How the Jefferson Foundation Betrayed Thomas Jefferson
letter to Sites of Conscience
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
May 26, 2023
The following letter was emailed today to the Sites of Conscience organization, asking them to revoke the S-O-C status of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation until such time as they acknowledge the 1987 DEA raid on Monticello .
Dear Sir or Madam:
In 1987, the DEA stomped onto Monticello and confiscated Thomas Jefferson's poppy plants in violation of the natural law upon which he had founded America. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation quickly caved to all demands and even burnt t-shirts that showed pictures of the poppy, without even having been asked to do so. Of course, they were under legal duress at the time and employees could have even been jailed for not playing ball with the DEA. However, that does not excuse the fact that, since that time, the Foundation has never told the story of that raid to the public. They have pretended that the raid never even happened.
This is a betrayal of Jefferson's legacy. It is a coverup.
The Jefferson Foundation should tell that story to its visitors and donors.
The failure to do so, I strongly believe, should deny the Foundation its privilege of being classified as a "Site of Conscience." Surely, the least that can be expected of such a site is that its representatives speak up against injustice. Instead, they have pretended that the injustice did not even happen.
The hallowed ground of Monticello is no longer hallowed and will not be, until the Foundation starts defending those principles that Thomas Jefferson stood for: natural law and what John Locke himself called our right to the use of the earth "and all that lies therein."
I believe that if the title of "Sites of Conscience" is to remain meaningful, you must insist that the Jefferson Foundation acknowledge the raid and disclose all relevant details to the public.
What You Can Do
Write to the Jefferson Foundation and ask them to start telling the public and their donors about the 1987 DEA raid.
If they are no help, then ask S-O-C to revoke their listing of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation as a "Site of Conscience."
According to Wikipedia...
The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is a global network of historic sites, museums, and memorials that are dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights across the world. The Coalition is registered as a non-profit association in the United States.
Note
By its coverup of the DEA raid of 1987, The Thomas Jefferson Foundation has shown that it is more than happy to ignore the most fundamental of human rights when pressured to do so by the government, thereby betraying their mission to protect the legacy of Jefferson himself.
Author's Follow-up: May 27, 2023
Hey, guys, guess who's thinking seriously about putting an advertisement in The Cavalier Daily of the University of Virginia to bring the students' attention to the outrage perpetrated on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. Something like: "Attention, UVA Students: Speak up for the legacy of your school's founder. Demand that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation acknowledge and protest the DEA raid of 1987!" Stay tuned to see if and when I follow through on this threat. It could happen any day now when the slightly unpredictable Senate of my mind finally approves the necessary expenditure, for which my superego is arguing vigorously even as I type.
Author's Follow-up: May 28, 2023
I was just reminded on Twitter that Monticello has also caved on hemp in order not to incur the wrath of the feds. It's funny, I was just reading Hogshire's book on the poppy. It tells us how the DEA does not crack down on garden poppies because it would be embarrassing to arrest and hassle old white women. This may at first sound humorous, and it is, but it's also more proof of the racist nature of the Drug War.
Author's Follow-up: September 11, 2023
Remember that ad I was going to put in the Cavalier Daily back in May, to remind UVA students about the DEA raid on Monticello ? The Cavalier Daily ad team stopped communicating with me the moment they heard about the subject matter of the ad that I wanted to post. In America, one must not challenge the national religion of the War on Drugs. But then the ad team has been programmed from birth to hate drugs -- watching TV shows 1 that were tweaked by the White House itself to carry anti-drug messages, in conformance with the drug-hating Christian Science religion of Mary Baker-Eddy.
I'd like to become a guinea pig for researchers to test the ability of psychoactive drugs to make aging as psychologically healthy as possible. If such drugs cannot completely ward off decrepitude, they can surely make it more palatable. The catch? Researchers have to be free.
We need a scheduling system for psychoactive drugs as much as we need a scheduling system for sports activities: i.e. NOT AT ALL. Some sports are VERY dangerous, but we do not outlaw them because we know that there are benefits both to sports and to freedom in general.
Most prohibitionists think that they merely have to use the word "drugs" to win an argument. Like: "Oh, so you're in favor of DRUGS then, are you?" You can just see them sneering as they type. That's because the word "drugs" is like the word "scab": it's a loaded political term.
If drug war logic made sense, we would outlaw endless things in addition to drugs. Because the drug war says that it's all worth it if we can save just one life -- which is generally the life of a white suburban young person, btw.
UNESCO celebrates the healing practices of the Kallawaya people of South America. What hypocrisy! UNESCO supports a drug war that makes some of those practices illegal!
Drug warriors are full of hate for "users." Many of them make it clear that they want users to die (like Gates and Bennett...). The drug war has weaponized humanity's worst instincts.
Most enemies of inner-city gun violence refuse to protest against the drug prohibition which caused the violence in the first place.
The DEA is a Schedule I agency. It has no known positive uses and is known to cause death and destruction.
Daily opium use is no more outrageous than daily antidepressant use. In fact, it's less outrageous. It's a time-honored practice and can be stopped with a little effort and ingenuity, whereas it is almost impossible to get off some antidepressants because they alter brain chemistry.
I think many scientists are so used to ignoring "drugs" that they don't even realize they're doing it. Yet almost all books about consciousness and depression (etc.) are nonsense these days because they ignore what drugs could tell us about those topics.
I'd like to become a guinea pig for researchers to test the ability of psychoactive drugs to make aging as psychologically healthy as possible. If such drugs cannot completely ward off decrepitude, they can surely make it more palatable. The catch? Researchers have to be free.