Who is your favorite founding father? Discuss!

[stpalm]

Discuss, partly because I am not a donor and can't start a poll.

Anyway, I like Thomas Jefferson, but Ben Franklin was such a cool cat, I have to pick him. Such a witty and cool guy. Loved a good fart joke.

[Parche]

1. founding

Madison was my favorite,
he was a small, very intelligent one, who did a lot for the constitution

[asthmaticeog]

2. Thomas Payne.

Read Bertrand Russell's excellent essay on Payne's life if you can run it down. The man was a badass.

Franklin, too, was a cool one.

[stpalm]

4. Payne is awesome.

I read most of "The Crisis" for a class and he had such a way with words.

A cool song is "Let Them Eat Thomas Paine" by the most KICKASS band- Dillinger Four. It doesn't quote him, but the lyrics are awesome, and it rocks!

[slutticus]

10. LOL!

I just read that very essay last night!

Yes...Tom Paine was the man. Truly a man ahead of his time.

"Age of Reason" is my favorite essay by Paine.

[Reverend_Smitty]

3. Ben Franklin...

hands down...he was a hippie before the word even existed. Brilliant statesman, inventor, writer etc...

Jefferson would be my number two

[Osamasux]

6. Completely agree.

Everyone in the country should take a trip to the Ben Franklin museum in Philly at least once. The man's life was just mind blowing.

[Fleshdancer]

5. Franklin

The man tamed lightining for cryin' out loud! He was treated like a celebrity in France which cracks me up. Smart, innovative, and a great diplomat...and the not owning slaves thing is a plus too. His only downside I can think of is that he was a horrible husband.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Ben Franklin

Perhaps because he was a scientist, and successfully resisted turning into a politician.

I think Franklin is the only actual person whose picture is on our money
who never was President.

[bobbieinok]

8. Franklin and Jefferson

[SmileyBoy]

9. Samuel Adams

Because it is speculated that he may have had Aspberger's Syndrome.

ASPIES UNITE!!! (Kleeb)

[slutticus]

11. Thomas Paine

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/

[Padraig18]

12. Benjamin Franklin, hands down.

He was not called 'the most dangerous man in America' without good reason.

:D

[skygazer]

13. I agree with Ben Franklin

He was brilliant, with a curious mind and good at so many diverse things. He was also witty, irreverent, eccentric, and charming. When he was minister to England, he would swim in the Thames every morning, which shocked the English to no end. That makes me laugh - to hell with what others think - I'm bloody well going to do it if I want to. Neat and fascinating guy and yes, I like the fact that he was not a slaveowner.

Jefferson was a great thinker and writer and I admire much about him but he was a man of many contradictions. Franklin was a very real guy, who had a keen understanding of the average citizen, something Jefferson really never did.

[Hand]

14. Roger that--and he LOVED to party!

:toast: