In a debate today, someone tried to settle a point by referencing what one of the founding fathers thought about it instead of arguing the point on its own merits.
Is there some sort of religion out there that I am not aware of that considers these guys the end all and be all of argumentation as opposed to a person using their own reasoning?
Founding Fatherism isn't a religion. Often times, citing the founders is useful in a debate because people are unaware of the context which led to certain aspects of the constitution. The cotnext helps describe intent. Many times it is impossible to progress in a debate without first laying the foundation from which a person is debating. With constitutional issues, one must often come at the issue using "straight from the horse's mouth" quotes.
For example, if one wants to argue that the intent of a certain clause in the constitution was to limit congress from a certain action and that interpretations have gone farther than what was intended, it is beneficial to use sources like the Federalist papers or writings from certain founders. It doesn't hurt to point out some things from the Atni-federalist papers either, because th edebate over certain clauses can provide excellent clues regarding the original intent.
Now, unless the debate is specifically about the intentions of a certain constitutional clause (Which can
usually be taken care of with a combination of quotes from the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers, but not always), these things would not be magical trump cards in a debate. One must use these as a foundation for an argument about the merits of their position and demerits of their opponent's position.
in essence, it is laying the groundwork for the ideological basis of a person's argument.
On a personal not, I typically won't use these types of arguments when debating with a Democrat liberal about the constitution because Democrat-style liberals tend to reject the "strict constructionist" philosophy.
In fact, many (if not most) of them openly embrace a more Hamiltonian (or Federalist party-style) loose interpretation of the constitution and a strong federal authority over the states.
Because of that, I will typically use this approach more often with Republicans, because they tend to claim that they support a "strict constructionist" philosophy.
Unfortunately, most of them also embrace (often unknowingly) a Hamiltonian-style loose interpretation of the constitution when they
argee with the authority such a loose interpretation will grant to the federal government. this often happens because the person in question rarely quetions the constitutionality (in a strict constructionist sense) of positions they actually agree with. Thus, when you are debating this kind of person, presenting evidence which proves their positions are using a "living document" type of interpretation will generally present a strong case for your position form their perspective. Granted, as with any political persuasion, there are people who are isues-oriented (people who hold a position on an issue and support those who agree with them on that issue) instead of principles-oriented (people who use an underlying philosophy to guide their positions on particular issues), and they will usually ignore the fact that they aren't adhering to their claimed philosophy (insted of admitting that they charry pick from multiple philosophies depending on how they feel about the particular issue).
As I said, though, such an approach is essentially pointless with a democrat. An arugment presented to a democrat (or democrat-type) must address the underlying principles that
democrats profess to embrace, such as social justice, instead of the underlying principles that republicans profess to embrace.
But when someone
is using the founding fathers in their argument, it usually lets you know about the underlying political philosophy they lean toward, at least for that particular issue. (In rarer cases, it might let you know the underlying philosophy of their opponent in the debate, but this is uncommon).
Essentially, when one is faced with these kinds of arguments in a debate, I think the best approach is to
utilize that philosophy in your rebuttal. Trying to rebutt while using a philosophy that the opther person rejects, though, is pointless. You won't convince them of your position, nor will you defeat their arguments, if you approach the argument form an entirely different argument than they are.
And vice versa.
They won't defeat your argument nor will they convince you of their position by utilizing a philosophy that you reject.
In these cases where neither is pparoching teh argumetn form teh otehr's philosophy, continuing the debate is pointless.
