REP. ALLEN WEST IS ANOTHER BAGGER IGNORAMUS

David Weigel reports that at a Tea Party Express townhall in DC, West said this:

The movement, he says, has clued in Americans to their intellectual history. "When you talk about Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Montesquieu, people know who you're talking about."

West is correct about Locke but the other 3 are not part of the intellectual background of our Founding Fathers. Hobbes in fact would oppose the Founders:

Although Hobbes offered some mild pragmatic grounds for preferring monarchy to other forms of government, his main concern was to argue that effective government—whatever its form—must have absolute authority. Its powers must be neither divided nor limited.