Founding Fathers
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Question: What were the Founding Fathers Politically?
#1
Conservative
 
#2
Libertarian
 
#3
Liberal
 
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Total Voters: 19

Author Topic: Founding Fathers  (Read 1857 times)
futurepres
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« on: September 05, 2011, 02:32:40 PM »

Were the Founding Fathers Conservatives, Libertarians or Liberals?
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Username MechaRFK
RFK
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« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2011, 02:44:18 PM »

Depends on which Founding Father you are talking about. 

Here is a sample of where they are in the political spectrum.

George Washingotn-Paleoconservative

Thomas Jefferson-Libertarian

Alexander Hamilton-Rockefeller republican

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WillK
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« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2011, 02:47:47 PM »


Definitely not.
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Psychic Octopus
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« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2011, 03:10:43 PM »

You can't label such a large group of people as having the same ideology. And you can't compare their belief systems with ours; I mean, hell, 1776 was before the invention of the terms left and right. If we have to judge, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicanas would generally be considered left-wing, and Hamilton's Federalists would generally be considered right-wing. But things have changed so much.
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WillK
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« Reply #4 on: September 05, 2011, 03:55:13 PM »

You can't label such a large group of people as having the same ideology. And you can't compare their belief systems with ours; I mean, hell, 1776 was before the invention of the terms left and right. If we have to judge, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicanas would generally be considered left-wing, and Hamilton's Federalists would generally be considered right-wing. But things have changed so much.

I think if we have to judge, Hamilton was to the left of Jefferson.
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They put it to a vote and they just kept lying
20RP12
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« Reply #5 on: September 05, 2011, 04:11:28 PM »

You can't label the entire group...
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tpfkaw
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« Reply #6 on: September 05, 2011, 05:31:52 PM »

You can't label such a large group of people as having the same ideology. And you can't compare their belief systems with ours; I mean, hell, 1776 was before the invention of the terms left and right. If we have to judge, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicanas would generally be considered left-wing, and Hamilton's Federalists would generally be considered right-wing. But things have changed so much.

I think if we have to judge, Hamilton was to the left of Jefferson.

If you asked Hamilton, he'd insist that Jefferson was a dangerous radical beholden to the riff-raff and the common folk, unlike he, Hamilton, who knew to guard the prosperity of America by keeping it in the hands of those who could use it properly.

Politics was a lot more honest back then.
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Bacon King
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« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2011, 05:48:57 PM »

It depends on which founding father you're talking about; whether you're using the ideological terminology of two hundred years ago or of the present day; and, if using the latter, how exactly you reconcile the huge social, cultural, technological, economic, and political differences that exist between their time period and our own.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2011, 05:57:02 PM »

They were all Republicans.

Meaning, they were against the monarchy. Tongue
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The Mikado
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« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2011, 06:17:46 PM »

This question is gibberish.
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○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└
jfern
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« Reply #10 on: September 05, 2011, 07:30:06 PM »

Thomas Paine was a modern day liberal, but other than that, modern day labels probably don't apply so much.
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WillK
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« Reply #11 on: September 05, 2011, 07:32:53 PM »

If you asked Hamilton, he'd insist that Jefferson was a dangerous radical beholden to the riff-raff and the common folk, unlike he, Hamilton, who knew to guard the prosperity of America by keeping it in the hands of those who could use it properly.

Sounds like something Krugman might say about Palin.
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Link
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« Reply #12 on: September 05, 2011, 08:57:12 PM »

Were the Founding Fathers Conservatives, Libertarians or Liberals?

Liberal by definition.

con·serv·a·tive [kuhn-sur-vuh-tiv] adjective
1.  disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.


I don't see how conservative describes ANYTHING that went on in 1776.
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officepark
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« Reply #13 on: September 05, 2011, 09:32:45 PM »

Are we talking about what they were for the 18th century, or what they'd be considered now?
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tmthforu94
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« Reply #14 on: September 05, 2011, 09:44:19 PM »

Are we talking about what they were for the 18th century, or what they'd be considered now?
^^^

Just about everyone back then would probably be considered "very conservative" in today's world.
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Roemerista
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« Reply #15 on: September 06, 2011, 08:44:23 AM »

The American Revolution was conservative in nature. Assuming intellectual consistency, why would Edmund Burke be accepting of the American one, and distasteful of the French?

This is not a 'crazy' view, but one held by quite a few historians, how non-radical the revolution was, and maintaining in their view their "English rights."

Read the founding documents, then go read your Blackstone.

But it wasn't the type of conservative that republicans want it to be. Closer to Link's definition, than the teaparty's.
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Verily
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« Reply #16 on: September 06, 2011, 09:09:10 AM »

The American Revolution was conservative in nature. Assuming intellectual consistency, why would Edmund Burke be accepting of the American one, and distasteful of the French?

This is not a 'crazy' view, but one held by quite a few historians, how non-radical the revolution was, and maintaining in their view their "English rights."

Read the founding documents, then go read your Blackstone.

But it wasn't the type of conservative that republicans want it to be. Closer to Link's definition, than the teaparty's.

Burke considered himself both liberal and conservative, which was not an oxymoron at the time. So his approval of what was essentially a liberal movement (using period language) is not odd at all.

He disapproved of the French Revolution because it wasn't led by intellectuals and was unnecessarily violent.
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Roemerista
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« Reply #17 on: September 06, 2011, 09:36:52 AM »

He disproved of the French Revolution because it undermined society "foundations," and disliked it because it was led by "intellectuals."  The whole point of Reflections was that we cannot throw a way aggregate experience of society for some "intellectual" experiment, as they surely had less knowledge than society...
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Torie
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« Reply #18 on: September 06, 2011, 09:59:13 AM »

Thomas Paine was a modern day liberal, but other than that, modern day labels probably don't apply so much.

I think you got it.  Smiley
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #19 on: September 06, 2011, 10:33:42 AM »


^^^


Contemporary American uses of 'Liberal' and 'Conservative' are just not appropriate for anything other than contemporary American politics. And essentially no one was a 'Libertarian' in the now-current sense of the word until very, very recently.

Of course, you could always point it was the first of the bourgeois revolutions and all that, so, yeah, a important moment in the development of Liberalism as a political project (though nothing like as important as what happened soon after in France). But Liberalism as a political project has been dead for ninety seven years and most people now don't really understand what it actually was (hint: not what neck-bearded, mouth-breathing, World-of-Warcraft-playing, bitcoin-loving, basement-dwelling Libertarian wankers think it was) so, you know, not much use for this sort of thing.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #20 on: September 06, 2011, 04:04:10 PM »


Of course, you could always point it was the first of the bourgeois revolutions and all that

After reading Eley/Blackbourn's The Peculiarity of German History, I can't read that statement without scare quotes.
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MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!
Kalwejt
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« Reply #21 on: September 06, 2011, 04:11:10 PM »

Depends on which Founding Father you are talking about. 

Here is a sample of where they are in the political spectrum.

George Washingotn-Paleoconservative

Thomas Jefferson-Libertarian

Alexander Hamilton-Rockefeller republican


You cannot label them with modern terms.
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Atlas Has Shrugged
ChairmanSanchez
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« Reply #22 on: September 06, 2011, 06:56:14 PM »

Depends on which Founding Father you are talking about. 

Here is a sample of where they are in the political spectrum.

George Washingotn-Paleoconservative

Thomas Jefferson-Libertarian

Alexander Hamilton-Rockefeller republican


You cannot label them with modern terms.
If I could use modern terms, then I would say RFK was 100% correct. But since its 1789 were talking about, well, they were pretty Liberal.
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Link
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« Reply #23 on: September 06, 2011, 07:13:33 PM »

Are we talking about what they were for the 18th century, or what they'd be considered now?
^^^

Just about everyone back then would probably be considered "very conservative" in today's world.

By which you mean complete barbarians.  Half of them owned slaves.  All of them didn't think women had the right to self determination.

If you judged them by today's standards you would think they were the most despicable people you ever met.

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No I think its better to leave them in the past and call them liberal.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #24 on: September 06, 2011, 08:25:18 PM »


Of course, you could always point it was the first of the bourgeois revolutions and all that

After reading Eley/Blackbourn's The Peculiarity of German History, I can't read that statement without scare quotes.

Haha, quite. It's a reasonably useful shorthand when shorn of its traditional associations, but the wincing is absolutely understandable...
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