Since 2009, the Tea Party Movement has been harkening back to our revered Founding Fathers, holding them up as men who fought to create an evangelical Christian nation with a small central government. Meanwhile, liberals have been claiming that the Founding Fathers were a bunch of hemp-growing deists who were slave owners anyway so how can we trust their version of freedom? Eager to clear up the confusion, The Gabbler’s Jessica Pierce interviewed George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, hoping to find out what their clear, coherent vision for modern-day America was. Instead she found a group of squabbling, sometimes sleazy, slightly racist old white men who may not be as far from our modern politicians as we think.

The Gabbler: Good morning! I have to admit, I’m a little starstruck. Thank you so much for meeting with me, guys!

Thomas Jefferson: Guys? What is a “guy?” We are gentlemen.

Benjamin Franklin: Oh leave the girl alone, TJ. You are very welcome, Miss. But may I say, I’m slightly confused as to why a woman of your exquisite beauty must make her living interviewing old men? Can you not find someone to whisk you around Paris and shower you with gifts?

TG: Well that does sound nice, but actually, nowadays, most women work, exquisitely beautiful or not. In fact, we even get to vote!

Alexander Hamilton: Vote? Women voting? That’s absurd! How is a woman to vote correctly if she’s not educated on political matters? How is a woman to even educate herself on political matters while running a household and raising children?

TG: Eh, it’s not that hard. Also, the men kind of help us run the households, I’m told. I don’t know from actual experience, since I’m still in my fancy and free twenties, and I’m not settling down with a man until at least my thirties, so I just clean my apartment on my own still. Also, we kind of wait until we’re a bit older to have children.

George Washington: Older than 20 and having children? But what if you don’t even live that long?

TG: (Shrugs) I think not having babies makes it easier for women to live longer. Plus, a lot of us make it up into our 70s and 80s now. My grandpa’s 89! Thanks, science!

BF: You know, dear, I’m a scientist. And I can think of one way to put more life into you. (Wiggles eyebrows)

TG: Oh, Benjamin Franklin, gross. Not cool. Anyway, can we please move onto politics? So, the Tea Party Movement, a group of conservatives who support a small central government, states’ rights, and conservative Christian values, are justifying these ideas by claiming that this was the system originally intended by the Founding Fathers. Is that an accurate portrayal?

TJ: It is. The federal government cannot grow to be strong, lest we succumb to tyranny—

AH: Oh, Jefferson, get off the tyranny horse, no one here’s buying it. A strong federal government is necessary to preventing the government from succumbing to anarchy, that’s why the Articles of Confederation were such an abject failure. And if, in expanding federal power, we need to contract states’ rights, then so be it. Do you really think it would be better if we went back to the Article of Confederation’s loosely formed group of states where the states themselves decide whether or not to pay federal taxes? Need I remind you that New York consistently chose not to pay any taxes? What if all states made that decision? How would we fund our government?

TJ: Hamilton, how can you be so shortsighted? You with your big government, you’re practically asking our newly formed nation to fall into the ways of the bloated British political system, stomping around, taxing colonies, with a tyrannical gaze—

AH: Would you STOP with the tyranny?

TJ: Listen here, you little bastard, for us REAL Americans who didn’t pass our childhoods in the West Indies, lazing away the days as the illegitimate offspring of some whore—

AH: No one calls my mother a whore! I challenge you to a duel! And I’m not going to let this one end like my last one with Burr.

GW: All right men, calm down. No duels today. No duels ever. May I remind you that we are all long deceased, and so any duels between us would be pointless?

TG: Thank you, George. May I call you George?

GW: If you like, my dear.

TG: So it doesn’t sound as if you’re all in complete support of the Tea Party Movement. Some who oppose the Tea Party claim that the Founding Fathers were hemp-growing semi-atheists who believed that Jesus and his teachings do not belong in American government. Is that more accurate?

GW: Well we certainly grew hemp. A fine product. Is that no longer grown?

TG: Well, sometimes we smoke it. Did you guys smoke it?

BF: Of course. There’s nothing finer than a nice evening with some hemp and some beautiful women looking to impress a renowned scientist, inventor, philosopher, economist, entrepreneur, writer, and diplomat with their sexually adventurous spirits.

TG: So wait, you guys are potheads?

GW: I’m not sure what a pothead is, but it was very common to smoke hemp during our day.

TG: Ohmygod, now they HAVE to legalize it.

GW: Legalize it? Is it illegal to smoke hemp?

TJ: THIS is the tyranny of which I speak, dear Hamilton. Do you see? An overly large federal government, taking the hemp right out of the hands of free Americans! TYRANNY!

TG: Okay, calm down there. We’re working on it. Anyway, speaking of tyranny, you guys certainly owned a lot of slaves for people who dedicated their lives to fighting for the idea that all men are created equal.

TJ: Oh, slavery! My greatest struggle! It pained me my whole life, the moral dilemma I found myself in…fighting for freedom, but what of the Negros? No slavery could be worse than that moral struggle of my life.

TG: Really? So you don’t think that the millions of men and women who toiled in slavery, living in squalor, beaten, raped, separated from their families, you don’t think they maybe suffered more? Or maybe even, oh I don’t know, the hundreds of thousands of men who had to die in the Civil War to decide on the question of slavery, which you lot decided to just kind of leave open ended when you formed our country?

TJ: I’m not that bad! I outlawed the importation of slaves! And I had my dear Sally, my slave, my mistress, I loved her. So, you see, I loved a Negro, so I can’t be that bad.

TG: Good to know the “I’m not racist, I have a black friend” is a classic American tradition dating back to Jefferson himself.

BF: I told you all, free your slaves BEFORE you die, or it’s just going to look like you can’t commit. There’s no sacrifice in freeing slaves in your will. That’s such a half-hearted gesture.

AH: I personally find slavery ABHORRENT. That’s why I consistently advocated for ending slavery as we formed the government.

TJ: Oh be quiet, you bastard.

GW: Now, now, gentlemen. Why don’t we just calm down and maybe take this chance to ask this young lady how our darling United States is doing. It seems that they’ve managed to end slavery, allow women to vote, increase life spans, and allow women into the workforce. Things seem to be going very well!

TG: We’re doing all right. Right now we’re a little worried about our debt, but we’re really working on getting that under control.

AH: How in debt are you? As the first Secretary of the Treasury, I may be of some help in reducing the amount.

TG: As of this Sunday morning, we were about $58,221,158,000,000 in debt, rounding to the nearest million, of course.

AH: Oh my God, you’re all doomed.

GW: My darling country. It’s over.

TJ: I told you smaller government was better!

BF: At least we tried. On the bright side, being a Founding Father helps with the ladies.