my bar and I’m not loving the placement of the stop/reload button in the new setup. On top of that I like the blue progress loading thing.

It’s hard for me to feel lied to by a politician since I know they’re all completely full of shit. Congressmen lie, senators lie, law enforcement at every level lies, judges lie and the president… well, he certainly wouldn’t be in office if he wasn’t the most skilled charlatan in the bunch! I know this. I go in to each and every day knowing this. When I read the news I know this and when I hear some idiot at a bar or at work or wherever tell me they like some guy that’s in office currently I know that this person probably has the intellect of a common baboon.

So, even with this terribly unhealthy dose of negativity and cynicism I’ve found that it is still entirely possible for me to feel personally lied to. I am, unfortunately, as pathetic as the rest of you primates out there and as such am affected by emotion from time to time.

Our current president is an eloquent speaker—and while his predecessor proved that wasn’t necessary to hold the position, it sure helps. Years of president Bush snickering about serious issues and smiling when talking about things that should never conjure smiles could turn anyone into a creature desperate for anything else. It did the trick on me. So, as I was saying, the new guy can speak and seems to at least know when to act serious. Even better, I expect that he’ll never dawn a cowboy hat.

During his campaign there were some speeches and commercials that I dare say, made me feel inspired with hope. “Maybe he really is different…” I though now and then when the hope and change rhetoric broke down my logic barriers.

It didn’t last though. Before he took office his cabinet choices—the arch-vile Hillary Clinton the foremost among them—betrayed all of the rhetoric. We had an economic team any greedy fat and loathsome Republican could love and on the other side of the board we had the return of the deposed Clinton regime. Hope and change indeed!

Still, today, for whatever reason, I feel lied to. I remember a campaign commercial (and I wish I could have found it on YouTube) where Mr. Obama was in a steel mill telling me he was going to fight to revitalize places like that. He was going to help the middle class and bring jobs back to America. There was something really personal about that ad. I don’t know what. I’m not a steel worker, I’ve never lived in a “factory town” and I don’t have any real family ties to that sort of lifestyle or location. I guess, despite my disconnect, I want to help those kinds of people just like the fiction in that commercial claimed to.

But, first thing is first. We can’t be worried about the people in our country. Our megalomaniac secretary of state needs to strengthen our ties with China! Remember folks, Communism is dead. Ronald Reagan personally whopped its ass long ago and far away. It’s evil specter is gone from this realm and the free people of the world are safe. Except, of course, for the Chinese factory workers who are cheaper and demand much less in the way of safety than Americans because they live in a culture that teaches them from day one that their personal worth is always second to the demands of a totalitarian state. Those sound like the people we need to lock arms with in the race for a new tomorrow. There’s a reason everything says “Made in China” now.

How do you sell out your own people? How do you make decisions like that? I still feel guilty for making fun of this weird harpist when I was in the second grade. These people ruin and strain the lives of millions like it’s a hobby.

Fuck Clinton (pick one). Fuck Bush (pick one). Fuck Obama. Fuck all of you lying assholes. I don’t know how any of you sleep and night. I truly hope there is a hell because if any group deserves to bask in its torment, it’s all of you. Fuck you.

I’ve accepted a “day job.” Though I’m still technically an independent contractor this current contract resembles everything the nine to five type would be used to. Normal hours, regular payments at certain intervals and a whole corporate bureaucracy to wade through. In short, it is everything I cannot stand about modern jobs. I’ve worked on a more lax contract basis my whole life. It has its ups and its downs, but the up that’s been most important to me is the sense of freedom and the sense of being my own boss. It doesn’t mean I do what I want since, if you don’t please a client you don’t get paid and don’t eat, but still. The dynamic between you and a paying client versus you and a boss are quite different. I’ll adapt though and, really, I’m still a contractor and there’s not a whole lot that can change my attitude. We’ll see how I mesh for the next few weeks.

Frodo should have some fond memories of how I used to operate in an office environment.

It’s lunch right now and unfortunately, no one here seems to know anything about anything. The guy that’s walking me through everything is clearly the most competent as far as understanding the system goes, but he’s out. The CTO–the guy that got me the gig here–is in a meeting and despite telling me we’d fill out some paperwork in this gap right now, he’s simply stayed in the meeting. Ugh. Speaking of which, that resulted in what was easily one of the most corporate experiences of my life.

Me: “So, I need to get my own login credentials so I can start poking around to understand these systems. Who do I talk to?”

CTO: “Oh, there’s a form you need to fill out first.”

Me: “Like, a form as in, paper? What century is this?”

CTO: “I know, I know. Anyway, go back to HR and get the form then bring it to me to we can get it filled out.”

So, I walk back to HR–mind you, it’s on the other side of the office–and inform the lady there that I need this particular form.

Me: “Hey, the CTO just sent me back here. I need a credentials form.”

HR: “A what?”

Me: “A credentials form. That’s what he called it anyway. I guess I need to fill something out so I can get logins to various systems around here.”

HR: “Oh right, that form. I already emailed it to him. Just tell him he’s got it.”

I leave, walk back down to the other side of the office to bug the CTO again.

Me: “Hey, she says you already have the form. It was emailed to you.”

CTO: “Oh yeah. I can’t print it now though so go back and tell her to print one and bring it back to me and we’ll fill it out.”

As one would guess, I walk back there again.

Me: “Hey, he can’t print right now. Can you print one up for me so I can take it back to him?”

HR: “Sure. The CTO is still pretty new here so he’s still not used to all the normal procedures.”

And I get my form, go back to him in the meeting and have been waiting since. (20 minutes or so.) I should be talking to someone about the accounting system, but it seems everyone is out to lunch. I should be reading documentation but… that’s something this place doesn’t believe in. Ugh.

So yes, I’m nine to five for a while. I’m corporate. I’m white collar. I’m going to be watching Office Space and relating painfully.

Make no mistake though, I’m still a realist. We don’t get along. There are serious irreconcilable differences in the world that no amount of kumbaya is going to solve. The people in power didn’t get there by being kind, understanding or good. They got there by immersing themselves in the dirtiest of games and came out on top. Some wear that distinction proudly and others—like our current president elect—have an image so potent it actually distorts the reality around them.

Optimism is fine, just so long as it doesn’t get in the way seeing things as they are. And no Pollyanna, reality is not matter of perspective and looking on the bright side does not make the abyss that is life any brighter. It may change how we deal with things, but it doesn’t change things. Looking too hard for the best in something often blinds us to the worst and that’s dangerous. There’s a reason it’s generally the kindest and the most optimistic that make the easiest targets for people who like to take advantage of others.

I digress though. I could have summed up the point I wanted to get across in the last three paragraphs by saying, “Contrary to popular belief, just because the world is a bitter place, doesn’t mean I delight in that.”* With that said, let’s move on to my current grievances.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has seen those stupid “COEXIST” bumper stickers written in various gender and religious symbols on VWs, Volvos and whatever other cars left leaning hippie jackasses prefer these days. (Humorously, these stickers come from peacemonger.org**, a place that seems to go out of its way to be a stereotype. I had no idea peace was so partisan.)

Okay, I have to digress again. Yes, I’m using cheap and obvious stereotypes. However, when I stoop to such childish levels, I like to carpet bomb a given area to at least imply I look for hypocrisy and stupidity everywhere and not just with any single social archetype. The religious right leaning jackasses are not spared my wrath. Every time I see “In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned.” I reach for my tire iron. “Real men love Jesus”? That may be true, but no real man worth his salt would say so by slapping that bumper sticker on his minivan. Also, fuck you people with your Darwin fish or your idolatrous versions of Calvin praying to a cross—bonus points to someone putting both of those on the same car though. Oh yeah, speaking of Calvin, fuck you people that have him peeing on various car brands or your ex-wife or whatever. And people, stop with the stick figure families on your rear window. All you’re doing is giving people like me a point total if we decide to snap one day and start shooting. You know, it’s possible I just hate bumper stickers.

Where was I? The COEXIST stickers. Right. These are patently stupid. I shouldn’t have to say so, but enough people brandish them that it appears at least a few people didn’t get that memo. Let me sum this all up for everyone: The Jews claimed the title of “Chosen People” a long time ago and acted accordingly by stealing land from other people and slaughtering them wholesale. The Holocaust seems to made us forget in recent history that their religion is just as bloody as the next guy’s. The Jews and their pagan Roman cohorts murdered Christianity’s founder. That tends to annoy people. The Christians were hunted and murdered by Jews and pagans alike before they rose to power and began slaughtering pagans and Jews as well as turning on one another in a bloodbath to the top for who was the most moral of them all. A few centuries later we get the Muslims who provide the world with a brief and fleeting golden age of art, science and comparative tolerance before feeling left out and joining the fray to bicker and argue about who killed who.

To be short, men and women will never resolve their differences. If women weren’t insane at every level and men weren’t irresponsible on every level, maybe it would be possible. However, we’re being realists today, remember?

Did I leave anyone represented by this sticker out? The hippies represent themselves with the peace sign, which has no place with religious symbols of any kind. The Yin and Yang is also present, showing this bumper sticker’s ridiculous favoritism for the western world by only representing the east with the most generic of symbols. Where’s the love for Hinduism? What about Taoism? Or do you new age wackos think the east is somehow free of the religious bloodbaths and persecution we’ve enjoyed in the west for as long as man has walked upright? Why not just say, “What does it matter? Asians all look the same anyway.” Note to hippies: eastern culture—to use an overly simplistic generalization—has more to offer than tofu and, quite frankly, you wouldn’t know what Zen was if it bit you in the ass. Real Buddhists do not choose their religion as a social fad. By the way, the east and west have about as much chance at real understanding as men and women.

So, aside from the inherent stupidity of it all, what’s my point? Where am I going with this? This sticker sums up everything I hate about the feel good leftist crowd: snarky, cutesy and supposedly clever statements that pretend to be intellectual without being insulting that fail on all levels. On top of that, it treats some very serious realities and problems that have plagued us for multiple millennia as if they could be solved by some guy with a lot of facial hair and bloodshot eyes telling everyone, “just be groovy people.”

I don’t have any actual figures, but anecdotal evidence suggests most of these jerk-offs aren’t specifically religious or, worse, they’re spiritual. (Which, is a “clever” way of saying you’re religious without saying you’re religious.) They either flat out don’t understand religion or its practitioners, or they were raised religious and because of some bad experience aren’t anymore and have now branded religion as a whole as the root of all evil.

Let me give you an example of where this thinking goes. Have you ever been at a bar or a party or some other “fun place” and some joker who just took Philosophy 101 strikes up a totally inappropriate serious conversation? (See, it’s not just the door to door religious types the interrupt my dinner with their philosophy, it’s also the genius with the black-dyed hair, the pierced eyebrow and the “Recovering Christian” t-shirt.) Invariably the tired and overused statement, “More blood has been shed in the name of god than for any other reason,” will rear its ugly head and because I suffer from some form of OCD, I’ll drop my eating, jovial conversation (yes, I am capable of such things) or gaming to invite myself into this conversation.

Look I get it. Your priest molested you or your mom doesn’t talk to you anymore because you’re gay or whatever. Someone who was religious has ruined your life and, instead of blaming that person for being a douche, you’ve decided to blame the whole of an organization that they were a part of. Fine. You’re a fucking idiot. But that aside, let me ask you this, smart guy, besides the crusades can you name a single war whose basis was primarily religious that’s been fought in the last thousand years?

I know there are some. I would say, for instance, the Six Day War counts and if I felt like hitting up the Wikipedia or using the magic of Google I could find dozens more. However, without any research at all I can think of lots of wars that aren’t strictly religious and they read like a Time Life music compilation CD: World Wars I and II, The Civil War, The October Revolution, The War of the Roses, The French and Indian War, The Russo-Japanese War and many, many more. But wait, that’s not all, you also get: The War of 1812, The American Revolution, The French Revolution, The Napoleonic Wars and The Great Northern War. If you act now we’ll include a bonus set of 20th century non-deistic blood-letting that occurred without war: Mao Zedong’s Cleanse China Tour, Joseph Stalin’s Food for Munitions Bake Sale, Hitler’s Holocaust Hoedown and Pol Pot’s Cambodian BBQ.

In other words, people have been murdering people since before we even qualified as people. It doesn’t take religion to turn a man into thoughtless paranoid beast willing to lash out violently toward others who aren’t part of his clique. Religion doesn’t make monsters of men. What we as a species seem to have forgotten, at least since The Renaissance, is that men are monsters. It’s our nature—religious, irreligious, man, woman, eastern, western, Hindu, Muslim or Christian. It’s the one thing all of us really do have in common. Although, good luck turning that into a feel good bumper sticker.

So don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone or make any attempt to justify the steaming pile of religious bullshit, persecution, indoctrination, theft and murder that’s gone on as long as we superstitious apes have looked for reasons to hate beyond our simple evolutionary drive to have our genetics pass on and survive. However, good old-fashioned theft, rape, murder, war and genocide rarely need an ethereal reason or purpose. The people that have brought atrocity to the doorstep of their fellow human beings are as diverse as the beautiful children born around the world. In fact, many of those children will grow up to further crimes against humanity.

When you stop to think about what all of us really do have in common, maybe our differences aren’t such a bad thing after all.

Religion has become a scapegoat for so-called “liberals” to blindly label their opposition just as it has blindly labeled them in return. “It’s not our shitty spending policies, our failed social programs or our complete ignorance of reality, it’s the fact that those religious fanatics won’t let us talk about condoms in schools that’s causing the problems in society!” Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Likewise, we can apply it to the right too, “Forget our blind xenophobic hatred of outsiders, our do as I say and not as I do stance on practically everything or our complete ignorance of reality, it’s the fact that those godless communists want to let the homos get married that’s causing problems in society.”

The thing that pisses me off about blaming religion for the ills of the world is that it takes the blame away from those who rightfully deserve it, people who consistently and willfully make rotten, horrible, greedy and downright evil decisions and choose to hurt other people. However, our friend with the pierced eyebrow that’s messed up our party is also the kind of person who doesn’t want to really blame anyone for anything. We’re all victims of circumstance and our environment, right? Wrong.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. How did Christianity transform from faith, hope and charity into a blood sport? Have you ever seen those stupid commercials about adding “the human element” (Hu)? Well, there’s your answer. Constantine is a prime example of a person who is branded as “religious” when, what he really is, is a person willing to exploit the faith of others and use religion as a vehicle for destruction. Just because Constantine called himself a Christian, didn’t mean he was. He was your run of the mill politician looking for leverage against his opposition. How meek and humble is a guy who names “the greatest city on earth” (Constantinople) after himself? Although Jesus didn’t say it specifically, I’m sure that violates the original Christian premise in a big way.

So there. I’ve blown a gasket and vented my unhealthy frustration at some kind of generic straw man—the guy with the eyebrow ring. Before I conclude though, there is another blight that unhinges my nerves every time I see it as I’m driving down the road: pointless religious billboards.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1. A black billboard that just says “GOD” in huge, white letters. What hell does that even mean? What is the message this is supposed to convey? Is some atheist or some searcher going to see this billboard and have an epiphany? “By George! That’s it! That’s the answer I have been looking for. And to think, it’s been here on this billboard all along! God has given me a… sign.”

2. A black billboard with “I AM” written in some kind of white and gold Ye Olde English looking font. Having a Christian background, at least I know what it means but if I didn’t, that’s even more vague than the previous one. “I AM.” Thanks. You’re what exactly?

3. A black billboard (why are they always black?) that says: “God, Allah, El Shaddai, Theos.” This is practically another version of COEXIST. “We all worship the same God, so can’t we all just get along?” No, we can’t and a billboard isn’t going to change that.

4. A black billboard (there it is again) with one of the ten commandments posted on it. My particular favorite is, “Thou shalt make unto thee no graven image.” Thank you assholes for your public service announcement.

5. Finally, a black billboard (surprise, surprise) with “god” saying something like, “Keep using My name in vain and I’ll make rush hour longer.” I wasn’t aware that god was such a petty prick. Apparently, ruling the universe and beyond isn’t time consuming enough, so this all powerful deity occupies his free time by acting like a vengeful high school freshman. Brilliant.

Like the bumper sticker, these billboards aren’t just annoying because of their idiotic content, they’re annoying because their very existence betrays the shallow nature of their proponents. A billboard of that nature says, “I’m so holy and righteous that I have taken it upon myself to remind all you heathens and heretics how wicked and sacrilegious you are. Did I mention that I’m holy and righteous?”

Here’s an idea you asshats, why not take the money you wasted informing all the frustrated commuters stuck in 5:00pm traffic that “I AM,” and spend it on something useful? Why not donate that money to get the undersized highway improved? That’d make people happy. Or, I don’t know, there’s some book somewhere that mentions things like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. I wonder how many dinners and pairs of clean socks “I AM” could pay for.

There’s no great way to conclude this and I’m already terribly verbose as it is. The dead horse has been beaten. People are fucking morons and I’m a cantankerous drudge who can’t help but blog about it.

* I have to be honest, there is some bitterness I delight in. I’m a college football fan and have been since high school. Although I enjoy when my teams win, I love it more when a team I despise—and there are many—loses. This is made specifically sweet when said team is at home and heavily favored. I actually giggle as the camera pans over the shocked and humbled faces of the fans, painted and dressed in the home team’s colors. Seeing grown men sit on the sideline and cry after a humiliating thrashing brings warmth to my heart.

** I can’t help it, this site is so full of stupid shit I have to comment on a few more:

Are you breathing? Thank a tree! Fuck you. Thank phytoplankton.

The Original Insurgency: Perpetrating Democracy since 1776. Apparently you illiterate cocksuckers don’t know a fucking thing about the Founding Fathers or their stance on Democracy. You might want to read Federalist Paper #10. Be warned though, Madison does use multi-syllable words.

CAUTION! I don’t brake for right wing nut jobs. So, the lesson here? We only need to COEXIST with people who aren’t right wing nut jobs or people in red states.

Fuck the left. (And fuck the right too.)

For the past two weeks I have been devoting a considerable amount of free time (and thankfully, some work time) to playing with Merb. This appears to be just what the doctor ordered. I’m lucky enough to be a Johnny-come-lately and I happened to start just after Merb hit 1.0. One thing that Merb is lacking though is documentation. So, I figured that as I go, I’ll write down my questions and when I answer them, I’ll write those down too. Hopefully, this helps some people out and serves as a reminder for me.

First off, if you’re new, here are some resources that have really helped me:

• Merbivore: All you need… nil you don’t.
• DataMapper: Although Merb is ORM agnostic, the stack uses DataMapper by default and if you’re beginning, I suggest sticking with it. (Mind you, I plenty of other reasons for using DataMapper!)
• Merb — RDoc API Documentation: Don’t miss this. I missed this the first few days until someone on IRC pointed it out to me. This is not an ideal starting place, but as you get going it’s a good reference. (Duh. It’s RDoc.)
• Merbunity: It’s not exactly teeming with information right now, but there’s enough and it’s sure to grow as time goes on. Its tutorials aren’t bad.
• MerbCamp Videos: Watch these. Some of the performances aren’t exactly Academy Award winning, but there’s a lot to glean from these.
• The Merb Google Group: The guys on this list have been very friendly and have answered all my questions thus far. The discussions are also worth reading and it’s a good place to search for answers. The core devs are also on the list and are quite active.
• The DataMapper Google Group: I’m not as familiar with DataMapper as a project as I am with Merb, but I can say this group is also friendly and has been very helpful.
• Katz Got Your Tongue?: Yehuda Katz’s blog. He’s the current maintainer of Merb and appears in the MerbCamp videos and is quite active on the Google group.
• Brainspl.at: Ezra Zygmuntowicz’s blog. This is the guy that got Merb started so, you know, his blog is probably worth taking a look at.
• The Merbist: Matt Aimonetti’s blog. He’s one of the core devs. He also appears in MerbCamp videos and he’s also a regular on the Google group.

There’s also #merb and #datamapper on irc.freenode.net which haven’t been as nice as #django was, but they can be helpful in a pinch. (I prefer the Google groups for both projects.)

There’s nothing super secret about any of this, and it’s been posted elsewhere, but hey, it can’t hurt to have another place to find this stuff if you’re a budding merbivore. Also, let me state, that my experience with Django and even my limited work with Rails really helped. Merb does follow some of the same patterns and conventions as Rails.

Let me add, if you’re interested in picking up Rails or Merb, make sure you have a decent understanding of Ruby by itself first. I strongly suggest against trying to learn Ruby as you learn Rails or Merb. I started with “The Pickaxe Book” which I can’t say I’m in love with, but it does the job. If you’re not a new programmer and are simply coming to Ruby, you might want to just swallow The Ruby Programming Language, I enjoyed it a lot.

Anyway, as I tinker I’ll write document my questions and their solutions. I make no promises that any of my methods are best practices or that I’m some kind of Merb, DataMapper or Ruby wiz. I’m not. However, given enough time, I could be I suppose.

For better or for worse, I have a feeling my writing will become increasingly boring and technical for a while.

Right around 1:15pm every day, K.L. calls me on her break and we have what we’ve come to refer to as conversations covering “crucial” topics. Sometimes it’s as simple as how the work day is going or whether one of us is experience stomach bubbles (referred to now as “boob-lays”). Other times, I get gems like this which I typed as best I could as she was saying it (though it’s not a perfect quote):

I get that the eyes on the owl at Hooters are supposed to be jugs, but what’s with those colors? It’s just not appetizing. The thought of having orange outside the jugs and then the middle beige, it really isn’t appetizing. I don’t know how anyone could look at that owl and be like, “Ooooo… Hooters!” Maybe I should paint my jugs like that. And then you’ll see in real life that that color just isn’t enticing.

As if I needed solid proof that bright orange “jugs” weren’t my cup of tea. Although, I admit, they’d be better than no jugs at all!

For the record, I don’t buy the “Muslim” bit. It’s that simple. As someone who is opposed to socialism it’s not difficult for me to find reasons not to like our up and coming commander-in-chief. I don’t need to turn him into some imaginary boogieman. His policies are antithetical to mine, but then again so were John McCain’s. Furthermore, Obama’s true “character” was revealed in all of its bought-and-paid-for glory in two votes: FISA and the bailout. Underneath all the rhetoric of hope and change, it’s simply the same as it ever was. Except for one little thing: Barack Obama is black. Well, kind of.

Race has been a huge part of this election. Say what you like, but Obama gained and lost a huge a number of votes based purely on the color of his skin. I can’t blame him for that though, it’s not like he forced Americans to think racially but the fact of the matter is that they do. The blight of racism, as demonstrated by this election, is alive and well on the streets of America. What’s more interesting though isn’t that all the southern hate mongers and conservative cranks came out of the woodwork with their slurs and their rumors. We tend to expect that from those people.

What is interesting is that Barack Obama is half black. Or, as a close friend of mine puts it, he’s a “Halfrican.”

Why is that interesting? Am I implying that he’s not “really black” or that if he was “all black” he couldn’t have won? No. Barack Obama is as much white as he is black though, yet the only half that gets any media recognition and the only half that seems to matter in the political minefield is the black half. He’ll be the 1st “black president” just as much as he’ll be the 44th “white president.” What this demonstrates, from top to bottom, is how stupid the concept of race is in the first place and how ancestry matters far less to people than obvious things like skin tone. In the minds of America, and much further I’m sure, Obama is black because he looks it, plain and simple. He’s a “role model” to other people who think he looks similar. It’s ridiculous. Any way you slice it, it’s moronic—just as moronic as the labels “black” and “white” are to start with.

Regardless of whether you love, hate, agree or disgree with our new President-elect make sure you do so based on his views, policies and actions and not because of the amount of melanin in his skin.

Barack Obama doesn’t represent change. He represents the same old, same old with a different coat of paint. All too many people though are fooled by simple window dressing. As I said before, it’s the same as it ever was. (Although, I’m cautiously optimistic about the future not leading to a full scale invasion of Iran and the fact that I don’t think my skin will crawl from sheer humiliation as an American when he gives a State of the Union like it did with the last clown we had. There are a few upsides to this… I hope.)

In the world or politics and government, quotes by famous people run rampant in debates and speeches. The reason for this is quite simple: quoting someone who is more well respected than you are adds perceived power and authority to the rest of your statement. In America, people from all across the political spectrum—although, so-called conservatives use the tactic more than anyone else—like to quote the founding fathers in an effort to demonstrate that anyone from Madison to Washington agrees with them and their particular positions. In debates this is used thusly, “Well, if you disagree with me on this position then you also disagree with Thomas Jefferson!” While this tactic can be valid and effective, it’s often played poorly and cheaply as nothing more than an arbitrary appeal to authority.

One of the foremost problems of this method of persuasion is the mindset of many of its worst abusers which can be summed up in the following statement: “John Adams agrees with me.” Most people hunting for quotes from authority figures aren’t generally interested in what those figures actually had to say but only in finding statements that strengthen their own position. While this sort of thing seems legitimate at first glance, beneath the obvious surface of what many of us have been guilty of at one time or another is a vast problem—the sort of problem that, if left unchecked, tends to pollute the thinking the philosophy of anyone.

America’s founders came before us and if we’re to learn from what they’ve said it’s best that we find ourselves agreeing with them, not them agreeing with us. It’s subtle, but it changes the playing field significantly in the way we think from the bottom up. Do you engage in debate and study merely to prove your own ideas and hypotheses or do you do so to test your ideas, refine your hypotheses and put yourself on a path of discovery? If you truly prescribe to the ideas of a particular person, shouldn’t you concern yourself with falling in line with that person rather than contorting that person’s words to match your own? What would happen if most Christians were less interested in following the words of Christ and more interested in using the words of Christ to grant license to their actions and ideas? (Oh wait, that is what has happened.)

Authority figures, including the Founding Fathers, are not perfect nor are they always correct. Just because Patrick Henry made statements that appear to be in harmony with your position doesn’t mean that your position is anymore correct than his was capable of being. That being said, it’s perfectly acceptable to disagree with Hancock or Monroe or anyone else for that matter. Many of the Founding Fathers certainly disagreed with one another and they couldn’t all be right, could they?

At the end of the day, what’s important is that you either develop your own political identity and philosophy, looking to the ideas of others for understanding and support or you adopt someone else’s and follow it. (The former is preferred by those who want to be “thinkers.”)

With that rant out of the way, let’s move on to what is perhaps an even greater gripe about the use of quotations in political speeches, discussion and debate: misquoting people and doing it so much that it becomes a reality. This phenomenon happens because at some point somewhere someone has what they believe to be a brilliant little quip but since this someone is no more than a John Q. Nobody they attribute it to someone famous person out there. The quip, on its own, is good enough that other people think, “Man, that’s great. I’m going to use that in my next essay!” The more it gets used, the more it becomes a “real” quote and the more it continues to get misquoted. The internet has turned this into a full blown epidemic.

Here are some examples:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

This was supposedly stated by Thomas Jefferson. This quote is used on hundreds of “tax truth” sites and has been included in books and movies on the subject. Unfortunately, no one who passes this quote around seems to be able to give a legitimate source for it. What’s more troubling is that the use of “inflation” and “deflation” as economic terms weren’t used during Jefferson’s lifetime.

There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one—that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion. It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by “religionists”, but by Christians—not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

This one, attributed to Patrick Henry, is very popular among fanatical Christian political organizations. The problem is that this quote, despite the fact that it’s quite consistent with Henry’s beliefs, didn’t appear until the mid-1950s. It has been attributed to a speech given to the House of Burgesses in May 1765, but there’s no record of this. If we use that citation it poses another problem. It would mean Henry uses the term “nation” in 1765 which is quite unlikely.

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.

This time it’s James Madison supposedly saying something. This also appears to be a product of the 1950s. If he did, it’s not recorded anywhere. However, it’s not just the Christians that take artistic license with Madison:

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.

It looks like they got to John Adams too:

God is an essence we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is gotten rid of there will never be any liberal science in the world.

Finally, my personal favorite:

I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.

George Washington did not chop down his father’s cherry tree for no apparent reason and thus had no reason to tell the truth about his arbor bloodlust.

Worthy of special recognition is a quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America:

In the end, the state of the Union comes down to the character of the people. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. In the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. In her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

It’s not in the book. It’s not in any of de Tocqueville’s writings. Someone just made it up.

Before concluding, a few things should be noted:

1. Just because a quote is misattributed doesn’t mean the content is wrong, it just means that somewhere along the line someone attached a famous name to their own statement.
2. Source your quotes and do a little bit of research before regurgitating it. Just because some guy put it up on his quotes page and has an animated American flag on the page doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.
3. If you cannot find a source but also cannot find valid disputation, at least state that the quote was “attributed” to the person. Just because there is no source, doesn’t mean it wasn’t said. (Also, see #1.)
4. There is nothing wrong with making a statement on your own. Do it enough and someday perhaps someone will find you to be such an authority that they can misattribute their own words to you!