Franklin: our ingenious, sometimes-vegetarian, whore-lovin' forefather

Could America have dreamed up a better patron saint than Ben Franklin? A journalist, an inventor, a politician, a moralist, a diplomat. A dabbler in vegetarianism and atheism. A champion of ingenuity, industriousness, sobriety and the dispersion of knowledge.

And yet truly decent-seeming and modest. He valued niceness, good conversation, and a non-confrontational approach to all dealings in life.

How much of what we value as an American character comes straight from this man?

He quotes Pope in his autobiography, and tried to follow his advice throughout his life:

Men should be taught as if you taught them not
And things unknown proposed as things forgot

Writing about himself, he comes across as honest, admitting his vanity, his difficulty living up to his own (and oft-quoted) list of virtues, and his visits with whores in the days before his marriage.

"I was almost ready to give up the attempt," he says of trying to follow his own precept for order.

One idea in particular jumped out at me while reading Franklin: the idea that his virtues could form a kind of extra-religious common ground -- something that everyone could agree on. Now, as much as ever, I think we're in need of things to agree on, and Franklin offers a fascinating starting point.