Posted on 07/03/2011 10:43:29 AM PDT by Nachum
ABC's "This Week" began its Independence Day weekend program with a segment that echoed Time magazine's cover story questioning whether the Constitution matters anymore.
After historian Douglas Brinkley said, "We shouldn't act like [the Founding Fathers] were somehow omnipotent," ABC's John Donvan responded, "They were not gods, they were guys - guys who didn't give women the vote and let slavery stand" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, HISTORIAN: It's a very slippery slope to start cherry-picking your favorite golden oldie from the Founding Fathers and slapping it on to political speeches today. Democrats and Republicans quote from the Founding Fathers, but we shouldn't act like they were somehow omnipotent.
JOHN DONVAN, ABC: The reality is that the framers - posed in paintings as though frozen on an American Olympus - they were not gods, they were guys - guys who didn't give women the vote and let slavery stand for the time being and who, by the way, were trying to create at the time a stronger central government, of course not too strong, leaving to us a Constitution that we could fix, as needed, - sorry, make that amend - which we've now done 27 times.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Never mind that the Founders were among the earliest leaders to oppose slavery as a worldwide institution or that voting was done by household.
Stronger relative to what? England's monarchy? Pfffftttt... That historian is full of it!
Ahistorical historians like to apply today’s standards to the past. Slavery was an institution throughout the British and French Empires, in Africa, and in the Muslim world.
This appears to be an ongoing theme generated by the combination of the White House and the Soros Left: Let’s not “fetishize” the Constitution, the Founders were fallible, they owned slaves, etc. etc. etc.
It’s setting up, I imagine, some sort of direct assault on the Constitution.
IOW, the Founders and Framers advanced freedom for all people, and the tools to make this land of liberty even better, if we so desire.
Yes Media, they created such a shity country, they can cherry pick and move to that country.
This is such BS, and why I don’t watch this crap anymore.
I cannot look into the minds of the founding fathers, so I really don’t know what their options were. I guess we could have remained colonies...or formed multiple countries like Europe, just to go to war with each other...or maybe we put up with slavery, but include institutions (like the Constitution) that will permit it to be dismantled when the country is ready to dismantle it.
In any case, I’m still hard-pressed to find a country with a cleaner history than our own.
Also Slavery still goes in parts of the world like East Africa.
I will stand with the Founders over anyone we have today including Republicans
I’m with you. Our history is much cleaner than that of other countries in the world.
The liberals constantly bring up women voting and slavery, among other issues. Did women have the right to vote in any country anywhere in 1776? Had slavery been outlawed in any civilized country in 1776? Our Founding Fathers were products of a different world. The liberals are perpetually angry that the Founding Fathers of the 18th century didn’t have a 21st century politically correct conscience. So, since the original constitution allowed slavery and didn’t give women the right to vote, they consider it worthless.
Some gay activists even jump on the bandwagon, and talk about past mistreatment of homosexuals. Again, in the world of 1776, was open homosexuality legal and mainstream anywhere in the world at that time????
They quote Thomas Jefferson as allegedly having said that homosexuality was a mental illness. So, for the liberals of places like The Castro, Jefferson was worthless.
Today’s liberals wouldn’t be happy unless we scrapped the Constitution and re-wrote a politically correct constitution. I hope and pray that we never have another constitutional convention, because whatever would come out of such a conclave today would not be an improvement over what we already have.
And they gave us a way to amend the Constitution to change things in the future, which we have done as necessary. The Founding Fathers obviously knew things would change and made a way to change the Constitution. Brilliant.
Simply regurgitating the same spew from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”. The Western Hemisphere was Paradise until the Europeans arrived.
Do you have any sources for that? Books? Links? (Not challenging you I really want that information).
Donvan you POS,How dare You ,to look at our founders through 21 century eyes!! You Damn Communist bastard!
Never in my life have I heard or read anyone claiming the FF were omnipotent. This statement doesn't make sense. It doesn't even work as a red herring. Too stupid.
Yea, it is SICKENING.
People laugh at Texas because there are conservatives on our state school board want to do radical things like mention George Washington and Abe Lincoln (I exaggerate a bit, but you get the point).
They have no clue what I would do with History if I were on that board. For example: I would REQUIRE that US slavery be taught in the context of those times 200+ years ago, and that slavery TODAY be taught in detail, starting with Sudan and Dubai...and going through EVERY country doing it, in detail.
Yes, slavery is immoral and evil, but I’d make DAMN SURE that kids understand it wasn’t only the US that was involved. And I’d REQUIRE that kids learn that, in order to pass standardized tests (so teachers cannot, conveniently, run out of time before getting to it).
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