“General, when is it appropriate to resort to arms to fight for our liberty?” asked a tourist on a recent weekday during “A Conversation with George Washington,” a hugely popular dialogue between actor and audience in the shaded backyard of Charlton’s Coffeehouse.

Standing on a simple wooden stage before a crowd of about 100, the man portraying Washington replied: “Only when all peaceful remedies have been exhausted. Or if we are forced to do so in our own self-defense.”

The tourist, a self-described conservative activist named Ismael Nieves from Elmer, N.J., nodded thoughtfully. Afterward, he said this was his fifth visit to Colonial Williamsburg.

“We live in a very dangerous time,” Nieves said. “People are looking for leadership, looking for what to do. They’re looking to Washington, Jefferson, Madison.”

Except your not “looking to Washington, Jefferson, Madison” at all. You’re hassling reenactment actors, who, while likely well-versed in the people they are playing, are not actually founding fathers. If one wants to look to the founding fathers for answers, might I suggest visiting a library and reading some of the many great words they wrote. Our founding fathers only exist as words, and that’s how one can get to know them. Some people might even be surprised to discover the founding fathers had ideas vastly different from the way they are portrayed in modern times, if they bothered to actually study the many, MANY things they wrote down.

But that would require doing more than going to Colonial Williamsburg and making an ass of oneself by acting as though actors are channeling the minds of people long dead. They’re actors, people. ACTORS.