Jeffersonian Conservative?

By: DukieDem
Published On: 6/27/2006 2:12:56 PM

In between stopping in Iowa and fighting off sleep in the Senate, George Allen has taken to calling himself a "Jeffersonian Conservative". It seems that while he was at UVA riding the pine for the football team and riding around in his General Lee, he snuck in a little reading on Thomas Jefferson. As part of the same life long identity crisis that causes a Californian to wear cowboy boots and embrace the confederacy, Senator Allen calls himself a 'Jeffersonian Conservative".

The problem is, just like Bush's conservatism wasn't 'compassionate', Senator Allen's conservatism doesn't pay much attention to Mr. Jefferson's legacy.
Let's see how the two compare:

Jefferson - wrote the Kentucky Resolution as a response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. The A&S Acts were seen as a huge threat to individual liberties and enhanced the power the federal government held over the states

Allen - voted in favor of the Patriot Act, unleashing an unprecedented assault on individual liberties

Jefferson - wrote in a letter to Isaac H. Tiffany "rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add +óGé¼-£within the limits of the law+óGé¼Gäó, because law is often but the tyrant+óGé¼Gäós will, and ALWAYS SO WHEN IT VIOLATES THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL"

Allen - supports restricting a woman's right to choose and the right for same sex couples to enter into union together, as well as supporting the "Flag burning amendment". All of these would constitute a violation of individual rights.

Jefferson - In a letter to James Madison, he wrote that future generations should not be forced to repay the debts accumulated before their time, saying that paying such debts "was a question of generosity and not of right"

Allen - voted to increase the debt ceiling, adding to the taxes future generations must pay

Jefferson - In 1769 he proposed in the House of Burgesses that slaves be emancipated, which would have been a noble first step towards equal rights if it had been passed

Allen - Honored those who stood in the way of equal rights. He co-sponsored a resolution in the House of Delegates expressing "regret and sorrow upon the loss" of William Munford Tuck. Tuck opposed every piece of civil rights legislation while in Congress during the 1950s and 1960s and promised "massive resistance" to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning segregation.

Jefferson - born and raised in Virginia

Allen - born in California, serves in Virginia, longs to be in Iowa

The two really don't stack up together do they? Let's make sure Bored George has plenty of free time come November so he can do some more reading on Mr. Jefferson.


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