We are in the age of pundits and comparisons are flying around left and right bending history tinting statistics and mishandling messages. Reputable sources can get a bit lazy and with all the communication options available disseminating a misleading tidbit can happen in an instant.
With the click of a button you re-post re-tweet or re-send the faulty information becoming a force for ignorance throughout the world. So before you repost check your facts. Feel free to use the gold standard Encyclopedia Britannica or even Wikipedia proven by a recent study to be only slightly less accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica much faster to update and far less stuffy. Just make sure you check for sources in the article. For your convenience I’ll clear up a few often misrepresented facts.
While the founding fathers are relied upon as standards of morality it is clear from their own writings that they wouldn’t have made it even a year at Pepperdine. Benjamin Franklin was known to be sexual active outside of his marriage even very late into his life (his letters suggest that older experienced women make better mistresses) and couldn’t have abided the 1:00 a.m. curfew. Thomas Jefferson fathered a line of children with one of his slaves. Recently an important historical document was discovered: the bill from the tavern near the Constitutional Convention where the attendees held a shindig two days before determining the founding principles of this nation. According to historian W.J. Rorabaugh the 55 founding fathers consumed 114 bottles of wine 34 bottles of beer eight of hard cider and eight of whiskey. That’s roughly two bottles of wine per delegate plus the additional spirits. That’s equivalent to two years of house parties at Pepperdine or one Florence reunion.
The Unites States is often considered a “Christian nation if not in current values than in historical purpose. However, more and more evidence is being revealed about the lives of our core founding fathers, and their own writings very rarely mentioned Jesus or even a messiah figure. While it is clear that almost all seven of the core founding fathers believed in an omnipotent creator, it is often left unspecified to which religion, if any, this god belongs to.
Deism allows a great deal of wiggle room in belief systems and could encompass many different views on the will of God and the nature of humanity, which could obviously be useful for bringing 55 hard-headed rebels into agreement over one document.
Moving forward to the modern day, the presidential approval rating is one of the most quoted and often-abused statistics. Before you quote any approval ratings, make sure you know the history of the rating. The approval rating was created by George Gallup himself in the early 1930s as a way of gauging public opinion on the President’s actions, and started during President Truman’s first term. According to Gallup, George W. Bush boasts the highest approval rating ever, at 90% after 9/11, and one of the lowest, at 27%. He is beat out by Nixon, leaving office with a 24%, and by Truman, whose ratings dipped to 22%. Following a very close second for highest approval rating ever is George H. W. Bush, who peaked at 89%. Conversely, President Obama entered office with a 69%, which has recently dipped to 42%, giving Obama a current term average of 53%, a little below the 57% average for Presidents in the second year of their first term. Almost all Presidents experience a gradual overall decline in approval starting the moment they enter office.
On a more somber note, comparisons are often made between the war in Iraq and Vietnam with regard to casualties and length. The Vietnam Conflict” was nine years from 1964 to 1973 and cost 58209 lives according to congressional reports. In contrast the Iraq War or “Operation Iraqi Freedom was officially initiated March 19, 2003 and has continued roughly 8 years. As of October, the Iraq War cost 4,421 lives, according to the Department of Defense. In Afghanistan, 1,339 American lives have been lost during this same time period.
But don’t take my word for it, or anyone else’s. Take the time to research the information you hear. Especially in class.