RE: Misrepresenting our Founding Fathers (to include other notable free-thinkers)
July 24, 2013 at 11:11 am
(This post was last modified: July 24, 2013 at 11:22 am by Chas.)
(July 24, 2013 at 12:55 am)The Germans are coming Wrote: I am certainly not someone who doubts the historic significants of the American revolution and I am certainly not anti american.
I simply believe that political nostalgia and the invoking of a glorious mystified past is something very dangerous and damaging for a democratic society - everywhere in this world.
I agree with you on that, but that was not what you said in your previous post.
(July 24, 2013 at 2:50 am)Minimalist Wrote: Then it is probably important to remember EXACTLY what it was that the constitution established when it was written.
A white, male, paradise which disenfranchised women, blacks, and Indians, and which allowed slavery. Senators were appointed. The principal of court review of the constitutionality of laws had not been established and there was no bill of rights. What tea bagging shitheads call, "the good old days!"
It has been improved over the centuries but one could make the argument that the leadership of the rebels, generally wealthy merchants and planters, were merely seeking to replace the British aristocracy with themselves.
You are looking at it through the lens of a modern zeitgeist. It was, for its time, revolutionary. It established the people as the source and authority of government. The authors and founders were products of their time, with the worldviews and prejudices that were of that time. They weren't saints.
In convention, individual rights were discussed. They were left out primarily as an expedient. The Bill of Rights followed pretty directly.
As the zeitgeist has changed, so have the laws and the Constitution.
Article II, Section 2 states, in part: " In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
This establishes the authority of SCOTUS over the constitutionality of laws.
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
Science is not a subject, but a method.