Misrepresenting our Founding Fathers (to include other notable free-thinkers)

[Something completely different]

The founders of the U.S., especially the authors of its Constitution, were gentlemen of The Enlightenment. The U.S. Constitution is a brilliant document, an architecture for government that has stood up well due to its clarity and flexibility.

The enlightenment was not as enlightened as many people think.

Is it perfect? No. Is it mutable? Yes, and that is part of their genius.

That is pritty much the only good thing about the original document.

So I suggest you be not quite so dismissive of hearkening back to their writings and ideas.

But I will be, they may have known that the document will have to be changed, but most of their other ideas are completly rejectable.

And before you all start in, I'm a Canadian.

Does nationality play a role in this?

[popeyespappy]

I'll concede the point of bias, but I still think it's interesting. Chas has a good point, that, while it is a brilliant document, it is mutable. The men who wrote the thing aren't alive today, so if we feel the need to change anything, that is completely up to us.

We have the ability to change the constitution should we so desire. Having said that I am a firm believer in originalism during constitutional interpretation. We shouldn't try to ascribe new meaning to the document based on popular opinion. Rather if we don't like something that is in it we should change it.

[Chas]

The founders of the U.S., especially the authors of its Constitution, were gentlemen of The Enlightenment. The U.S. Constitution is a brilliant document, an architecture for government that has stood up well due to its clarity and flexibility.

The enlightenment was not as enlightened as many people think.

Is it perfect? No. Is it mutable? Yes, and that is part of their genius.

That is pritty much the only good thing about the original document.

Yeah, I guess individual rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, enumerated powers, clear succession, etc. are nothing much.

So I suggest you be not quite so dismissive of hearkening back to their writings and ideas.

But I will be, they may have known that the document will have to be changed, but most of their other ideas are completly rejectable.

See above. You just sound ignorant. Or rigidly anti-American.

And before you all start in, I'm a Canadian.

Does nationality play a role in this?

No, I wanted to avoid the almost inevitable piling on from that anti-American faction.

[Something completely different]

No, I wanted to avoid the almost inevitable piling on from that anti-American faction.

I am certainly not anti American. It is infact my opinion that it was the American revolution which lit the spark for all the revolutions which would occure in Europe during the 19th century.

Just look at the Flag of the Irish Republicans during the 19th century:



Or one of the flags raised in the failed 1848 German revolution:



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.

[Minimalist]

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.

[Michael Schubert]

According to this article, Jefferson only toted a gun around on his walks to keep a slave revolution from breaking out.

That's basically why Virginia's delegates ratified the 2nd Amendment.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the...ve-slavery

[Chas]

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.

---

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.

[Doubting Thomas]

Why not? Jefferson is often quoted during debates over the first amendment. He is after all the person credited with the phrase "building a wall of separation between Church & State." If his opinion of the meaning of the first amendment is relevant why would his opinion of the second amendment be any less so?

Usually whenever Jefferson is brought up in regards to the wall of separation, it's in response to Christian nationalist claims that the founding fathers did or wanted to establish the United States as a Christian nation, or to refute claims that there is no wall of separation between church and state in the First Amendment, something the Supreme Court has even referenced Jefferson's writings to rule in favor of.

[Minimalist]

You are looking at it through the lens of a modern zeitgeist. It was, for its time, revolutionary.

History frequently requires a long gestation period to work itself out. By definition we study history in retrospect.

[downbeatplumb]

Why does the USA obsess with the past this way? It would be like a Brit saying Xmas is anti-british because parliament banned it under Cromwell.
WTF does it matter NOW!