As others have said, the founding fathers by the standards of their day were pretty liberal. This is, however, pretty meaningless in determining things as we do not judge by their moral standards. Just seeking human progress does not make one a liberal, after all, and the fact that they sought a significant change from the previous system of government does not necessarily follow that would want a significant progressive change from the current. Judging by our standards, I'd frankly declare them right-wingers, especially given that they did have a major interest in promulgating the social hierarchy and a capitalist system. I frankly think a better question for this board ( and one that's more interesting, because American history is so incredibly boring) is whether the French revolutionaries were liberal.
Liberal and conservative are such relative terms; for example, as a 60's "liberal" we demanded more freedom and felt oppressed by the "government." The liberals of today are pro-government, pro intervention and control. Go figure. As to the Founders, they were likely some mixture of different perspectives, but I think they would be horrified by the degree the government has intruded into the lives of individual citizens, especially in regard to taxes. As an independent, I tend libertarian. I want less government, more freedom, both socially, politically, and financially. In a way, I have never changed, society has.
They are right wingers by today's standard, but they are the socialists and communist of their time. They are taking away rights of the Kings and Nobels and want equality for most people in the country (at least in theory).
1. Some were. The power of the federal government was an issue then just like now, with Jefferson and others wanting a weak central government and weak executive, and guys like Hamilton trying to concentrate power in the federal government and in the presidency. In the context of the time, Jefferson was the more liberal, but you see a lot of Jefferson in current Republican ideals on states' rights. Does that make Republicans liberal? 2. In that vein, I think the liberal/conservative paradigm is a complete farce. Current conservative ideals that put such a heavy emphasis on market forces and eliminate government intervention are not conservative in the sense of traditional. If it wasn't for the correlation with conservative social mores, I think we'd be calling that ideology progressive. 3. I've mentioned it here before, but I had a history professor who proposed a definition that I think has a lot of wisdom. He was thinking about liberal/conservative over time and across cultures, and his definition is this: philosophies that assume people are fundamentally evil are conservative, and ones that assume people are fundamentally good are liberal. The result in general is that conservative ideologies focus on stopping people from doing evil and liberal ones focus on empowering people to do good. In that mode of thinking, the founding fathers would mostly be liberal, but not too liberal -- they were still a bit afraid that too much democracy would mean their own place of privilege would be overturned by those who might do evil.
I'd argue that calling them "socialists and communists of their time" is way, way too extreme given that they did NOT want to fundamentally revamp everything in American society. Robespierre and Marat were the real examples of extremist progressives of their age. Furthermore, I found such an argument irrelevant to the OP. thegary seems to be making some argument that because the Founding Fathers were liberals, that it follows that they would naturally remain so in the present even though our society is drastically different. I don't buy it. Of course, I think we venerate them too heavily anyways.
They also owned slaves and did not allow women to vote. Different times. Why can't people realize this?
Yeah and we utilize child labor and unethical sweatshops and don't allow gays to marry. (Progressives in this day are slowly changing this.) I agree with you. Every era in time is going to have some controversial societal norms that will be no-brainers (for its invalidity or w/e) in the distant future.
Classical liberals, yes. they believed in personal liberty, but also personal responsibility. they would be appalled by the Obama/Occupy liberals.
Does it matter? They were nigh cavemen. They believed in equal rights for all men but all men included neither blacks (who were 3/5 of a man according to them and slaves to boot) nor women. So why do we confer such authority to them? Is that the good old days to which so many wish to return? Are these the idols we ought to worship? (I'm considerably more fond of Lincoln myself, and that preference has very little to do with slavery or even his presidency, but I digress.) Why do we confer such authority to such naifs? And while we're on the subject, um, The Bible?
As far as all racism and bigotry go they were societal norms. I don't blame anyone of that time for thinking the way that they did. Much as how there are controversial ideologies in our lifestyles too. Also sexism and racism are still present so more or less they are not so far removed from us.
Our ancestral revolutionaries? Who risked their lives and fortunes to create this country? I would certainly say they were liberal for their day.
love these clutchfan liberals who define liberalism as 'wanting to change things' or 'believing in radical ideas'. The Founding Fathers abhorred regulation and large government, two pillars of liberalism.
