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If Founding Fathers could see us now
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com ^ | Thursday, July 4, 2002 | By JON HAHN

Posted on 07/03/2002 8:45:32 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK

Many of the pronouncements surely to be made on this 226th anniversary of the signing of our Declaration of Independence will purport to explain the thinking of our Founding Fathers. But we might pause awhile and consider how they might view our thinking today.

How, for example, might Thomas Jefferson view the circumstances under which grown men might be drafted to serve indeterminate lengths of time and paid outlandish amounts of money to play games of baseball and football? What would he think of the fact that they serve variable and insecure tenures at the whim of filthy-rich owners who might sever their relationships by trading them, as one might trade a manservant, to another owner in a far-off province such as Cleveland?

What might Benjamin Franklin think of men not only being able to harness electrical power, but then selling it at a huge profit and brokering future power in such a way as to extract obscene profits from the promised power contracts, and in such a way as to unjustly elevate the cost of all electrical power at the expense of millions of ratepayers and for the profit of a politically connected hierarchy?

And how would John Hancock react if, while he was drafting an official document, his computer began flashing a dreaded "blue screen" and error message before his whole system froze up and wouldn't allow him to store or even work off-line?

Is there any chance that George Washington would petition the Continental Congress for female troops, once he saw how well women in uniform perform today? Imagine his shock at noting 37 additional white statehood stars on the national flag, or the existence of vessels capable of crossing the Delaware in seconds, or the possibility of picking up a good set of false teeth for almost nothing under a decent medical insurance plan.

For that matter, consider for a moment how any of the original 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence might react if they saw black men -- and women -- sitting in our Congress. And women voting for members of Congress.

How might our Founding Fathers react if they saw us imposing high tariffs on foreign agricultural goods while at the same time we were using our taxes to buy or set market prices for domestic agricultural products, many of which would then be warehoused instead of marketed or given to starving people here and abroad?

Would these same Founding Fathers approve if they saw tax revenues for public education being channeled to private or parochial schools, or if they learned that large percentages of public education funds were used to transport students solely for the purpose of mixing races?

Might there have been somewhere in the original Constitution or the Bill of Rights some article ensuring a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy?

Might the same Founding Fathers have been a tad more specific about a citizen's right to bear arms? And what about state laws against Very Large Fireworks?

Do you s'pose that the framers of the Constitution might have set some limits on the power of Congress to borrow money on the national credit? Might they have been a little clearer on the subject of taxes? Or on the separation of church and state? Or on the war powers of the president?

On a less legalistic basis, imagine how a prominent statesman from that era might view how we value celebrity and how much more an actor is paid compared with, say, a dairy farmer. For that matter, what about the pay of congressional representatives, senators and federal judges? And their retirement systems?

A member of that first Continental Congress might be aghast at the notion of Social Security, but think how he might react upon learning that people today canreap millions of dollars by merging many small companies into one large corporation and then milking that corporation's profits and credit, leaving it an all-but-empty shell and casting thousands of workers into the street.

How do you think that men accustomed to war with muskets and cannons would view nuclear weapons and their proliferation among many other nations? If that's too much of a stretch, how might they react to TV evangelism or a movie like "Die Hard"?

For a few laughs, we might get them to comment on contemporary American popular music.

Or we could get them to comment on the subject of individual liberty as it relates to things such as airport security searches, wire-tapping, water fluoridation and using company computers for private e-mail.

I'd like to know more of their thinking about things such as protection against self-incrimination or unfair seizure of properties and assets. I'd like to know what they felt about individual freedom of expression and how that might relate to what others see as flag desecration or obscenity.

If someone ever does figure out a way of reaching back to tap the minds of our Founding Fathers in more detail, whatever you do, don't tell them about rush hour, tanning parlors or cheese in spray cans. They might retroactively decide to bag the whole independence thing as a bad social experiment


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To: Alan Chapman
*grin*
21 posted on 07/03/2002 9:34:47 PM PDT by christine
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To: Howlin
I think Thomas Jefferson would've loved to have owned a computer and a xerox machine.
22 posted on 07/03/2002 9:35:10 PM PDT by Slyfox
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To: christine11
Thanks for the ping.

I think the Founders would be amazed at our technology, but disgusted with how large and corrupt the government has become.

They would be disappointed that we have surrendered many of our Freedoms.

23 posted on 07/03/2002 9:36:50 PM PDT by Mulder
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To: Libertarianize the GOP
you have a point, however i thought it might induce good intelligent discussion here. ;)
24 posted on 07/03/2002 9:38:40 PM PDT by christine
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To: Slyfox
LOL! Yeah, how many drafts did he write anyway?
25 posted on 07/03/2002 9:41:24 PM PDT by Howlin
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To: All
...grown men might be drafted to serve indeterminate lengths of time and paid outlandish amounts of money to play games of baseball and football?

People shouldn't be free to do that?

...men not only being able to harness electrical power, but then selling it at a huge profit and brokering future power in such a way as to extract obscene profits from the promised power contracts, and in such a way as to unjustly elevate the cost of all electrical power at the expense of millions of ratepayers and for the profit of a politically connected hierarchy?

You mean like when government allows only ONE company to run power lines in any given area thereby creating a monopoly for power? How about when the state legislature makes it illegal for competing power companies in other states to sell power in their state thereby decreasing the supply and increasing the cost? How about government subsidies to companies to continue developing century-old sources of power (like the internal combustion engine) instead of relying on the free-market to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient power?

And how would John Hancock react if, while he was drafting an official document, his computer began flashing a dreaded "blue screen" and error message before his whole system froze up and wouldn't allow him to store or even work off-line?

He might react by installing Linux.

26 posted on 07/03/2002 9:46:16 PM PDT by Alan Chapman
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To: Cultural Jihad
BUMP!
27 posted on 07/03/2002 9:46:32 PM PDT by Jhoffa_
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To: Howlin
I know he complained about having to make so many copies. He even invented a contraption that would make one copy while he wrote. Kinko's would have blown him out of the water.
28 posted on 07/03/2002 9:49:02 PM PDT by Slyfox
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To: Mulder

Personally, I think the arrogance of the Senate would give them fits.

I know it drives me nuts to turn on CSPAN. Especially their little witch hunts er, hearings..

I swear, I don't know how I lived through it.

29 posted on 07/03/2002 9:50:06 PM PDT by Jhoffa_
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK
Well, I guess, "What would the founders do or say if they could see ... " isn't the right question to ask. It's too easy to get a laugh picturing John Hancock at a PC or Ben Franklin getting the electric bill. Better to ask, what was their system of government, what were the presumptions behind it, what does it mean for us today and what conclusions do knowing more about the founding lead us to make about questions today.

The thing the founders would agree on, both in the radical years of the Revolution and the more conservative period of the early republic, is the importance of independence. Today many are dependent on the government for our income or upkeep. Such people don't have an independent stake in society and try to extort their money from others using the government machinery. Most of us work for someone else or are dependent on the course of the stock market. Self-reliance produced independence of mind and limited government. Dependence produces the opposite.

30 posted on 07/03/2002 9:53:17 PM PDT by x
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To: x
Your handle.. LOL!
31 posted on 07/03/2002 9:53:56 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: x
James Madison understood that folks would hit the government tit and hit it hard, and tried to devise a scheme to check it, and to faciliate to some extent that the tit was shared reasonably fairly. I don't think checks and balances and pluralism equates co-extensively with individualistic self reliance. That is more a cultural artifact and an ideal.
32 posted on 07/03/2002 9:57:32 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Alan Chapman
great post! ;)
33 posted on 07/03/2002 9:58:16 PM PDT by christine
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To: christine11
"Oh my! What wonder is this! A globe that gives off light without fire! A box that displays moving pictures!"

That's my guess, at least. They'd probably be too shocked at the technology to notice the state of the government, at least right away. Even when they did notice the government, the changes in architecture, fashions and the overall increase in the population would prevent them from realising where they were.
34 posted on 07/03/2002 10:35:15 PM PDT by Dimensio
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK
"Might they have been a little clearer on the subject of taxes?"

On the subject of taxes, the founding fathers could not have been clearer. The Constitution creates two classes of tax -- direct and indirect -- that are spelled out in the plainest possible language,

Article 1, Section 2: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union"

Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"

Article 1, Section 9: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

Then, to ensure the central government didn't overstep its clearly enumerated limits, the fathers added the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, which protect us from unreasonable search and seizure and direct that noone cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself.

Today, however, Washington and the courts routinely obscure, ignore and -- when all else fails -- violate these clearly defined distinctions. They get away with it because 70-plus years of compulsory, government-run schooling has erased any collective memory or knowledge of the Constitution. When people don't know what rights they have under the supreme law of the land, they don't know when those rights are being trampled and destroyed.

The only crime that folks like Irwin Schiff of Freedom Books and Bob Schulz of We The People Foundation have committed is to remind everyone of these routine violations and attempt to hold our legislators' feet to the fire. For reminding Congress and the people of these simple truths, they are branded tax protestors, cranks or worse.

When Jefferson said "Let us bind up government in the chains of the Constitution", he knew how easy it was for a central government to morph into the overtaxed police state we live in today. If Jefferson, Henry, Madison or Mason saw how eagerly Americans submit themselves to this spectral power on the Potomac, they would probably just look at each other and ask, "Why did we bother writing a constitution in the first place?"

35 posted on 07/03/2002 10:43:31 PM PDT by Middle Man
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To: Dimensio
They'd probably be too shocked at the technology to notice the state of the government, at least right away. Even when they did notice the government, the changes in architecture, fashions and the overall increase in the population would prevent them from realising where they were.

Perhaps they were more astute at grasping human nature than you give them credit for. Certainly the technological changes would give them pause for reflection, but once the initial shock wears off there are still people driving the technology and serving the same basic human needs. I think they would be most unforgiving of the moral-liberalism and perversions masquerading with impunity as 'freedom,' since they were aware that only a moral people can be a free people.

36 posted on 07/03/2002 10:49:25 PM PDT by Cultural Jihad
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To: Cultural Jihad
For that matter, consider for a moment how any of the original 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence might react if they saw black men -- and women -- sitting in our Congress. And women voting for members of Congress.

This one I'd say they planned it so. Happy Independence Day

"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]. But there is only one proper way and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and for this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." George Washington

37 posted on 07/03/2002 11:47:16 PM PDT by swheats
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To: Cultural Jihad
Happy Birthday, America!

May she outlive all of her enemies, foreign and domestic!

38 posted on 07/04/2002 12:36:02 AM PDT by Roscoe
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To: Middle Man
Very well said.
Bump
39 posted on 07/04/2002 12:47:14 AM PDT by dtel
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To: Commander8
The Unjust Taxes only which led to the American Revolution took only 1% of the average income.

P.J. O'Rourke: King George III was a piker compared to Washington, D.C. And President George I (Washington, that is) would demand today that Washington D.C. change its name lest his memory be further dishonoured by an organised crime organisation masquerading as a properly construed American government.
40 posted on 07/04/2002 12:59:24 AM PDT by BluesDuke
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