Founding Fathers

[American2020]

Some Founding Fathers owned slaves when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Many people suggest America should have a reckoning like Germany about the past, then make a rupture like Germany about their imperial and nazi pasts.

Should America break with the Founding Fathers and their ideals to form a second republic ?
Discuss.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

You will pry John Adams and Alexander Hamilton from my cold, dead fingers.

[Benjamin Frank]

The United States Constitution is a hot mess.  Where it isn't contradictory, it's vague, and where it isn't any of those things, it's simply based on wrong assumptions.

Examples:
Contradictory: On the one hand the Congress is supposed to lead on foreign policy (I apologize that's not the precise wording in the Constitution), on the other hand, the President is the 'Commander in Chief.'

Vague: see Second Amendment

Wrong Assumptions: The sections regarding elections are based on the premise that political parties wouldn't form.

However, given the American way of overdoing things (I.E 'Zero Tolerance')  if I were an American, I'd also be very concerned about the holding of a Constitutional Convention to attempt to correct these mistakes and address other matters.

[RINO Tom]

What an ironically terrible time to ask, but obviously not.

[PSOL]

There was a progressive current in the revolutionary war that can be aptly represented by the easily misled Thomas Paine along with real working class movements of the South Carolina regulators and calls to end debtors’ prisons. Not surprisingly, Thomas Paine left and came back to the United States a pariah as the oligarchs—both representing merchants in the north and landed gentry in the South—and said oligarchs crushed various populist elements in events such as the Whiskey Rebellion and the uprising led by Shay.

Given that the recent attempts of silencing dissent in the US mirrors immensely the actions taken in the past—what with the ostracism of people like Oliver Stone and Max Blumenthal, support of authoritarianism and elite worship as actually a plank of a free society, and crushing of a popular uprising at the end of last year—I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold these individuals as deities in the dominant civil religion imposed on us.

[TDAS04]

No.  We don’t have to agree with the founders on everything, and some were better than others, but people should respect and be aware of how our country and system of government were founded.  There are indeed many impressive aspects about it all, which people should appreciate.  In fact, part of what’s wrong with this country is ignorance of history.  In some ways, we are a nation of jocks who would consider any fascination of the origins of our republic “nerdy” or whatever.  Then there are also all the right-wing hypocrites who like thumping the Constitution and the founding fathers, while their actual knowledge is questionable. 

Anyway, one can understand the founding fathers’ importance while also acknowledging that sometimes, we have to break from the past in order to form a more perfect union.

[Mr. Smith]

Technically, the reverence given to them is already breakin' with what most of them wanted.

[Kingpoleon]

The establishment of a national myth, and thus, a common ethos, has happened in every nation since antiquity. Egypt, India, Sumeria, China, and Greece. The Marxist assault upon these myths is a tyrannical travesty, and no red blooded Westerner ought to support it.

[Samof94]

Some Founding Fathers owned slaves when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Many people suggest America should have a reckoning like Germany about the past, then make a rupture like Germany about their imperial and nazi pasts.

Should America break with the Founding Fathers and their ideals to form a second republic ?
Discuss.

I voted yes but more by downplaying them over time and focusing more on POC figures as time goes on.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The Fugitive Slave Act if the slave ever ran away again, allowed Slave owners to chop off a Slave foot if he ever ran away again, it was after the Emancipation proclamation that allowed slaves to be freed

Washington, Adams and Ben Franklin are heroes
Jefferson, Jackson and Madison are Dixiecrats

[HisGrace]

The establishment of a national myth, and thus, a common ethos, has happened in every nation since antiquity. Egypt, India, Sumeria, China, and Greece. The Marxist assault upon these myths is a tyrannical travesty, and no red blooded Westerner ought to support it.

Right, the point isn't so much what is true sometimes but that you can use glorified historical figures like Thomas Jefferson to teach important lessons today. The important thing now is that he said all men are created equal, not if he actually believed it.

And no, this isn't just a "protect the white male founders" thing. I would say historians shouldn't dig too deeply into MLK's alleged sexual misconduct for the same reason.

[ultraviolet]

Maybe, but not because they owned slaves. Their world was so much different than ours, it’s pretty much useless to live by anything specific they said (this isn’t necessarily a jab at the constitution, but it certainly is outdated and very difficult to change) We can and should still study and follow their general ideals, however.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The establishment of a national myth, and thus, a common ethos, has happened in every nation since antiquity. Egypt, India, Sumeria, China, and Greece. The Marxist assault upon these myths is a tyrannical travesty, and no red blooded Westerner ought to support it.

[Fight for Trump]

The Founding Fathers were the 18th century equivalent of the alt-right.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The establishment of a national myth, and thus, a common ethos, has happened in every nation since antiquity. Egypt, India, Sumeria, China, and Greece. The Marxist assault upon these myths is a tyrannical travesty, and no red blooded Westerner ought to support it.

Right, the point isn't so much what is true sometimes but that you can use glorified historical figures like Thomas Jefferson to teach important lessons today. The important thing now is that he said all men are created equal, not if he actually believed it.

And no, this isn't just a "protect the white male founders" thing. I would say historians shouldn't dig too deeply into MLK's alleged sexual misconduct for the same reason.

I agree.

[HisGrace]

The Founding Fathers were the 18th century equivalent of the alt-right.

The Founding Fathers were the 18th Century equivalent of Qanon because they were the only ones who knew George III was controlled by a deep state run by JFK jr. and Tom Hanks.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

No, but I reject the notion that the role of the historian is primarily as a propagandist who should avoid politically inconvenient truths. Setting aside the ethical problems which that raises, since apparently y'all aren't interested in those, strategically, the thesis "America is a land of freedom with no history of oppression or political violence" does not match the lived reality of millions of Americans —and when you tell them that in history class, they either conclude that you are full of sh*t (accurate) or that history has no relevance to their lives. The role of the modern historian, then, is to create a new national myth which preserves what is admirable in the founding fathers while evolving to meet the needs of the moment. In a country where democracy is under siege, a fond story of how American democracy was established without issue is not helpful; a story about how democracy has endured despite the many efforts by violent mobs urged on by powerful interests to suppress it, very much is.

[PSOL]

Why exactly have I seen the dominant sides of this argument refer to it as a “myth”? Why not tell people the truth? Wouldn’t the truth of the matter help them be more informed in how to get a better run nation in that knowing the truth leads people to the right ideas and strategies to provide a better standard of living to themselves and others that lived enclosed in this nation?

Telling people lies so as to placate them of their real demands for change or to get them to tune off from the past really comes back to bite you later on.

[vitoNova]

I'm torn between 'geniuses who were learned men of history who foresaw an American Nero like Trump', and 'slave holders who devised our system of government to preserve their privilege.'

It's up in the air, TBH.

Currently, I am of the opinion that Tocqueville's America did not begin in earnest until 1860. 

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Why exactly have I seen the dominant sides of this argument refer to it as a “myth”? Why not tell people the truth? Wouldn’t the truth of the matter help them be more informed in how to get a better run nation in that knowing the truth leads people to the right ideas and strategies to provide a better standard of living to themselves and others that lived enclosed in this nation?

Telling people lies so as to placate them of their real demands for change or to get them to tune off from the past really comes back to bite you later on.

There's nothing about a "myth" that makes it inherently untrue, any more than there is something about a "theory" that makes it speculative or unsubstantiated. In the study history, "myth" suggests a story about the origins of a people and their place in history. We use stories to understand the past because most people aren't trained historians and don't have the skills necessary to interpret the raw data, so we write books and create documentaries to present a coherent portrait of the past. There's nothing about this process that requires dishonesty, unless you're an extremist who contends that any word spoken out loud is to some extent a lie.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I agree that no nation can survive without a founding myth.

[RINO Tom]

The Founding Fathers were the 18th century equivalent of the alt-right.

What’s even funnier than your original post is PSOL (presumably) unironically agreeing.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Just think of the founding fathers as Federalists were the Chris Shay's compassionate conservatives and Jefferson as the Robert C Byrd Dixiecrats, the labels are meaningless due to Jim Crow until Eisenhower. Dixiecrat means states rights

The Federalist party were Christian Secularists

[PSOL]

The Founding Fathers were the 18th century equivalent of the alt-right.

What’s even funnier than your original post is PSOL (presumably) unironically agreeing.

Sometimes Santander brings out to all the evidence that he is a stable genius, and I am unable to hide my admonishment of such feats.