Comic: It's America's Founding Grandfather, John Locke

Decades after his death, the English philosopher's ideas helped shape the American republic.

Peter Bagge | From the February 2025 issue

A comic strip about John Locke | Illustration: Peter Bagge — (Illustration: Peter Bagge)

Start your day with Reason. Get a daily brief of the most important stories and trends every weekday morning when you subscribe to Reason Roundup.

NEXT: Cutting Off Trade Will Make the U.S. Poorer and China More Totalitarian

Hide Comments (11)

Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.

Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day) 4 months ago

Religious tollarance is all fun and games until the muzzies show up and start raping and killing
1. Mother's Lament (Salt farmer) 4 months ago
  
  Neither Locke nor the founding fathers could have possibly conceived of a suicidal ruling class like the modern western elite or their actions. Who knew that people could take virtue and turn it into a pathology or make empathy toxic and harmful.
  1. Earth-based Human Skeptic 4 months ago
    
    I bet they were smart and experienced enough to know about nihilistic and otherwise delusional groups of people. In fact I bet they considered some 18th century US Tories to have those traits. What might surprise them is the number of regular people who tolerate a self- and other-hating elite class.
  2. Stephen Lathrop 4 months ago
    
    Nonsense. Locke not only conceived of such a class, he approved of it, and became a member in good standing. Locke's acolytes need to better get to know their man.
    
    Locke invested in the slave trade. He wrote and helped impose an aristocratic charter for South Carolina, to sanctify slavery. That became the basis to justify chattel slavery across the American Deep South. Locke even proposed what amounted to a scheme of slavery for the British poor—a program of involuntary indentures which would force poor people into perpetual servitude to their betters.
    
    So by what transformation did the real Locke get atop his honored plinth in American public regard? Simple. The anti-federalists took him up, usually without naming him specifically, and spouted as paeans to liberty language which had been intended only to justify and guard the liberty of an aristocratic class—the anti-federalists themselves.
    
    Following America's Civil War, when a historical source was required to dignify the Lost Cause, Locke's name started to get added, by presumption, to a bunch of previously out-of-context quotes. From there it was but a short hop to the grade school curriculum, where accurate history is never intended.
    
    So here we are, well into the 21st century, celebrating one of the 17th century's leading exponents of slavery, as the fount of American liberty. Which, in a twisted sort of way, turns out to be surprisingly accurate American history.
2. Vernon Depner 4 months ago
  
  They arguably are not a religion, at least as Western people understand the concept.
3. SQRLSY 4 months ago
  
  "Religious tollarance is all fun and games until the muzzies show up and start raping and killing."
  
  Tollarance... Does Imbecile mean "Trollarance" such ass twat Imbecile engages in? Also, muzzies... Is shit the NEW word for Trumpanzees Gone Apeshit, hanging Mike Pence and executing General Milley without a trial and raping Spermy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll?
Mother's Lament (Salt farmer) 4 months ago

I always have really enjoyed these Bagge cartoons. They often put a spin on their lives that I never considered before.
LIBtranslator 4 months ago

Mohammedans had the advantage of six extra centuries of Dark Ages before doubting THEIR superstition ALSO became grounds for murder and genocide. Yet they are the same thing. Tricky soured everyone on Comstock chain-gangs and shoot-first prohibitionism. So Reagan's gang had to appeal to SOMEONE for some embassy-arson in Pakistan, shrine-shootings in Mecca and hostage-taking in Iran to get the George Wallace Faithful to throw Jimmeh and the Smothers Brothers under the bus.
AT 4 months ago

We should be ruled by laws, and not by men.

Unless of course we don't like those laws. Then they should be broken with impunity and foul cried any time consequences are imposed.

Right druggies?
1. BigT 4 months ago
  
  The law is a ass.
  -Charles Dickens
Randy Sax 4 months ago

A bunch of new philosophers
One of whom was Locke
Said you can't trust your mind
But you senses and your cock
Know reality
So don't think too much you little bitch
The philosophers who said this are called empiricists

Please log in to post comments

Comic: It's America's Founding Grandfather, John Locke

Decades after his death, the English philosopher's ideas helped shape the American republic.

Latest

Alton Brown on Cultural Appropriation, Ozempic, and the USDA

James Comey's Deleted '86 47' Instagram Post Is Obviously Protected by the First Amendment

New Montana Law Blocks the State From Buying Private Data To Skirt the Fourth Amendment

Trump's Tariffs Are Sapping Small Business Optimism

Andor Is a Star Wars Show About the Brutality of Bureaucracy

Recommended

Login Form