Let’s Judge Heroes in Their Time, Not in Ours

Michael Ybarra’s “The Rise and Fall of Our Heroes” (Nov. 13) raises a very important issue and demonstrates a serious problem in our society.

As a 47-year-old baby boomer, I understand how the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the frustration of the antiwar movement by the deceptions of President Johnson and the outcome of the Chicago convention, the whole careers of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, and the aura of scandal around the White House since Nixon where a new “ . . . gate” is proclaimed every few weeks (especially during election years) has jaded us and made us cynical. It has also blinded us by making us always look to debunk.

Thomas Jefferson encourages the attacks that have gathered around him precisely because he was a man who considered so many issues that few politicians would even think about. He lived a long time ago on two continents. He left 50 volumes of papers (and especially letters) to be selectively picked through by any bad lawyer who wants to build a brief.

Conor Cruise O’Brien is quoted as saying that “Jefferson is a patron saint far more suitable to white supremacists than to modern American liberals. . . .” This displays a sophomoric simplicity that is impossible to answer in a letter. What concerns me more is that O’Brien isn’t alone among writers in attempting to demonstrate intellectual superiority to men far greater than themselves (and 200 years past self-defense) by ripping 18th century actions out of context and performing politically correct post-mortems on them. We all need to spend a little more time looking for the things we want to emulate rather than those we despise.

PATRICK CUNNINGHAM

Santa Barbara

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Is Isaac Newton less a genius because Albert Einstein showed he was not completely accurate, or Aristotle less because Copernicus and Newton did the same to him? Is Jesse Owens not great because his records have fallen? Is Jack Dempsey no good because many modern heavyweights could probably beat him?

What do you mean Thomas Jefferson is unworthy because he didn’t free his own slaves and didn’t think blacks and whites could live together? In his time who else believed that they could? Who else freed their slaves?

In Jefferson’s time, democracy was a revolutionary idea. Religious freedom was a revolutionary idea. Capitalism was a revolutionary idea. People were not sure French and Germans could live together, let alone blacks and whites.

Who is Conor Cruise O’Brien? Did he found a county? Did he pen ideas that inspired men to change the world? Who cares what he thinks or says?

LAWRENCE KRAUS

Marina Del Rey

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Jefferson did declare “all men are created equal” simply to justify the Colonists’ withdrawal from the mother country, which had refused to treat them as equals of Englishmen. The relevance of this declaration to slavery was inescapable. The new nation began to feel uneasy about slavery.

Jefferson, in 1784, asked Congress to prohibit slavery in the “new” region of the nation from the Great Lakes to the Gulf and westward. When Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, it contained the provisions he asked for against slavery and involuntary servitude. As president, Jefferson urged Congress to withdraw from “all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa.” Congress took action on March 2, 1897, and, beginning January 1, 1808, the foreign slave trade became illegal. Jefferson planted the seeds to stop slavery. It is also true he owned slaves, but his actions show he felt it was an evil that should not spread.

Preserving American liberty depends upon our understanding the foundations on which this country was built and then preserving the principles on which it was founded.

RUDY SCHMIDT

Murrieta, CA