• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

**** the Founding Fathers

Hawkeye10 said:
I was hearing sometime back from someone who is in a position to know that if one today walks into a so-called elite or upper crust university they would be hard pressed to find any book or writings in a curriculum that is older than 30 years.

Everyone assumes, without examination, that old equals useless in the modern world.

The Modern Morons stopped listening, mostly pursue fantasy instead.
Click to expand...

Well, I, too, am in a position to know, and I can tell you this is horse-pucky. Elite universities still teach Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Ficino, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Smith, etc--which fact anyone can verify by going to the relevant department web pages and looking at current class schedules. Philosophy, history, humanities, and literature departments most usually make that information available to the public. For example, the Harvard Department of Philosophy this semester is teaching classes in early modern philosophy (which typically will cover the major ideas of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Arnauld, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant), Plato, early Chinese philosophy (typically covering Laozi, Juangzi, Mozi, Kungzi, Mengzi, Huinzi), Marx and Hegel, Wittgenstein, etc. Similarly, the University of Chicago English Literature department is currently teaching classes including texts by authors such as Choderlos de Laclos, Jane Austen, Gustave Flaubert, the Medieval Grail Romances, John Donne, Daniel Defoe, etc.

Most universities, the elite ones in particular, still require all undergrads to go through basic humanities, philosophy, and history courses covering the major works of the Western tradition.
 
Rexedgar said:
If they were so smart, how come they didn’t foresee where the US finds itself today?


Tired of hearing about the FF and what they meant........
Click to expand...

Because they're not fortune tellers? No one is going to have that level of foresight when developing a system of governance. They did fear political parties and their ability to undo everything, so in that sense they were on the money.
 
Last edited:
Felis Leo said:
A country at peace where most conflict consists of us yelling at each other and screaming at the moon instead of murdering each other on streets and battlefields?

A booming economy as the result of incredible technology with affordable high standards of living for the vast majority of citizens?

A country in which slavery was abolished and the descendants of slaves actually have a chance to achieve the highest levels of wealth and government office?

Yeah. They really screwed the pooch and set us down the wrong path, Rexedgar. Better to have remained a country Balkanized among the English, French and Spanish Empires.
Click to expand...


I think Ben was prophetic in his “if you can keep it” statement.
 
ashurbanipal said:
Well, I, too, am in a position to know, and I can tell you this is horse-pucky. Elite universities still teach Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Ficino, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Smith, etc--which fact anyone can verify by going to the relevant department web pages and looking at current class schedules. Philosophy, history, humanities, and literature departments most usually make that information available to the public. For example, the Harvard Department of Philosophy this semester is teaching classes in early modern philosophy (which typically will cover the major ideas of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Arnauld, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant), Plato, early Chinese philosophy (typically covering Laozi, Juangzi, Mozi, Kungzi, Mengzi, Huinzi), Marx and Hegel, Wittgenstein, etc. Similarly, the University of Chicago English Literature department is currently teaching classes including texts by authors such as Choderlos de Laclos, Jane Austen, Gustave Flaubert, the Medieval Grail Romances, John Donne, Daniel Defoe, etc.

Most universities, the elite ones in particular, still require all undergrads to go through basic humanities, philosophy, and history courses covering the major works of the Western tradition.
Click to expand...

I have learned by now to deeply discount your assertions.

Because I am not a moron.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I have learned by now to deeply discount your assertions.

Because I am not a moron.
Click to expand...

No need to form any opinions--I've told you where to go to find out the truth, and you can do so with the click of a mouse. Crucially, so can others reading this exchange (and given that the information is in black-and-white at the links below, who do you think any reasonable person is going to believe, hmmm?). You forgot the first principle of telling a lie: whatever you're going to lie about, make sure it's not so easy to discover the truth. Here's the Harvard link:

Courses | Department of Philosophy

Here's the one for the University of Chicago:

Courses | Department of English Language and Literature

Here are a few more, just chosen at random:

Humanistic Studies | Princeton University

Current Courses | Philosophy

https://history.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/12/Spring-2020-History-Courses-12.12.19.pdf


 
Rexedgar said:
We’re getting closer, day by day.........
Click to expand...

I agree, the more and more people who get into our country illegally the more we will become like those countries they come from.
 
Rexedgar said:
If they were so smart, how come they didn’t foresee where the US finds itself today?


Tired of hearing about the FF and what they meant........
Click to expand...


They thought that the Electoral College would do its job and save us from where we find ourselves today.
 
Rexedgar said:
If they were so smart, how come they didn’t foresee where the US finds itself today?


Tired of hearing about the FF and what they meant........
Click to expand...

The founders were small world, little America men.

They wrote a constitution that wouldn't be more unfit for purpose had the Romans written it.


It is time to scrap the obsolete 18th century constitution and write one for the 21st century.
 
Rich2018 said:
The founders were small world, little America men.

They wrote a constitution that wouldn't be more unfit for purpose had the Romans written it.


It is time to scrap the obsolete 18th century constitution and write one for the 21st century.
Click to expand...

I only wish we could trust our leaders to write a new constitution that fixes some of the flaws in the original but I think we would never allow any group to do it. Sandy Levinson has written about this in several books. Balkin too. If a convention were to occur today, you would have scholars like them sitting next to morons like Mark Levin, it would be a disaster.
 
Rogue Valley said:
There was no way to cover every contingency.

The FF never envisioned someone as corrupt as Donald Trump as president nor a Senate as ethically emasculated as the GOP majority 116th.
Click to expand...

Uh....yeah they did.


Learn to history, lol.
 
Vadinho said:
I only wish we could trust our leaders to write a new constitution that fixes some of the flaws in the original but I think we would never allow any group to do it. Sandy Levinson has written about this in several books. Balkin too. If a convention were to occur today, you would have scholars like them sitting next to morons like Mark Levin, it would be a disaster.
Click to expand...

We could get all the groups concerned to write their own constitutions, then vote for the one we like the most.

I favor a move towards parliamentary government.

Don't treat the judiciary as part of the government and divorce the offices of head of state and head of the government.
 
Wonder if they would have cared to see senators lose a vote on the articles of impeachment to senators who represent 19 million less people than they do.
 
Rogue Valley said:
There was no way to cover every contingency.

The FF never envisioned someone as corrupt as Donald Trump as president nor a Senate as ethically emasculated as the GOP majority 116th.
Click to expand...

Nah they did. They did the best they could. But there is really only so much you can do against someone so shameless and with such temerity, and with such a a large, crazed pitchfork-armed mob behind him.

"When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the ability of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanor—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'"
-Alexander Hamilton
 
j brown's body said:
Wonder if they would have cared to see senators lose a vote on the articles of impeachment to senators who represent 19 million less people than they do.
Click to expand...

The whole idea of a Senate is a stupid idea.

States with more people should have more senators....let's just scrap the Senate.
 
Rich2018 said:
We could get all the groups concerned to write their own constitutions, then vote for the one we like the most.

I favor a move towards parliamentary government.

Don't treat the judiciary as part of the government and divorce the offices of head of state and head of the government.
Click to expand...

The people of America voted for Donald Trump by the tens of millions. I trust them to vote on a new constitution about as much as I trust Trump to tell the truth. No, this is a game for the experts. Our FFs were all learned men steeped in a classical education, they were not morons. We have people like that now but they would never be given the power to write a new constitution given the politics of today.
 
Rexedgar said:
If they were so smart, how come they didn’t foresee where the US finds itself today?


Tired of hearing about the FF and what they meant........
Click to expand...

The FF knew that governments become corrupt with time, so they put a convention clause in Article V to provide for a peaceable reformation of the status quo.

Over the years that knowledge has been omitted from study so that today people like you post stupid **** like this.

More Americans are calling for the Article V Convention in order to formally propose the solutions to today's problems. But people like you, I'll assume based on the OP, couldn't care less.
 
JD1965 said:
The FF knew that governments become corrupt with time, so they put a convention clause in Article V to provide for a peaceable reformation of the status quo.

Over the years that knowledge has been omitted from study so that today people like you post stupid **** like this.

More Americans are calling for the Article V Convention in order to formally propose the solutions to today's problems. But people like you, I'll assume based on the OP, couldn't care less.
Click to expand...

You seem nice!
 
Rexedgar said:
If they were so smart, how come they didn’t foresee where the US finds itself today?


Tired of hearing about the FF and what they meant........
Click to expand...

They did

You see, they knew it all depended on us(Our citizenry)

We failed them

The constitution is ONLY as good as the people are(Hint)
 
AlphaOmega said:
Except the thread title and content proves you wrong. Stop blubbering and accept Trump as your president.
Click to expand...

Except the thread title and content proves you wrong
Click to expand...

You don't know it but you're reflecting the thread title


Stop blubbering and accept Trump as your president
Click to expand...
.

Kinda like our ancient Americans excepted King George?(LOL)

Listen, as long as I'm an American, I don't have to except anything
 
Luther said:
You don't know it but you're reflecting the thread title


.

Kinda like our ancient Americans excepted King George?(LOL)

Listen, as long as I'm an American, I don't have to except anything
Click to expand...
Stop blubbering. You can vote in November to stop the emotuonal pain you are experiencing. Thank the forefathers. Unfortunately for you the forefathers did not think of a way in which everyone can win and election.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom