On the idolatry of the Founding Fathers:

[underlankers]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

There is a certain strand of politics in the United States that reveres the generation of George Washington as a group of demigods. The

Comments

[telemann]

Justice Scalia suggested recently that the founders wanted gridlock, and that it's not a bad thing; gridlock was written INTO the Constitution. But I find that odd for a country in the 21st century: consider the war powers section. In a nuclear age, when missiles are only 29 minutes from their silos in Russia, how would the President get a declaration of war from Congress, in the strictest sense and meaning of the War powers granted to the President.

[yahvah]

Show me the text where Scalia made that suggestion. I want to judge whether or not he's full of shit.

[telemann]

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=8bbe59e76fc0b6747b22c32c9e014187

Go to the 37 minute mark.

[yahvah]

I don't like his marginalization of the bill of rights, but what he said about gridlock is the separation of powers in the legislative and executive branches was designed as such to protect against faction. In that regard, his emphasis isn't without merit, but his marginalization of the bill of rights doesn't surprise me. In THAT regard, I can't stand him. I've read his opinions of the ninth amendment, and obviously he has no regard for natural rights, or else he'd have not stopped at the federalist papers, and he would've gone on to Madison's notes and speech on the bill of rights. I'm so damn tired of reading self-righteous judgment of the founders as if they had total control over the population and could get the perfect, equitable system with no problems whatsoever.

[kardashev]

There is a certain strand of politics in the United States that reveres the generation of George Washington as a group of slave owning demigods.

Fix'd.

Happy Birthday Underlankers

[allhatnocattle]

Re: Happy Birthday Underlankers

[sophia_sadek]

I did not realize that it was both of your birthdays today. Happy birthday! The two of you are only 20 years apart in age.

Re: Happy Birthday Underlankers

[underlankers]

And a Happy Birthday to you as well. ^.^

[yes_justice]

Benjamin Franklin

[sophia_sadek]

As a shining counter example to your claim that "All the Founders advocated genocide against Natives," I point to the inventor of the Franklin stove. His efforts to protect Natives from the Paxton Boyz shows an opposition to genocidal tendencies. Jefferson's policy of using liquor debt to obtain Native territory is rather abysmal, but definitely not genocidal. You bring up his acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, but that was foisted on him by Napoleon.

Getting back to Franklin, although he is held in high regard by the apostles of the Free Market, he had enough sense to not be suckered into repeating the mistakes of previous generations.

Re: Benjamin Franklin

[underlankers]

On the contrary, every single one of them made comments that make Heinrich Himmler look like a member of the sunshines and rainbows Care-Bear brigade, while none of them objected to use of what would these days be called war crimes if Indians were subjected to them. The Founders also predated the totalitarians in masking their genocide and ethnic cleansing, the grinning skull of modernity, in the smiling face of legality.