Word: jeffersonians
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...attempts to rescue Jefferson from the presidential scrap heap. It was left to Franklin Roosevelt, no scholar but a superb manager of political stage effects, to elevate Jefferson to the presidential pantheon. The intellectual sleight of hand was simple enough: the New Deal was the modern embodiment of the Jeffersonian "spirit," in which government, depending on its purposes, was either "a threat and a danger" or "a refuge and help" to the people. And to this day the Democrats hold Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners...
McPhee, of course, does manage to find a pattern. All his heroes share rationality and expertise, none are geniuses but all are talented. Steering clear of poets, not to mention saints, prostitutes and writers, he concentrates on the sane. His ideals are Jeffersonian-farmers wander in and out of his collections, and inventors rank only below professional canoeists in his pantheon. Meet Richard Eckert, a man given to "gray suits, gray socks, black shoes, white shirts and Paisley ties," who invents the wave-tossed nuke while he is "standing wet, naked and soapy in his shower." This, perhaps, is inspiration...
...deter mined to ensure that "ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement." Under his law, "any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter" was patentable and thus legally shielded from theft. Last week, in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court applied the Jeffersonian measure to one of the latest examples of human ingenuity. It ruled that new forms of life created in the laboratory could be patented...
Murton is a realistic idealist: "I don't think prison reform is attainable," he says matter-of-factly. "It's a goal we won't ever reach but we can get closer." He smiles. "We don't have Jeffersonian democracy either...
...examination of Anderson's record reveals a conservative with a conscience, but a conservative first and foremost. The Jeffersonian creed that "government that governs best governs least" remains the operative phrase in Anderson's political vision. Just put the money into the pockets of consumers and hence into the market system and the benefits will filter down to those in need. It is a traditional doctrine, Adam Smith filtered through 200 years, but what was liberal in 1776 is liberal no more...