We scoff at the ancestor worship of other cultures, and consider divine right and kingship and all that stuff to be anti-American. So can someone explain to me why we will endure any kind of nuttery if it is tied to something one of our Founding Fathers once said?

Case in point — at the town hall Obama will be at in New Hampshire today, there is a right-wing freak with a pistol strapped by his side and a big sign that references the Jefferson quote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” This quote he is so endeared with is not a public statement of Jefferson — it’s a comment on the Shay’s Rebellion made in a letter to a friend in 1787. From a pre-Reign of Terror Jefferson.

In other words, take away the Founding Fathers as Gods myth, and it’s just something some guy said to a friend, something that he may not have even believed a couple years later.

And once you realize that, guess what? It turns out you’re guy bringing a pistol to an Obama event with a sign that seems to be calling for Obama’s assassination. That doesn’t make you a hero, and at best it makes you a dick. At best.