Benjamin Franklin: Difference between revisions

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* [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]]:

** Franklin was the one who said "The Lord helps those who help themselves." It is not found in the Bible anywhere.

** Franklin never said "God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy",<ref>He did say "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy."</ref> "Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging the losers",<ref>That's from the play ''[[1776]]''.</ref> or "A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."<ref>That's by Gary Strand, posted to the Usenet group sci.environment on 23 April 1990. Besides, the word "lunch" didn't exist in English until the 1820s, three decades after Franklin's death.</ref>

** Franklin never said "God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy",<ref>He did say "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy."</ref> "Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging the losers",<ref>That's from the play ''[[1776 (musical)|1776]]''.</ref> or "A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."<ref>That's by Gary Strand, posted to the Usenet group sci.environment on 23 April 1990. Besides, the word "lunch" didn't exist in English until the 1820s, three decades after Franklin's death.</ref>

* [[Big Fun]]: Ben's weight is part of what made him so endearing then and keeps him endearing now. One story goes that during a trip to Paris, a woman who knew him greeted him by pinching his belly and jokingly asking him what he would think if he saw all that weight on a woman. Ben replied, "madam, twenty minutes ago this weight ''was'' on a woman!"

* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]: Franklin was a [[Dirty Old Man]] and liked taking naps during meetings. During his time in France he attended numerous parties and often came in late to work, which earned him the resentment of his colleague [[John Adams]]. However, this allowed him to create the informal connections that helped secure French support for the [[American Revolution]].

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** To be fair, this was almost certainly averted in his youth, where he was just as much of a Casanova. He was apparently handsome and lifted weights to improve both his strength (which he needed as a printer's apprentice and then a printer--cases of lead type are ''heavy'') and appearance (makes sense, given his whole self-improvement schtick). Presumably, he gained enough experience with the ladies that he no longer needed to rely on his looks.

* [[Likes Older Women]]: Preferred older women for their intelligence, often independent means, and '''*ahem* ''' "experience".

* [[Massive-Numbered Siblings]]: He was the ~~15th~~ of his father's 17 children.<ref>Franklin's father Josiah had two wives, Anne Child and Abiah Folger. He had seven children with Anne and ten with Abiah, of whom Benjamin was the eighth; he was also Josiah's tenth and final son.</ref>

* [[Massive-Numbered Siblings]]: He was the fifteenth of his father's seventeen children.<ref>Franklin's father Josiah had two wives, Anne Child and Abiah Folger. He had seven children with Anne and ten with Abiah, of whom Benjamin was the eighth; he was also Josiah's tenth and final son.</ref>

* [[Memetic Sex God]]: Any discussion of Franklin which is any way humorous will mention how much he liked the ladies. And how much they liked him.

* [[Older Than They Think]]: He was advocating an American confederation decades before the American Revolution, and also coined the snake as the symbol of the colonies (as later used in 'Don't Tread on Me') with his "Unite or Die!" political cartoon in the Seven Years' War.