Agree to disagree. I don't know about Obama, but it seems like they'd approve of Occupy, just like Jesus would approve of "socialism."
And we have amended them as new thinking has come to the fore (for example, emancipation or suffrage), so why are they the ones we want to look to? When tea partiers and the like insist we are betraying the principles of our founding fathers (which we are categorically not and which surprisingly only became a concern when a black Democrat took office), they don't even know what they mean. My point is we ought not to deify without question men or minds that died hundreds of years ago, no matter how great those minds were nor how important their ideas were in the invention of the incredible idea of America. They also predicated the amazing idea of America on a very recent genocide, by the hands of their predecessors, and one which they did not oppose or criticize in any way. They did not know what we know now and they did not believe things that we now, as a people, fundamentally do believe. And many of those beliefs are in fact more fundamental than any others: what is meant by equality for example. I mean, of course the founding fathers were the liberals of their day (by the contemporary definition of liberal) but, again, so what? We are better instructed, having assimilated the ideas and inspiration and history of our founding fathers and all that has come after them, by the bright minds of our day than ones from a "simpler" (read: less aware, informed, compassionate or knowledgable) time.
There would be no Obama because his father would have been lynched for looking at his mother, likely before consummation, by those same founding fathers and/or their contemporaries. And not a one white person would blink at it. Otherwise, of course I agree completely about the founding fathers and Occupy. Occupy having ever so much more in common with the Boston Tea Party, virtually everything in fact, than those silly old white people telling the president to keep his socialist hands off their Medicare. And Jesus and socialism is a no-brainer. If there were a hell and if Jesus had a hand in deciding fates in 'the life to come,' the Randians and Libertarians would be first on his *****list.
Yeah man, every member of the American Revolution and the founding of our country never did stupid s**t. And we could document it and pass that breaking news around just as easily back then as we do now. I admit defeat. Your logic is completely infallible and I am intellectually incapable of retorting to such high-level responses.
no. it's not the means, but the ends that are at issue. the things OWS is protesting for were abhorrent to the founding fathers.
Here's some Jefferson while we waste away a Friday afternoon... Then = liberal Today = Liberal Then = patrimonial Today = Conservative Then = liberal Today = Class warfare Liberal Then = common sense Today = really racist Then = liberal Today = elitist Then = prescient Today = common sense Then = politician Today = politician Then = liberal Today = tree hugger Then = liberal Today = Tax and spend Liberal Then = Deist Today = Muslim atheist It is ridiculous to try to pigeonhole any of the founders into today's version of Liberal or Conservative. That said, within the context of their time and their historical experiences and influences, it is absolutely OK to look to them for insight into the eternal problems of society, economy, and government.
I find it difficult to make that argument. Your premise is probably that the founding fathers were against government intrusion or something of the like, right? It's hard to correlate that to being against a group fighting against government/economic corruption. Occupy has a lot of messages (one drawback to the whole movement), but it's hard for me to envision the founding fathers being for money in politics (to the degree it is today) or for all the horrible things that the financial industry does (speculation, dumping crappy assets on people, etc.). Those are things Occupy is against and I'd say the founding fathers would be too (debateable, I admit; again, agree to disagree)... but at the time, such problems were nowhere near the radar and not even imaginable. But what I can say beyond reasonable doubt is that they'd approve of the method of protest Occupy has taken. They would do similar tactics back then, too. This method is under attack as well.
it is ridiculous to pidgeonhole today's "liberal" or "conservative," yet we do it fervently and it is holding this country back.
They were neither liberal nor conservative by the standards we have today; because not a single one of the issues that formed contemporary ideologies existed then.
At the time, the Royalist were the conservatives and the Founding Fathers were the liberals... in that they were for a progressive change of the status quo.
Rasmussen polls from 1775 showed a 49% approval rating for King George III. Once again the radical minority led us into an upheaval of a stable society.
Well some of the issues existed but in general I agree that how we currently think of as "Liberal" or "Conservative" don't apply to the Founding Fathers. Consider that at the time of the founding of the US the terms Right Wing and Left Wing didn't exist until about 20 years later and that was from the First French Republic. Edmund Burke who is considered the founder of Conservatism was still formulating his ideas. A better term to describe the Founders would be "Progressive" as they clearly believed that society needed to progress beyond a feudal monarchy to one that was run on a rational basis.
I don't know whether you intend a serious discussion but to use your post as a jumping off point I think some of the Founding fathers would agree with OWS. I imagine Jefferson would strongly support OWS criticism of the power that corporations wield. Washington would likely support the anti-war stance of OWS as he warned in his farewell speech about the danger of foreign entanglements. There would be things that the Founding Fathers would support among OWS and things they wouldn't agree to but there is no way we can determine whether they would blanketly agree or disagree with OWS.
A lot of these discussions remind me of an SNL skit when people build a time machine to bring Washington to the present to get his opinions on current issues. He immediately freaks out and can't deal with the future world. That is most likely what would happen if we actually could get the founders opinions.
It was a joking comment, so I will not give you any quotes, but I think there is some truth to it. Of course, the various founding fathers did not all think alike and may be in different parties if they were alive today. However, we are lucky they were able to compromise and reach a resolution. Of course, one of those compromises (slavery) was a mistake. The comment on taxation does not mean they opposed taxation: they wanted proper representation to go with the taxation. So while taxation was mentioned at the time of the Boston Tea Party, representation was the real issue. I do not think the macro-economic effects of taxation were heavily discussed. They also clearly wanted a limited, decentralized federal government. However, the first attempt failed and then went back to the drawing board. They realized that there was a need for some federal government strength. Some of the founding fathers would probably be happy with how the federal government has grown in strength over time, while others may be appalled.
they know exactly what they mean. The FF endowed us with a set of first principles, foremost among them that all men are created equal. true, their definition of "man" differed from ours, and as a society we have adapted, and amended the constitution along the way, but the principle remains. another is that government is granted powers by the people, not the other way around- the people have inalienable rights that the government cannot infringe upon. among these is liberty, and it's liberty in its purest for that's at stake in the argument about the ACA. The idea that the federal government can compel private citizens to engage in a private contract with a private entity, and exact penalties for failing to do so is unprecedented in american history. if found constitutional, there is quite literally nothing the government cannot force the citizenry to do. would ye be a slave? as a country we must learn to separate the ends of ACA, laudable though some of them may be, from the means through which it has been enacted, no less an overreach than the actions of George III. This is what the TP is protesting, and I believe the FF would have agreed with them. The OWS crowd, on the other hand, wants more government control, and financial support, and would ultimately be complicit in their own enslavement.
