As president of the United States, it’s a sure thing that Joe Biden gets to meet a lot of interesting people. Whether he remembers them afterwards is another matter entirely.
In the spirit of Independence Day, President Joe is about to encounter a surprise guest in a location he wasn’t anticipating. As everyone has heard by now, the current Oval Office occupant is planning to dedicate this year’s holiday to serve as “Independence from COVID-19” with 70% of the population having been vaccinated, a goal that will not be attained.
The ruling class is permitting people to gather for traditional parties and festivities. After over a year of lockdowns, it will feel somewhat normal. But probably not for senile Joe:
--Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzzz. (Music starts playing, to the tune of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”, complete with canned explosions conforming to the beat.)
A still groggy Joe Biden rolled over in his presidential bed and noticed that the sun was already high in the sky. Wife Dr. Jill was nowhere in sight, having risen much earlier to start the day and see to the family’s personal plans to commemorate the occasion.
“Ya-da-da it’s the Fourth of July!” Joe blubbered excitedly to himself. “Or some people call it Independence Day, though I don’t really understand why. Yesterday was July 3rd and they didn’t call it any kind of special name, did they? Ditto for tomorrow. Oh well, who cares? I really love the fireworks and barbecued glizzies (slang for hot dog) and all that colorful stuff. I wonder where they’re going to set up a grill on the White House grounds? Maybe right on the front porch? The fireworks noises always scare the crap out of Champ and Major and Hunter, so we might have to go back inside at a moment’s notice.”
Just then the figure of a six foot two and a half inch very thin red-headed man dressed in colonial garb entered the room from a side door. The sight of an uninvited stranger in his sleeping quarters startled the 78-year-old, so he sprang to his feet and quickly threw on his robe. Swallowing the gob of spittle that had quickly formed in his mouth, Biden mumbled, “Who -- or what -- the heck are you? And what are you doing here on the Fourth of July? Don’t you know this is a great day and a commander in chief of the free world shouldn’t be disturbed in his bedroom wearing only his unmentionables by some ginger-scarecrow-looking apparition?”
The tall invader frowned as he assessed the current occupant of the executive mansion. Thomas Jefferson had been the second president to reside at the residence starting in 1801 and thought, ‘America’s certainly let our standards down if we’re electing a feeble representative of this man’s intellectual quality to dwell in here.’
Appearing as a 33-year-old (the age he wrote the legendary document), the visitor replied, “I’m Thomas Jefferson, and I’ve come to talk with you on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. I’ve seen a sampling of your news clips on that unbelievable talking screen-thing, Joe, and you’ve butchered my words more than a few times.”
“What do you mean? I stole those words just like I did with all the others, and recited them perfectly,” Joe shot back defensively. “Here, I’ll do it now (actual quote): ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created … by the — you know — you know the thing.’ See, there, bud. What do you know about it?”
The usually dignified and serious Jefferson could barely suppress a chuckle as he corrected the loose-brained old coot. “Can you imagine us sending that crudity to King George III? ‘You know, the thing? The real one went like this, Joe: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’”
“Sheesh” Joe replied, exasperated. “Can you imagine having to memorize that nonsensical word salad for a class project? Not in today’s woke public schools, man. I think the kids should be learning Critical Race Theory instead. You know, all you slave-holding dudes a hundred years ago or whenever it was. People like you are responsible for all the systemic racism we have in this country today. I’m all for the disaffected people taking down the statues of you and your slaver generation. What a contemptible band of bigots you were. Of course, I worked with segregationists and called the inner city a ‘racial jungle’ -- but it ain’t the same thing.”
Sighing loudly, Jefferson retorted, “Joe, I was one of the first and loudest proponents of establishing public schools for every child, both boys and girls. And I permitted my slaves to learn to read and write. An informed citizenry is the only means the people have to vote effectively and to resist tyranny. I myself studied under America’s first law professor, George Wythe. We worked dawn to dusk and sometimes late into the night. Youths were taught the basics by tutors and then we immersed ourselves in history, science, the classics and philosophy.
“And neither I, nor anyone I know, was a big proponent of slavery. We were born into the system and couldn’t even legally manumit them until after we’d declared our independence. I also included a stronger condemnation of slavery in my original draft of the Declaration. What would you have done differently?
Jefferson continued, “My friend James Madison graduated from Princeton in three years. We regarded learning as essential -- and we could put two sentences together back then. Seeing the children of the twenty-first century is incredibly disappointing because they aren’t being taught the same kinds of principles that will keep them free and independent thinkers. Would a revolution against tyranny have happened these days with your group of politicians and non-adventurous and cautious sheep-like unlearned population? Maybe if Donald Trump had had a chance to establish the 1776 commission to set the curriculum, it might have. But you cancelled that. And your education program will foster mind-controlled zombies, not great intellectuals.
“I’m glad I lived when I did,” Jefferson concluded.
“Revolution? Heck, if our people ever rose up against us -- I am the government just like I am the Democrat Party that you started -- and tried that crap, we’d just put the insurrection down with superior firepower! (Actual quote) ‘Those who say the 'blood of patriots,' you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government. Well, the tree of liberty has not been watered with the blood of patriots. What’s happened is that there have never been, if you want to, think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.’
“You want a real revolutionary? How about Gwen Barry? I loved her protest against the flag! She’s as American as apple pie!
“Besides slavery, your generation got the peasantry believing that they have some mythical ‘right’ to bear arms, like having a gun is important to home defense and to guard against despotism. No way, man! Nowadays guns are only used in mass shootings and to murder people. We don’t have problems with bloodthirsty merciless savages out in the wilderness like you did in your day, Tom. No one needs to own a gun now, except maybe for hunting. Then they can borrow one from someone licensed by the government -- all the information will be kept in a giant database. And we’d have red flag laws to ensure dangerous people can’t get their hands on a pistol or rifle.
“That Bill of Rights stuff on religion and firearms is so yesterday. The only booms I want to hear are from the fireworks show tonight. Get used to it, bud.”
His jaw agape at the inanity of this man, Jefferson countered, “I didn’t write the Constitution, I wrote the Declaration of Independence. And if you’ve ever read it, which clearly you haven’t, I specified in detail the reasons why we colonists were justified in rebelling against a king who trampled on our God-given rights as free-born Englishmen. I listed 27 grievances in all, but there were more. I had to be brief, not like the proposed laws these days like the ‘For The People Act’, which I heard was over 800-pages long.
“I ended the Declaration thus: ‘And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.’ Would you and your contemporaries ever dare to be so bold?”
“Huh?” Joe was clearly confused now So many big words! “Who said anything about honor? We’re just trying to make sure that everybody pays and gets their fair share, that equity of means is much more important than all that legal mumbo jumbo about sacred rights. If the rich have all the money, can’t they pay more? And who decides what’s worthwhile, anyway? The government does, that’s who! The greatest threat to our nation today comes from white supremacists. Those British blokes you faced weren’t a real menace at all. I talked with Boris Johnson just a couple weeks ago. He’s a sweetheart! And Queen Liz 2? Wow, she was short. And really, really old.”
“Say, how’d you make up all that blather about providence and lives… and…? You must’ve had a teleprompter or something.”
Hmpf. Jefferson could hardly stand talking to this dimwitted dolt any longer, the challenge of trying to pound some sense into the man’s empty skull proving to be exhausting. “Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it [the Declaration of Independence] was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.
“I really just relied on well-established ideas to write it, Joe, such as my work on the Preamble to the Constitution of Virginia and borrowing generously from my friend George Mason’s masterful draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Some people said the documents were so similar in wording that they accused me of plagiarism. Would you know how that feels?”
“Sure do, Tommy m’boy! When there are so many smart people out there writing and saying such keen and clever quotes, why bother doing all the work yourself? Our Democrat donors pay consultants top dollar to produce something, so why not use it? Besides, we’ve got your work on the Declaration of Independence. And all those letters you wrote, too. 25,000, was it? We just attribute our thoughts to the Founding Fathers and people leave us alone.
“Cool beans, bro. Now I got to get ready for my Fourth of July celebration out there on the mall, so unfortunately, I gotta kick you outta here, or I’ll sic the Secret Service on your two-hundred and seventy-eight-year-old behind.
“It’s been nice meeting you, though. Can’t wait to tell Dr. Jill and Hunter and Kamala that I talked to Thomas Jefferson in my bedroom this morning. But they’ll just think I was hallucinating or my mind was going again. Oh well, they’re right, aren’t they?”
With the meeting clearly at an end and the historic tutorial having done absolutely no good, Jefferson exited through the same door from which he entered. ‘We’re going to have a good laugh over this one,’ Jefferson thought, picturing the heavenly dining room table in the sky where, just as he did in life, he frequently enjoys banter and excellent cuisine with his well-informed friends from times long ago,.
‘My, how things have changed from the old days. God help the Republic.’
-- Joe Biden has never met Thomas Jefferson or the Founding Fathers in his room or in books, and their lessons have obviously never passed through his brain. The rest of us should remember the important things on this Independence Day and strive to resurrect the revolutionary spirit that produced the liberty we all enjoy today.
Joe Biden
Donald Trump
1776 Commission
history education
school curriculum
Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
George Mason
Hunter Biden