True or false

F

flaja

New member
The Founding Fathers, i.e., the men who signed the Constitution, were the wisest men in all of history and we must live by what they said, i.e., their original intent.
 
I vote straw man.

A better question would be:

Is the original intent of the founding fathers a worthy goal for this nation, did these flawed human beings together make something that is worth fighting for?
 
flaja said:
The Founding Fathers, i.e., the men who signed the Constitution, were the wisest men in all of history and we must live by what they said, i.e., their original intent.
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their original intent was to secure freedom and liberty for all mankind. That original intent was designed to limit government as much as possible to ensure that freedom. In that manner, they were wise.
 
The founders were way ahead of their time, ahead in ways that much of the world hasn't even caught up to to this day.

However, there were some parts of the constitution that I don't really like, and I would've liked for the founders to go even farther. They probably held a happy medium though - the people in the French revolution went extremely radical, and got extremely impure in the process, to the point where they eventually completely and totally betrayed nearly every principle of liberal democracy.
 
Watermark said:
The founders were way ahead of their time, ahead in ways that much of the world hasn't even caught up to to this day.

However, there were some parts of the constitution that I don't really like, and I would've liked for the founders to go even farther. They probably held a happy medium though - the people in the French revolution went extremely radical, and got extremely impure in the process, to the point where they eventually completely and totally betrayed nearly every principle of liberal democracy.
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I find this theory intriguing. please start a new thread and detail what you're referring to.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
That original intent was designed to limit government as much as possible to ensure that freedom.
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Some of them held that intent. Personally, I don't think that less government necessarily = freedom.

The right to stop at the end of your nose is too narrow a definition of freedom - the right to do as you like as long as everyone doing that activity collectively wouldn't be destructive to society at large is a better definition, IMHO.


But that's where we probably part, because my uber-broad definition of freedom leaves things open, like the possibility of universal healthcare, that you find utterly repulsive. It's also subjective, because "destructive to society at large" isn't something that can be defined well.
 
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SmarterThanYou said:
their original intent was to secure freedom and liberty for all mankind.
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Beside the point, but does this include the slaves that lived on Massa Jefferson's plantation?

When I ask about original intent, I am talking about the purpose and powers intended for the federal government that was created by the Constitution. What did original intent intend the federal government to do and by extension not do?
 
flaja said:
The Founding Fathers, i.e., the men who signed the Constitution, were the wisest men in all of history and we must live by what they said, i.e., their original intent.
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TRUE we must live by the Constitution as it stands today(not as it was in 1776).....Until we the people, amend, or change, add to, or rescind, the parts of the Constitution as we the people see fit....
 
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True, but I will settle for Damo's response. Whatever gets us to adhere specifically, and singularly to the principles of 1776 and 1787...
 
bravo said:
TRUE we must live by the Constitution as it stands today(not as it was in 1776).....
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Especially since it wasn't written until 1787.

Until we the people, amend, or change, add to, or rescind, the parts of the Constitution as we the people see fit....
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Don't politics and judicial review mean that the Constitution can be changed without amendment- something that takes super-majority effort to accomplish?
 
flaja said:
The Founding Fathers, i.e., the men who signed the Constitution, were the wisest men in all of history and we must live by what they said, i.e., their original intent.
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I see what you are trying to say with this, but I think you are missing something fundamental.

The Founding Fathers were trying to create something for the good of the people. The current (meaning the last few decades) group of politicians are trying to gain power and a legacy. They are far less interested in what is good for the people.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the struggle between the two major parties prevents any meaningful change because the other side will always fight whatever is put forward.
 
WinterBorn said:
I see what you are trying to say with this, but I think you are missing something fundamental.

The Founding Fathers were trying to create something for the good of the people. The current (meaning the last few decades) group of politicians are trying to gain power and a legacy. They are far less interested in what is good for the people.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the struggle between the two major parties prevents any meaningful change because the other side will always fight whatever is put forward.
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I fully understand all of this and I fully understand that the situation today is no different than it was 200+ years ago in terms of political posturing and bickering. The leadership of the Federalist and Antifederalist (aka Republicans aka Jeffersonians aka Jeffersonian Republicans aka the forerunner of the modern Democrat Party) Parties despised each other just as much as the leadership of the Republican and Democrat Parties despise each other today. For all the to do about the Constitution two centuries ago the fact is that politics at the time were more important than any noble sentiment we may attach to the Constitution today. We have given the Constitution importance measured in Biblical quantities- something the men who wrote the Constitution and implemented it did not do.

Politics do no change. Not even in the course of centuries. But today we don’t have the luxury that politicians two centuries ago had- time. We face problems today that our forefathers could not have fathomed. Today it is too easy for politics to get in the way of solving problems that could (and may) destroy us with a speed that our forefathers could not have fathomed either. In all likelihood politics today are more like politics of the 1850s than they are politics of the 1790s.
 
WinterBorn said:
I see what you are trying to say with this, but I think you are missing something fundamental.

The Founding Fathers were trying to create something for the good of the people. The current (meaning the last few decades) group of politicians are trying to gain power and a legacy. They are far less interested in what is good for the people.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the struggle between the two major parties prevents any meaningful change because the other side will always fight whatever is put forward.
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Man I will bet you do miserably on tests ;)
 
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