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Time Magazine

Independence Day is important to me, and many Americans. I thought I'd write something patriotic and non-programming related today.

Recently, Time Magazine published the now infamous "Welcome to America" cover. Featuring an illegal immigrant child crying in front of a very tall Donald Trump who was looking down on her, this was a very politically charged cover. The message of the cover was that Donald Trump was separating families at the border, but there was a problem. The little girl they used for the photo was never separated from her mother. Time Magazine was then self labeled "Fake News".

When I saw the Time special edition on "Founding Fathers", I was already prejudiced against the issue. Time had gone SJW, and the popular thing these days is to call the founding fathers terrorists. I expected the edition to maintain the current liberal talking points and historical revisions that are popular in liberal academia. My wife actually saw it first, and her reaction was "I wonder how bad they're going to paint the founders." Having a deep interest for US history, I said "Put it in the cart - I'll tear it apart (figuratively) later."

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The expectation was that the magazine would paint all of the founders with the same brush that is popular these days. They're racists, they're slave owners, they're terrorists, they killed the native Americans... I don't deny that maybe some of them were racists (Thomas Jefferson was very much against, and worked to end slavery), and some were definitely slave owners. I'm sure that the British considered them terrorists, and killing indigenous populations was how colonization was done (it's not like the native Americans weren't in a state of constant war anyway). These things are known, and at the time it was the way of the world.

This magazine surprised me. Not only is it well made, but it appears to have been well researched. I've read a few sections now, and it doesn't appear to have been written with any agenda other than to provide information and context - I don't see a bias in what I've read so far. Much of what I've read is information I already knew, but there is also new information (or, new to me). I'm actually relieved that I don't have to go through this magazine with a fine toothed comb to find the inaccuracies. I was expecting to write something very different.

It's sad that a once respected publication like Time has soiled its name to the point that the first reaction to an edition like this is to expect bias. There used to be a shame associated with inaccurate reporting and "fake news" - but it's become the standard operating procedure for many news outlets and publications. Maybe the red cover taught Time a lesson.

Happy 4th of July!