Are you a domestic terrorist?

[--Pete]

Hi,

Not directed at me, but let me give it a shot anyway.

how do you . . . square Jefferson's seriously affected "small government" principles with his imperial and expansionist habits?

I believe that, in the modern jargon, Jefferson talked the talk but didn't walk the walk. Throughout his life, he seems to have separated his intellectual ideas from the pragmatic realities. I believe Jefferson was one of those people who would love to establish an Utopia, then send everyone else to live there. I think the most telling point is that, although he was quite bloodthirsty in his writings on revolution, when the actual fighting took place, he was careful to be elsewhere.

I admire many of Jefferson's ideals, even though I think most of them are founded on a mistaken impression of human nature. But the more I study the man, the more I think he was both a hypocrite and a physical coward.

--Pete