Matt Duss isn't impressed with Dominic Tierney's effort to cast nation-building as a Jeffersonian pursuit:
Tierneyâ??s attempt to rope in Thomas Jefferson, specifically, seems especially questionable given the huge debts that the U.S. has racked up to pay for our current foreign nation-building efforts. Jeffersonâ??s opposition to saddling oneâ??s descendants with debt is well-known (even if he failed to meet this standard in his personal affairs). In 1816, Jefferson wrote, â??The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.â? In 1820 he added, â??It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.â? And on and on.
