At 09:48 PM 9/5/98 -0700, you wrote:

>If you are a serious advocate of Jeffersonian politics you must keep in
>mind that despite what Jefferson espoused, he kept slaves!

Yes, and we must judge him by the standards of HIS time, not the
standards of our time, which is called "presentism."  Jefferson was
opposed to the institution of slavery all his life.  But he also felt that to
turn out people who had been raised in slavery would be like turning out
children on the street.  If you are going to sit in judgment on Jefferson,
don't you think you should try to understand the situation he faced in his
time as he saw it?

>He believed
>that politics were best left in educated hands, and minds.

Indeed he did, and he endeavored all his life to see to it that every
citizen received an education to make them fit to participate in self-
government.  Are you suggesting that politics should be left in un-
educated hands and minds?

>Most importantly
>he believed that the government was to enforce crimes against person
and
>property, but to otherwise leave people to their own pursuit of
happiness.
>That means that all consensual crimes are unconstitutional!  We must
tolerate,
>as a society, any so called crime that has no victim because none of us
>has the right to impose our morality on others.  George Washington
said
>that this country was not founded in christianity!  Make it so!!!!!!

I think you are basically mistaken.  All criminal law has a moral
dimension, and I think you would have a difficult time demonstrating that
Jefferson believed that a free society HAD to do anything, and that it
was compelled to establish its laws governed by anything BUT its own
moral code.

George Washington said that this country was not founded on the
Christian religion, and indeed it was not.  It was founded on the natural
rights of man.  What's the problem?

Best wishes,

Eyler Coates