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Our Founding Fathers' Ideas

What should be done with the Founders' ideas?

  • We should build upon them, but not completely transform them.

    Votes: 42 72.4%

  • They need to be fundamentally transformed.

    Votes: 4 6.9%

  • They're dead. Who cares what they thought?

    Votes: 5 8.6%

  • Other (please elaborate)

    Votes: 7 12.1%
  • Total voters
    58
Mellie said:
I saw someone on here the other day say that the Founders are dead so who cares what they thought.

What are your opinions on the Founders' ideas and what we should be doing with them (if anything at all)?
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I think that the founders had a great vision for what this nation can and should be. As such, I believe that heeding their words is best for us. Do things change over time? Yes of course. But the fundamental ideals espoused by the founders is something worth keeping in tact and promoting. We may have to make adaptations for implementation of these ideals given the change in society and government. But the never ending fight for freedom and liberty is one worth fighting. Understanding what restrictions in government get you on this front is necessary. We can drive ourselves to a freer society by listening, understanding, and upholding the ideals of our founders.
 
SKYPE said:
i always thought the founding fathers ideas was to kill as many native americans as they could, and enslave as many africans as possible.
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Moderator's Warning:
This is trolling. Please do not do this.
 
Kandahar said:
It took 76 years for people to get around to amending the Constitution to eliminate slavery, and it took 131 years for them to give women the right to vote. Furthermore, when slavery was abolished, it was done so at the barrel of a gun...not because three-fourths of the states ACTUALLY wanted it abolished. That's a pretty major flaw, both in the original absence of those things and the amendment process itself. The amendment process is grossly insufficient for allowing necessary changes to the Constitution.
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Those kinds of issues don't exist anymore. No one is being enslaved and no one is being denied a vote on the basis of their race or gender.

If something is "necessary" for this country, then the Amendment process is a suitable means to effectuate that change.
 
LiberalAvenger said:
You prove the point about morons.:roll:
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He is correct.

The average American knows little about our own history and geography, national or world. It is a sad fact.
 
Blackdog said:
He is correct.

The average American knows little about our own history and geography, national or world. It is a sad fact.
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Provide proof for your assertion or is it just your opinion?
 
LiberalAvenger said:
Provide proof for your assertion or is it just your opinion?
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It is a sad fact...

Study: Americans Don't Know Much About History | NBC Los Angeles

A majority of Americans from all backgrounds struggled to come up with the correct answers in a quiz about American history by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI's basic 33 question test on civic literacy and 71% of them received an average score of 49% or an "F."

NPR: (Americans) Don't Know Much About History

For years, I used to joke to my family back in Canada about the number of times I had to tell American friends about their own country's history, or which senator was from what state or where such-and-such country was.

Now, a new survey by Newsweek shows my friends weren't an isolated group: when it comes to history, current events or culture, the U.S. is a "Dunce-Cap Nation."

http://www.psbresearch.com/files/American Revolution Center Poll Press Release v1.pdf

On to geography....

Americans shaky on geography - Education- msnbc.com

Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn’t find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.

CNN.com - Study: Geography Greek to young Americans - May 2, 2006

The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.

An example of how others see us...

How, if at all, is geography taught in schools in the USA? | Ask MetaFilter

It's a cliché about people from the USA that they are ignorant of geography. Not just world geography but their own as well. And I have to say that my experience ("You're from Australia? You speak English very well!" "You're British? I thought you were from England!") has confirmed the cliché somewhat.

So you can insult 1984 all you like. He knew what he was talking about, as do I.
 
megaprogman said:
Well, I applaud your ability to be a superman who is not influenced by these things. You are truly a giant among us mere mortals.

Really though, I guess until you come back down to reality, there is no point in debating.
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Don't blame me for the absurdity of your arguments.

If you think the Progressive Lady and the Geico Lizard have such a profound effect on American society so as to render the Founders irrelevant, I can only chuckle at you.
 
reefedjib said:
Blackdog, do you know of an online quiz for civics/history/geography? That would be a fun thread.
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It would be fun although most here being into politics etc would have no problem with it. It would not reflect the average American at all.

The majority of people here (moonbats aside of all political leanings) are fairly smart and up on those subjects.
 
Blackdog said:
It would be fun although most here being into politics etc would have no problem with it. It would not reflect the average American at all.

The majority of people here (moonbats aside of all political leanings) are fairly smart and up on those subjects.
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Yeah, I know I have learned a lot since being here.
 
Kandahar said:
Sure, just like every other generation does. What's your point?
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Most generations don't build our system of government and get our nation going. The Founding Fathers pledged their lives, property, and sacred honor to that cause.

Kandahar said:
We have gotten to where we are by reinterpreting the Constitution to better match the reality of today...not by agonizing over what the Founding Fathers would have thought about modern political issues.
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The Constitution and other founding documents are the foundation of our system of government. When you can reinterpret them to mean whatever they want without going through the amendment process, the documents become meaningless. If you want to understand the documents, it's best to go through what these men wrote. Simply dismissing them has a bunch of old fogies who simply don't apply to today ignore what they built.
 
1984 said:
Don't blame me for the absurdity of your arguments.

If you think the Progressive Lady and the Geico Lizard have such a profound effect on American society so as to render the Founders irrelevant, I can only chuckle at you.
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That's because you only choose to view my argument a certain way and invoke certain characters that allows you to marginalize it in your own mind.

However, if you choose not to admit that there is a real difference between viewpoints and a concerted effort to influence the public, than I can only chuckle at you as well.

:shrug:
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
Most generations don't build our system of government and get our nation going. The Founding Fathers pledged their lives, property, and sacred honor to that cause.
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Irrelevant. Their sacrifices don't give them any special insight into how the United States is best-governed in 2010. And using the phrase "sacred honor" is a perfect example of the ancestor-worship I've been talking about. These guys were POLITICIANS, not gods.

DrunkenAsparagus said:
The Constitution and other founding documents are the foundation of our system of government. When you can reinterpret them to mean whatever they want without going through the amendment process, the documents become meaningless.
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Well since we HAVE been reinterpreting them since before the ink was even dry on the Constitution, I guess it's meaningless. And if that's the case, then your statement that "they built a damn fine country" is factually incorrect, as their document was rendered meaningless from day one and therefore THEY didn't build anything. You can't have it both ways.

DrunkenAsparagus said:
If you want to understand the documents, it's best to go through what these men wrote. Simply dismissing them has a bunch of old fogies who simply don't apply to today ignore what they built.
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It's amusing to watch people contort themselves to try to determine how the Founding Fathers would have wanted the First Amendment to apply to the internet, or how they would have wanted the Fifth Amendment to apply to airport security, or how they would have felt about a Federal Reserve and a free-floating currency. The correct answer to all these questions: "Who the **** cares what they would have thought, as they couldn't even IMAGINE the situation?"
 
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megaprogman said:
That's because you only choose to view my argument a certain way that allows you to marginalize it in your own mind.

However, if you choose not to admit that there is a real difference between viewpoints and a concerted effort to influence the public, than I can only chuckle at you as well.

:shrug:
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There has always been a concerted effort to influence the public; you seem to think modern advertising and political propaganda does a better job of this than earlier political writers and philosophers; Karl Marx, VI Lenin, Thomas Paine, Socrates, etc.

Obviously, that is a silly position to hold, since the aforementioned people had profound and long-lasting impacts on society, both contemporary and historical; their influence far outweighs that of the following...

Cavemen.jpg


What's more, your argument is based upon factually incorrect assumptions about political propaganda (propaganda only a 100 years old). It's only reasonable to assume that the rest of your argument is equally flawed and thus illegitimate.
 
molten_dragon said:
The legal documents that they wrote (i.e. the constitution, bill of rights, declaration of independence, etc.) provide a framework for our government, but beyond that their opinions/thoughts/etc. are meaningless to the world of today. Once they no longer held official government positions (or at the very least once they were dead), their opinions on how the constitution/etc. should be interpreted ceased to be relevant.
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Would you then argue that any court decision based on the intentions and/or writings of the FF - such as, say, the Federalist papers - are then unsound?
 
1984 said:
There has always been a concerted effort to influence the public; you seem to think modern advertising and political propaganda does a better job of this than earlier political writers and philosophers; Karl Marx, VI Lenin, Thomas Paine, Socrates, etc.

Obviously, that is a silly position to hold, since the aforementioned people had profound and long-lasting impacts on society, both contemporary and historical; their influence far outweighs that of the following...

Cavemen.jpg


What's more, your argument is based upon factually incorrect assumptions about political propaganda (propaganda only a 100 years old). It's only reasonable to assume that the rest of your argument is equally flawed and thus illegitimate.
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Not particularly. Writers such as you mentioned tended to rely on logic and reasoning to present their arguments for their positions on various issues.

Advertising and propaganda, on the other hand, tend to try and connect their message to our emotional centers and tend to be more subtle. This is why I find it laughable that you do believe you are immune to this. Any comparison between a philosopher and an advertisement is not apples to apples.

You can keep trying to dismiss me if you wish though, I am sure it is easier for you to do so than participate in an honest discussion.
 
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1069 said:
That might've been me, except that I said they were misogynistic slave-owners (ie, products of their time) so who cares what they thought.
Which was a rhetorical question, by the way, because I know who cares: lots of people.
But I don't.
The constitution is of no more interest or relevance to me than the bible.
Ancient documents written by savages, who wouldn't have considered me- or the black family next door- human, or deserving of the same rights they so generously afforded themselves.
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Your black?
 
megaprogman said:
Not particularly. Writers such as you mentioned tended to rely on logic and reasoning to present their arguments for their positions on various issues.
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This is not entirely true. Lenin and Marx used blatantly emotional populist rhetoric to stir up the masses; Stalin did nothing but play on people's emotional sentiments about Soviet glory and prestige.

The Crusades weren't the product of "logic" and "reasoning", nor was the Spanish Inquisition or the French Revolution.

Advertising and propaganda, on the other hand, tend to try and connect their message to our emotional centers and tend to be more subtle. This is why I find it laughable that you do believe you are immune to this. Any comparison between a philosopher and an advertisement is not apples to apples.

You can keep trying to dismiss me if you wish though, I am sure it is easier for you to do so than participate in an honest discussion.
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The only one who is being dishonest is you, by suggesting that modern advertising techniques are somehow more nefarious and effective than the populist rhetoric of Mao, Stalin, Robespierre, the Inquisitors, or the Crusaders. You're trying to have your own version of history, and your basing it upon factually incorrect assumptions about political propaganda.
 
1984 said:
This is not entirely true. Lenin and Marx used blatantly emotional populist rhetoric to stir up the masses; Stalin did nothing but play on people's emotional sentiments about Soviet glory and prestige.

The Crusades weren't the product of "logic" and "reasoning", nor was the Spanish Inquisition or the French Revolution.

The only one who is being dishonest is you, by suggesting that modern advertising techniques are somehow more nefarious and effective than the populist rhetoric of Mao, Stalin, Robespierre, the Inquisitors, or the Crusaders. You're trying to have your own version of history, and your basing it upon factually incorrect assumptions about political propaganda.
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Now that I think about it, you are probably right.

However, I do take exception to being called dishonest. But I will accept your argument.
 
Kandahar said:
Irrelevant. Their sacrifices don't give them any special insight into how the United States is best-governed in 2010. And using the phrase "sacred honor" is a perfect example of the ancestor-worship I've been talking about. These guys were POLITICIANS, not gods.
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The point of that bit was to show the impact of their ideas. They did more than anyone else in our nation's history to build this country. You feel the impact of their ideas every day. Look around, their ideas turned out pretty well.

Kandahar said:
Well since we HAVE been reinterpreting them since before the ink was even dry on the Constitution, I guess it's meaningless. And if that's the case, then your statement that "they built a damn fine country" is factually incorrect, as their document was rendered meaningless from day one and therefore THEY didn't build anything. You can't have it both ways.
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Not following the law is irrelevant when arguing whether or not it should changed or ignored.

Kandahar said:
It's amusing to watch people contort themselves to try to determine how the Founding Fathers would have wanted the First Amendment to apply to the internet, or how they would have wanted the Fifth Amendment to apply to airport security, or how they would have felt about a Federal Reserve and a free-floating currency. The correct answer to all these questions: "Who the **** cares what they would have thought, as they couldn't even IMAGINE the situation?"
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No it isn't. How is the right of Joe to write dissenting, even inflammatory things in a newspaper have any greater weight than writing it on the Internet? How is Bill's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures different where he goes (btw, while privatizing much of airport security is another matter, when you get on an airplane, you make an agreement to be searched. They post that at the entrance. It's different than busting down down your door without a warrant), and how are Tim's property rights any less important to today? Saying that things are irrelevant because times have changed makes no sense. Yes, society has changed, that doesn't make previous ideas about government obsolete.
 
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megaprogman said:
Now that I think about it, you are probably right.

However, I do take exception to being called dishonest. But I will accept your argument.
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That you were able to accept the shortcoming of your position and rectify it accordingly absolves you of any dishonesty.

: D
 
1984 said:
That you were able to accept the shortcoming of your position and rectify it accordingly absolves you of any dishonesty.

: D
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I was never dishonest in the first place.
 
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