Tag: Jefferson

  • Reason, Radicalism, & Reticence: The Unorthodox Faith of America’s Founders [Web App]

    Reason, Radicalism, & Reticence

    The Unorthodox Faith of America’s Founders

    An Age of Enlightenment and Unbelief

    The American Revolution was a product of the Enlightenment, a period defined by its celebration of reason, skepticism, and individual liberty. While many founding fathers held conventional religious beliefs, a core group of influential thinkers applied this rational scrutiny to the doctrines of organized religion itself. They championed reason and personal conscience over clerical authority and divine revelation, leading to profound and often radical conclusions about God, nature, and morality. This exploration delves into the unorthodox faith of these key figures—from the fiery, public condemnations faced by Thomas Paine to the private, meticulous re-interpretations of Thomas Jefferson. It reveals a complex landscape of belief where political courage did not always extend to open religious dissent, forcing some of the nation’s greatest minds to navigate a perilous path between private conviction and public persona.

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  • Political Cowardice and Statehood

    Politicians will lock themselves in a windowless room with a supercomputer to perform the political equivalent of microsurgery, all to avoid ever having an honest conversation about statehood. It’s the ultimate act of weakness; they’re too afraid to ask for a divorce, so they just secretly rearrange all the furniture in the house hoping their partner gets frustrated and leaves. Meanwhile, the State of Jefferson has the U-Haul idling in the driveway, and California and Texas are acting like a miserable billionaire couple who’d rather stay together and fight over the yacht than just admit they need separate mansions.

  • A Tale of Two Wests: Bitcoin, Geopolitics, and the Theoretical Choice Between Oregon and Idaho

    It is a curious theoretical exercise to consider the choice between a place like Bend and one like Boise, not merely as a preference for a city, but as a vote for a divergent future. One looks at Boise’s enthusiastic embrace of the Bitcoin ecosystem and sees a strange paradox. Here is a political culture deeply rooted in ideals of American sovereignty and independence, yet it champions an industry whose very existence relies on a constant supply of specialized hardware forged in China. This creates a profound strategic vulnerability, a dependency that, from a certain critical perspective, borders on the treasonous. It makes one ponder the long-term political calculus of the Republican party; is this a blind spot so vast it could lead to a monumental landslide?

    In this light, Oregon’s political landscape appears as a more complex, and frankly, more reassuring ecosystem. It isn’t a monolithic bloc. You have the necessary friction of principled opposition from figures like Representative Suzanne Bonamici, a vital check against unchecked enthusiasm. Even more telling, perhaps, are those who maintain a wise and prudent silence, who refuse to be swept up in the fervor. This diversity of thought suggests a healthier, more resilient political body.

    And so, the musing turns to the very lines on the map, to concepts like ‘Greater Idaho’ and the ‘State of Jefferson.’ From this perspective, the Greater Idaho movement seems less like a liberation and more like an absorption into that very system of paradoxical dependency. But Jefferson… ah, Jefferson represents a conceptual break. It is the chance to forge a new political entity, one founded not on the uncritical adoption of flawed systems, but on a healthier skepticism and a desire for true independence that is free from the digital supply chains of a global adversary.