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Here in the USA, the Founding Fathers are often used to invoke any and all political actions and changes to our government. Often, US politicians (particularly conservatives) use the phrase "what the Founders intended" or a variant of it and worship the Constitution with a level of devotion that would make a Catholic priest blush. However, I'm becoming less and less convinced that what the Founding Fathers were concerned with should even be relevant to us. The basic framework of our government is fairly reliable, but the people who founded the United States lived and died nearly two centuries before most of us were born. Most, if not all, of the political issues that were important to them have been replaced by new ones that they couldn't have possibly anticipated. And yet, any change to the US government or public policy, no matter how minor, is met with appeals to the wisdom and eternal guidance of the Founders. I think such a worship and attribution of omniscience to them is absurd, and they themselves would probably find it laughable that we are still using the Electoral College and holding elections on Tuesday nearly two centuries after the reason for both of those artifacts have become irrelevant. So, why should we care what the original leaders of the United States intended for their society, when the society we live in today is several orders of magnitude removed from their own?
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May 18, 2014 00:23
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It's not totally illogical in a Common law system that there should be the concern of the thought process behind writing a law taken in account besides purely the letter of the law.
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May 18, 2014 00:33
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Dusseldorf posted:It's not totally illogical in a Common law system that there should be the concern of the thought process behind writing a law taken in account besides purely the letter of the law. But the law and its meaning changes-that's what the amendments are for. For example, much of modern jurisprudence with regards to civil rights issues is based on the 14th amendment, added to the Constitution nearly 80 years after it was written.
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May 18, 2014 00:40
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Dusseldorf posted:It's not totally illogical in a Common law system that there should be the concern of the thought process behind writing a law taken in account besides purely the letter of the law. Huh, I was expecting everyone to just agree with AYC. AYC is basically right in general, though; Founder worship is dumb. I do see the theoretical logic behind originalism as a legal principle, which doesn't rely on the Founders having any special wisdom (importance of the rule of law vs. the preferences of Supreme Court justices), but in practice, complete originalism is unworkable in the modern world (which is why even most of the conservative justices don't actually adhere to it). AYC posted:But the law and its meaning changes-that's what the amendments are for. For example, much of modern jurisprudence with regards to civil rights issues is based on the 14th amendment, added to the Constitution nearly 80 years after it was written. Of course. But the amendment process is part of the original Constitution, and an originalist would say that the intent of the people who wrote the 14th amendment is what matters there, and that changes in the Constitution should be through the amendment process rather than through judicial interpretation. (Again, logical enough in the abstract, but unworkable in its strong form.) Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 00:50 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 00:46
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Why do people wear ties? It's weird if you approach it from a context-less point of view. However we all know that ties represent culturally a certain level of "class" or professionalism because we grew up in an environment that has respectful people wearing ties. Founding Father worship is an American version of a generic "conservative" (in the general sense) theme, using people before you in history as better people who you should follow because they know best. In the UK, people will talk about Winston Churchill's greatness even though he was awful at anything except writing speeches. What The Founding Fathers Would Do If They Were Alive Right Now is a narrative which is generally deployed by the populist right wing, who just happen to also define what the FF's would do. It always seems to coincide with their previously held beliefs in that area, I wonder why? It doesn't have much to do with a proper historical analysis of the people of the time and trying to do the very hard counter-factual of what they would genuinely believe if they managed to go through a time machine, it's just deploying the commonly accepted, self-defined version. From the point of view of the political community that already agrees on both what the Founding Fathers would do and that you should do what they would do, if you agree you are the correct sort of person and if you disagree you aren't. Since you should only be listened to if you are correct (you should only do what is correct, right?), this proves that you should publicly agree. If everyone on your side publicly agrees on something, three things can happen. Either you end up either truly believing it, or you start accepting that it's just one of those things that your side believes. You know it is wrong but you just go along with it because its easier and you gain little from publicly going against it. You could try changing the belief of your entire movement, but that's extremely risky and might not have a real payoff anyway if the point is getting support. People much smarter and hard working than me would have actually studied this area so this might be all rubbish, but it may have come about from the liberal movement's reliance on better decision making in the past (e.g. English liberals using the Magna Carta and the unwritten constitution), and the heavy use of classical focused education which ends up drawing a lot from the late Roman Republic. This is probably why it's in public education (so even the American center and left can believe or deploy it in a less extreme form), but it has evolved over time with mass media right-wing populism to get the dumb version you have today.
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May 18, 2014 02:23
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A significant part of the Constitution still dates from the Founders (e.g., the Bill of Rights, the President as Commander in Chief, etc) even if a lot of it does not (e.g. the 14th Amendment, Income Tax, direct election of Senators, etc). Because of this, the reasons they made a certain function of government the way it is is at least a valuable perspective in how it should be used (for example the justification of the commerce clause probably should apply to railroads but probably shouldn't apply to illegal substances).
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May 18, 2014 02:27
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The right doesn't give a poo poo what the Founders actually wanted. Just saying.
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May 18, 2014 04:45
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I seem to recall the founding fathers wanted a new constitution every 20 years or something - to prevent document veneration of what was felt to be a flawed and time constrained first attempt. That's why all Americans can come together and resolve to improve and remake the basis of - oh wait.
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May 18, 2014 04:54
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It's an appeal to authority.
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May 18, 2014 04:55
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vorebane posted:I seem to recall the founding fathers wanted a new constitution every 20 years or something - to prevent document veneration of what was felt to be a flawed and time constrained first attempt. That's why all Americans can come together and resolve to improve and remake the basis of - oh wait. That was just Jefferson, who had all sorts of unrealistic fever dreams about the power of perpetual revolution (as long as they didn't risk a slave uprising, of course).
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May 18, 2014 04:56
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Captain_Maclaine posted:That was just Jefferson, who had all sorts of unrealistic fever dreams about the power of perpetual revolution (as long as they didn't risk a slave uprising, of course). He was also the President 20 years afterwards, and I can't help but feel his views had changed for some reason.
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May 18, 2014 05:21
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Duh! Commiesymp lib! It's because the demigods of the Revolution who lived 150 years before the invention of penicillin and would have reacted to seeing a cell phone game or glow-in-the-dark paint in the same way we would react to seeing the literal starship Enterprise solved every conceivable problem and answered every conceivable question in this little thing we call "the Constitution." Even having to ask this question tags you as the commiesymp lib you are! Who probably wipes their rear end with copies of the Federalist Papers and thinks that "general welfare" line in the preamble to the most perfect document ever written by the hand of man (with the generous and considerable assistance of the Almighty, who loves this land above all others) actually means something. Now, every other word in the Constitution is 100% unassailable... well, the original Constitution, before the greatest war criminal of all times got his God-damned hands on it back in 1860 and ruined the whole God-damned thing. I think it was George Washington who said, "When you get to larnin' and studyin' 'bout the Constitution, you find out it's kind of a blueprint for running our government." No, wait, that was today's George Washington, Cliven Bundy. You can see how I'd get them confused. Washington said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the military is in the Constitution, and that's why any amount of money for the F-35 is okay and a nickel for food stamps to feed a hungry child is a vicious theft equivalent to rape and murder of an orphanage full of white babies." It's like what Jefferson and John Adams said, "Yea, verily, public school is the temple of Satan and learning to read is the gateway to Hell." Or what Benjamin Franklin said, "America is a Christian nation and that's all there is to it." Or what that great Founding Father Henry Ford said, "The best thing to do is to pay my people almost nothing and hey why ain't I sellin' more cars?" You'd know all this, too, if you'd just larn and study like I done. Seriously, Founder worship is some of the dumbest poo poo. People act like it's treasonous to suggest that maybe James Madison didn't consider the implications of ag-gag bills or police radio scanners or e-mail and that just maybe he and his buddies might not have known what was best in regards to laws about them, being that they couldn't possibly conceive of such things in the first loving place due to their incredibly primitive existence which was really only a step or two above literal loving cavemen. This is not even to get into the idea that people who were 100% A-OK with human slavery are considered to somehow be the only champions of freedom in human history etc. etc. It really is just an appeal to authority. "'Member them guys who made all this here?" >gestures vaguely< "Well, from my larnin' and studyin' they'da hated that sumbitch in the White House and they'da wanted us to live without healthcare or good jobs. I know it cause I prayed about it."
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May 18, 2014 05:52
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https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/03/burn-the-constitution/
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May 18, 2014 06:08
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AYC posted:And yet, any change to the US government or public policy, no matter how minor, is met with appeals to the wisdom and eternal guidance of the Founders. This is a strawman. There are plenty of times that the Founders are inappropriately invoked, but I don't think it comes close to "any change". There is a good reason to invoke the Founders: to remind people that the American system of government exists to fulfill a certain defined purpose, and not just for self-perpetuation. hepatizon fucked around with this message at 06:29 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 06:24
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Thanks for the pile of words that doesn't actually say anything.
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May 18, 2014 07:19
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jacobins pretty cool but it doesnt need an sa account spamming its articles
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May 18, 2014 07:22
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hepatizon posted:There is a good reason to invoke the Founders: to remind people that the American system of government exists to fulfill a certain defined purpose, and not just for self-perpetuation. 
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May 18, 2014 07:49
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We shouldn't, but sometimes it's necessary to refute the wingnuts on every possible angle. Like the whole "Christian Nation" thing. You could respond that it matters gently caress all whether the guys who wrote the laws 200 years ago thought the legal system revolved around Christianity, because we make and interpret our laws for the present day, but rather than going in that direction, you can just point out, with sources, how completely wrong and backwards their claim about the founding fathers opinion on the subject is in the first place. I suppose it's giving in to the wingnuts' logic, but it's just so easy. ToxicSlurpee posted:The right doesn't give a poo poo what the Founders actually wanted. Also this. Does anyone think the Far Right actually cares (or knows, since the Far Right has shown again and again that their knowledge of history is abysmal) if the United States in the past was really some quasi-theocracy like they claim? No, they want a quasi-theocracy now, their "It was this way in the past, we swear!" attitude is just to try and pass their ideology off as conservatism, when it should really be described as a type of right-wing radicalism. Sucrose fucked around with this message at 10:53 on May 18, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 10:38
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The American national identity, like all national identities, is a product of a historical fiction that is projected into the future. The founding fathers serves neatly as the primary historical fiction of American nationalism. It's not a matter of 'well they were smart guys so we just kept doing what they did', it's that the story of the founding fathers is basically the glue for the entire concept of the American Nation; it explicitly states the values of that ideology, and places the subject of that nation within a history larger than themselves. That is, it satisfies the human desire for 'a place to belong'. That's not something you can argue away, for someone to abandon 'the founding fathers' is basically to abandon identifying as an American at all. I'd argue that that would be a good thing, since nationalism (of any kind) is garbage, but you're going to have to provide a substitute for that role.
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May 18, 2014 14:26
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Nessus posted:That defined purpose being the self-perpetuation of the economic interest of white male landowners (who may also have held certain people of a dark complexion as laborers)? Yeah, I always find it hilarious when people base their political arguments on the utterly wrong assumption that the American government was founded to protect the interests of "the People." That was never the case; indeed, the founders were all wealthy land-owners and their primary goal when they led the revolution was to codify their desire to avoid having their wealth taxed away by a government far away. That's what they meant by freedom: freedom from taxes. The same arguments are made today by Republicans and we all laugh because it's just FYGM mentality.
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May 18, 2014 15:53
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Nessus posted:That defined purpose being the self-perpetuation of the economic interest of white male landowners (who may also have held certain people of a dark complexion as laborers)? Sure, but the best way to protect landed interests, long-term, is to create a system that can balance internal and external forces well enough to avoid collapsing into chaos.
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May 18, 2014 16:15
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The right doesn't give a poo poo what the Founders actually wanted. Perversely, by not giving a poo poo about anything but their own interests, they want exactly what the founders did.
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May 18, 2014 18:08
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enraged_camel posted:Yeah, I always find it hilarious when people base their political arguments on the utterly wrong assumption that the American government was founded to protect the interests of "the People." That was never the case; indeed, the founders were all wealthy land-owners and their primary goal when they led the revolution was to codify their desire to avoid having their wealth taxed away by a government far away. That's what they meant by freedom: freedom from taxes. The same arguments are made today by Republicans and we all laugh because it's just FYGM mentality. Simplifying the American Revolution to a supposed "FYGM Mentality" of the Founders is very useful for those with an agenda, for the actual study of history it's pretty useless.
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May 18, 2014 18:11
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Another angle I haven't seen mentioned here is that the "Founders" weren't in a consensus on how to run things. There were actually some pretty major ideological differences between them. It's part of why the American governmental system is built around compromise. Federalists vs Republicans was a big deal from the start. What founding father Thomas Jefferson wanted was very different from what founding father Alexander Hamilton wanted, and I think that makes any argument based on "what the founding fathers wanted" a little odd.
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May 18, 2014 19:09
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Simplifying the American Revolution to a supposed "FYGM Mentality" of the Founders is very useful for those with an agenda, for the actual study of history it's pretty useless. It's actually less useful to promote an agenda than simplifying it to   which is more common (hence this thread).
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May 18, 2014 19:58
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Limerick posted:Another angle I haven't seen mentioned here is that the "Founders" weren't in a consensus on how to run things. There were actually some pretty major ideological differences between them. It's part of why the American governmental system is built around compromise. Federalists vs Republicans was a big deal from the start. What founding father Thomas Jefferson wanted was very different from what founding father Alexander Hamilton wanted, and I think that makes any argument based on "what the founding fathers wanted" a little odd. Yeah but you can argue "The commerce clause was put in by the guys that wanted the strong federal government therefore we should interpret it with a strong federal government in mind".
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May 18, 2014 20:39
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Simplifying the American Revolution to a supposed "FYGM Mentality" of the Founders is very useful for those with an agenda, for the actual study of history it's pretty useless. Agenda? Hahaha. Right.  Adam Smith wrote about the real purpose of government in his book Wealth of Nations, which was published twelve years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified: Adam Smith posted:Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. So if you strip away the populist language - which was necessary to get the support of the colonies - the U.S. Constitution is actually deeply rooted in racist, FYGM sentiment that most of the founders themselves practiced in their everyday lives. As a document, it should have zero bearing on today's affairs. Unfortunately, rewriting it from scratch is virtually impossible. So we are stuck with a bunch of commandments that become less relevant and more open to interpretation every passing day.
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May 18, 2014 20:43
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Adam Smith never set foot in the US (either pre or post revolution) so that's a much more relevant statement on British civil government.
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May 18, 2014 20:44
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computer parts posted:Adam Smith never set foot in the US (either pre or post revolution) so that's a much more relevant statement on British civil government. If you look around the USA today, you will note that it is at least as relevant here and now as it was in mid-18th century Britain.
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May 18, 2014 20:59
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enraged_camel posted:If you look around the USA today, you will note that it is at least as relevant here and now as it was in mid-18th century Britain. The discussion was specifically about the US in the mid 18th Century though.
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May 18, 2014 21:02
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vorebane posted:I seem to recall the founding fathers wanted a new constitution every 20 years or something - to prevent document veneration of what was felt to be a flawed and time constrained first attempt. That's why all Americans can come together and resolve to improve and remake the basis of - oh wait. The real brilliance of the US constitution is its ability to be amended.
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May 18, 2014 21:10
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AYC posted:But the law and its meaning changes-that's what the amendments are for. For example, much of modern jurisprudence with regards to civil rights issues is based on the 14th amendment, added to the Constitution nearly 80 years after it was written. Yet the amount of text that remains unamended in the Constitution is actually quite large! And out of thousands of serious proposals to amend, only 27 have passed successfully.
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May 18, 2014 22:29
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Install Windows posted:Yet the amount of text that remains unamended in the Constitution is actually quite large! And out of thousands of serious proposals to amend, only 27 have passed successfully. 'Get rid of the Constitution' sounds like really terrible politics, not just because of the optics but upending law and order at large definitely will not have unintended consequences and will lead to workers' paradise right? edit: brunch phone posting that isnt really meant as a direct response to above
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May 18, 2014 22:45
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computer parts posted:The discussion was specifically about the US in the mid 18th Century though. Funnily enough, it's still applicable then as well.
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May 19, 2014 00:39
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:Thanks for the pile of words that doesn't actually say anything. You may need remedial classes.  That article is actually very relevant to the discussion, raising the question of why does the left also cling to a dated set of rules that goes against their ideals. (Because we don't have a significant number of leftists in office, just Reaganists.)
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May 19, 2014 02:18
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:You may need remedial classes. It describes the liberal left as just as being complicit in constitution worship as the right, which is wrong, unless you've been selectively ignoring discourse the past fifteen years about how problematic the electoral college, disproportionate seating of the Senate, gerrymandering, and other issues are. It's a dumb feel good piece. You can derive how useful it is with the last paragraph talking about "leftists arguing for more expansionary monetary policy".
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May 19, 2014 02:27
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There's no question that the institution of government in the 1780s in America was seen in the context of stabilizing class relations. James Madison, Federalist #10 posted:
And, indeed, the some of te men (and they were only men, of course) debating at the Convention acknowledged their dependence on slavery: The Pinckneys, Aug 22, 1781 posted:
And yet, they were also deeply invested in ideas of personal and social equity and an abolition of aristocratic privilege, an idea of popular sovereignty and self government, of the machinery of government as serving ends soley justified, empowered, by a political community. Their contradictions and complication capture in a raw way many (though not all) of the complications and contradictions we wrestle with in terms of enacting effective government we wrestle with today. This is what makes their debates worth studying and learning from - not because they were wiser that us (and indeed none of them really thought they were wiser than later generations, and told later generations so), but because they wrestled with these same ideas. Want some perspective on how strong and independent an executive power needs to be in times of insecurity? You can look at Hamilton and Madison arguing about it in the Federalist with assorted pro-Articles authors, or at Madison's own handling of security crises as Secretary of State and then as President and his correspondence and actions there. It's not a guide, but it's a very productive place to begin an analysis or production. Some things are totally inapplicable and inadmissible today - Jefferson is really pretty useless as any kind of starting point on race relations, for example - but many or most of the discussions and actions of the framers and of the founding generation are great places to start tackling many of our most basic modern problems of government. Hell, Madison himself subscribed to this principle - before going to the convention, he spent months and months in his library (while his slaves tended the plantation and his wife managed much of the house business, illustrating all the problems of him and his world) trying to accumulate a record of the problems and governance of republics and confederacies large and small throughout history, from Greece to Geneva, and wrote himself a handy note-guide to republican governance. Even in the idea that once should learn about some general principles from the past before becoming consumed and entangled in the specifics of the present, Madison et al seem to have a place.
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May 19, 2014 02:57
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I don't care what the Founding Fathers want, they're not my real dad.
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May 19, 2014 03:05
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"What the Founding Father's wanted" is just one of many potential ways to view and interpret the laws that we have. Our law system is subject to interpretation, and intentionally so. Firstly, a set of laws that avoided all interpretation would be incredibly complex, and regressively rigid. It would completely fail to adapt to changes in social norms, technology, or anything else. We lean on words like "reasonable" to let cultural norms have sway in difficult situations. We do this so that we can avoid getting tangled in bad decisions with no legal recourse away from it. The problem with such a system is that it also allows bad decisions to be made when a better solution is obvious [to the viewer]. Due to this, people search for ways to reign in the other people for whom "reasonable" means a different and "bad" outcome. A racist may find an outcome to be reasonable that is unreasonable to someone else. That second person can go back to the purpose and thought behind the 14th amendment for support, even if the actual wording doesn't support their position.
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May 19, 2014 03:07
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It's an emotional appeal to authority that also is very anti-democratic and borderline fascist. The right doesn't give poo poo about what the founders actually intended (because it's nearly impossible to determine what about 1-2k dead men really wanted), but politically it's an amazing tool to use in debates and in framing public policy, especially because a good amount of primary school education is worshipping people like Washington and Jefferson as Demi Gods, and the media is on a circle jerk over America, and most of the voting electorate believes the founders agree with them on all their pet issues. The current Tea Party is a hilarious example of all of this. They claim they're representing the Constitution and the founders. Ok, which founders? The Federalists? Anti-Federalists? Jeffersonian Democrats? It's an absurd argument since any issue "the Founders" disagreed with each other vehemently.
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May 19, 2014 03:12
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