Sure, confirmation bias is a hard road to get off. When it comes down to it, I just try to resist holding up the founders as particularly useful participants in current discussion. They were smart, they are interesting to look at, but ultimately they are individually irrelevant and one can find a quote to support any position especially when one simply finds the quotes through Bartlett's rather than actual familiarity with what they had to say.
Doesn't make it any less annoying to deal with.
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