General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGingrich Lies About Dope-Growing Founding Fathers to New Hampshire Pothead
Settled in to roost in New Hampshire for the next week, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich was faced with some pretty zany questions Wednesday afternoon during a town hall meeting with his potential suitors. Talking health care, asteroid travel, and marijuana, faraway-galaxy-dwelling Gingrich was, as Observer reporter Paul Harris noted, brought down to earth by the relative far-outness of some of the audience members. One attendee asked for the candidates thoughts on legal homegrown pot, to which Gingrich harked back to his knowledge base, HISTORY, and dropped some knowledge (actually misinformation! love that history!) on how Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would have felt about marijuana.
Said Newt:
I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana, and their techniques of dealing with it would have been more violent.
http://wonkette.com/459499/gingrich-lies-about-dope-growing-founding-fathers-to-new-hampshire-pothead#more-459499
oh really?
Both Washington and Jefferson tried growing hemp on their Virginia farms, with mixed success. Washington used some of what he grew to make hemp clothing worn by his slaves. However, U.S. hemp exported to Britain often was of such poor quality that it couldnt be sold, and Washington was never able to turn a profit on the crop despite sustained effort. Jefferson also seems to have grown hemp strictly for local consumption, from which we deduce he couldnt make money at it either. In short, not only were Washington and Jefferson marijuana farmers, they were unsuccessful marijuana farmers.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2912/did-george-washington-and-thomas-jefferson-grow-marijuana
...................
Below is a page from George Washingtons diary, where he gives instructions to his gardener for growing hemp:
Look at day 7 (August 7, 1765), it clearly reads began to separate the male form the female .. bit to late
http://www.theweedblog.com/americas-founding-fathers-loved-hemp/
.................
Famous Thomas Jefferson quotes include:
Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country. -Thomas Jefferson
Some of my finest hours have been spent sitting on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.
-Thomas Jefferson
http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1090706&site_id=1
deutsey
(20,166 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)But FannieMae paid him $420,000.00 for that brilliant historical analysis!
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)...eom
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)spanone
(135,831 posts)AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Now, to be fair, he didn't state "facts" but his opinion...
I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana ... blah... blah... blah...
So it was what he THINKS based on his extensive study of history and especially the Founding Fathers. That what he thinks is totally wrong is however a fact.
Poor Newty... he's so egomaniacal he thinks ANY idea he has is a good one.
This has much to do with his inability to remotely understand the history he loves and studies.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Before cotton became king that is....
tonybgood
(218 posts)This guy is an historian!!! Are you f***ing kidding me?!!! Who let this jack*** graduate from their institute of higher learning with such an inaccurate picture of the history of this country? Who were his instructors? What grades did he earn? Is this the product of a conservative education? This man thinks he should be the president? There are people actually uninformed enough to VOTE for this person???!!! As Coach Lombardi was quoted once as saying, "What the hell is going on here!!!"
Charlemagne
(576 posts)What the real truth is. He just wants to sound like a war-on-drugs hard ass. He knows that will work to get the Santorum votes. What he is hoping on is that no one will use the internet to look stuff up.
Moonwalk
(2,322 posts)But unlike Newt there, I'm happy to admit that I could be wrong about that. Still, I'm pretty sure the founding fathers there were not only pot growers (how ever unsuccessfully), but pot users.
Smilo
(1,944 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)But Newt never tires of lyin'.
Botany
(70,501 posts)That Washing grew marijuana @ Mt. Vernon is a well known fact but
that doesn't stop Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich from just making
something up.
LiberalFighter
(50,912 posts)Botany
(70,501 posts)I have a family member who was a professor and is friends w/
somebody who was faculty @ West Georgia when Newt was there
and he was not liked by the other professors and the college
administration and when he applied for tenure they told Newt to
hit the road.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Several tons of hemp rigging were used on the USS Constitution:
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)modern authoritarians like him. I am sure he has so revised actual US history in his mind that he truly thinks the founding fathers WERE and would act like 21st century RWers.
pansypoo53219
(20,976 posts)as liquor was the safer libation. lot of wine drunk. washington was fond of madiera.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Yeah... but did he cry a lot like Boehner. Or fall off his bike and get attacked by a pretzel, like Dubya?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2012, 07:00 PM - Edit history (1)
I had often read that our forefathers had grown hemp, however, I'd never seen the exact document proving it (still can't read it haha the script so I'll have to trust you on that), and never had seen that quote of Jefferson's.
Well, I can make out the words "hemp", and "English".
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)In fact, it was well-known in Virginia that he enjoyed going out to the taverns and beating the crap out of hippies.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)True.
Later it was that nubian temptress Sally Hemings who supplied Jefferson with his 1st taste of cocaine. She got him to divorce Martha while she was in hospital being bled, which, along with Jefferson using federal funds to support his habit, prompted the Continental Congress to force him to resign in disgrace. After that, the drugs made him think he could run for President but he had by then become a delusional has-been. When he could no longer buy her expensive jewelry, Hemings dumped him. Cocaine and a mixed race relationship ruined him!
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)infidelity scandal!
Fokker Trip
(249 posts)Made me smile and that's always worth something.
Thanks.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)Response to kpete (Original post)
smiley This message was self-deleted by its author.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)like say... tobacco.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)the crux of this is that Newton is terribly misinformed about American history.
People used to pay their taxes with hemp. People were REQUIRED to grow hemp. Yet, Newtie tries to co-opt the founders into an anti-marijuana stance - either b/c he's too stupid or b/c he's waaaay stoopid.
jmowreader
(50,557 posts)Newtie knows the people who are going to vote for him in the primaries don't know hemp and marijuana are the same plant. So he can run all over New Hampshire claiming the Founding Fathers would have disapproved of you growing your own weed.
There are probably a few of Newtie's natural constituency who think the USS Constitution had nylon rigging, which it did not.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)tho the final documents were written on parchment (animal skin paper) because only parchment was more durable than hemp paper.
Scairp
(2,749 posts)I thought it before, but this proves it. He's not just lying out his ass to further his feeble presidential aspirations, he actually is an idiot.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)shut up and go home, Porky.
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)This is symptomatic of a common Republican mental disorder "GOP syndrome"
Gabbling Oblivious Perplexity