I understand that the founding fathers were noble wordsmiths, but can you help me...

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

...because I'm struggling with this at the moment since Obama's 180 with respect to his position on NSA. See link from Olbermann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luBwQG6bGUo

Okay, since BushCo got it's Patriot Act signed into law, I've always found Benjamin Franklin's words a source of strength.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

I still do!

My friend assures me that the Founding Fathers never had Al Qaeda, Taliban, China or Russia around to worry about. I reply that he doesn't appreciate what the Founding Fathers were confronted with at such a delicate and perilous time in our nation's history. Unfortunately, I can't take the discussion beyond that. My belief system tells me that I'm right, but I really don't know if I am, in fact, comparing apples to apples. And, for that matter, I don't know if Colonial America even practiced what they preached. Argh!

Any insight would be very much appreciated!

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. No, the Founding Fathers did not have Al Qaeda or the Taliban to deal with.

Instead, they had a bona fide empire pitted against them while they were still, at best, a 2nd world country.

I'd argue that they Founding Fathers had much more potent enemies than we do today, even relatively speaking.

[Lex]

3. I agree with this 100%.

nt

[Bucky]

4. They also had a large number of neighbors out to defeat them.

John Adams understood the number to be about one third of the population (tho some historians think this estimate is a bit too high).

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

5. I'm arguing that, too...

...any thoughts about the whole NSA reversal? I'm with KO. My buddy has sided with the "pragmatic argument" presented by Fineman.

I just don't feel good about this... :(

[Occam Bandage]

10. The founding fathers had far more potent enemies than we do today,

but of an entirely different sort. They were in the position of insurgency against a global empire. I think it is interesting that the freedoms they enshrined into their Bill of Rights were the freedoms that would be logically denied to people organizing an insurrection, and thus would be the freedoms most prized as a result of their denial. Freedom of assembly, of press (especially of a rabble-rousing press), of armament, from soldiers being quartered domestically (or that is to say, being quartered amongst the populace and away from military bases), from false trial and imprisonment, etc. It's therefore quite reasonable that those would be the freedoms that we would be most likely to deny to those against whom we are in a similar struggle from the other side--and that those would be the same freedoms that they themselves would happily deny to their political enemies during the first few decades of this nation's existence.

Which is not a reason to deny those freedoms, of course, I just think it's worth mentioning.


Oh, and a tiny bit of pedantry: "first world" and "second world" properly refer, respectively, to the free-market countries aligned with America and the planned-market countries aligned with the Soviets during the Cold War, with the "third world" being the poorer countries with developing economies and alignment with neither bloc.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Obama's 180 with respect to his position on the NSA?

What did the founding fathers about just making up crap and slurring people?

[sinkingfeeling]

6. No, the Founding Fathers only had the world's greatest empire, with the world's best navy and army,

to deal with. Did your friend forget that the Founding Fathers could have been hung for treason at any time the British got ahold of them? This country was founded through revolution and based on the major themes of the Enlightenment.

http://www.temple.edu/ih/Enlightenment/

A basic list of these values would include the following:

a deep commitment to reason,
a trust in the emerging modern sciences to solve problems and provide control over nature,
a commitment to the idea of progress in material wealth and in human civility,
a belief in the essential goodness of human nature,
an emphasis upon the individual as master of his fate and fortune, and
an engagement with the public sphere of discussion and action.

[Bucky]

7. No, they did not always practice what they preached

John Adams, who co-edited the Declaration of Independence also accepted and enforced the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson was elected to do away with the Alien and Sedition Acts, yet used them for a spell to put down Federalists as harshly as Adams's supporters put down Republicans. Sam Adams, as pure a liberal as the times allowed, wanted Shays's Rebellion dealt with in the deadliest terms because he thought the right to rebel did not exist in a republic.

But they left us a legacy of liberal ideas that have progressively improved the quality and liberties of life in this nation for the last 230+ years. They expected us to improve on what they left us. It's never an easy debate, but the Framers certainly expected there never to be a "last word" on the topic. It's the fact that we argue that most keeps liberty alive.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

12. Thanks Bucky, this is a GREAT post!

:)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. Win.

[JHB]

8. No they just had...

1) England: the equivalent of a superpower at the time, and what was mostly holdng them back was Our Pal, France

2) No Al Qaeda or Taliban, but the Barbaray Pirates were in full swing and a threat to free navigation of the seas anywhere within their reach...

3) Indians. And I don't mean Apu and his Quickie Mart...

[zipplewrath]

9. Natives

No, we didn't have any Taliban but we did have natives, and were still bordered by Canada. Remember, by 1812 we were at war again with the most powerful nation on earth. In the south they worried about slave insurrections. For all the talk today about miltias and the 2nd amendment, at the time they were far more concerned about maintaining the states abilities to resist invasions and insurrections, not generate one themselves. But unfortunately, you'll also have to remember that it was in this time that some of the very founders (not Old Ben, but Adams) were passing and enforcing the Aliens and Sedition Acts. Sorta the Patriot Act of its day.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

11. Oh thanks! Aliens and Sedition Acts...

...I'll look into that.

I had a gut feeling about mcuh of this, I just couldn't support anything.

This is helpful.

[Old School Liberal]

13. Those 18th century types had the right idea

My personal favorite was Lord Acton's '...absolute power corrupts absolutely', which I feel is especially important to remember, today. Good stuff if you're keen on inspiring aphorisms.

You should tell your friend that extenuating circumstances have always been used to justify the gradual stripping of our rights, such as World War Two being used to justify (and perhaps it could have been, at the time) the first significant implementation of an income tax, which was assured to be a temporary measure to deal with a threat. If you look at http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com and go back far enough (late 30s/early 40s), you'll notice that the federal government made more in excise taxes (tobacco/alcohol) than in income. Another favorite of mine was from a Rothschild: 'Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws'.

My personal opinion concerning Obama is one of worry in relation to his dealings with large corporations--as inefficient as taxing everyone and giving it to an elite class is, it has the side effect of reducing the importance of the individual citizen. Before, when industrialization made it a necessity for men to have liberty so that they could move into better paying industries and out of agriculture/serfdom (speaking of America as inheriting these European ideas) we finally got our liberties--so that we could be an efficiently moving economic unit to empower rising national governments. Now that the government has the power to tax, and redistribute to mega corporations, our liberties become more of a liability as time goes on.

If we're to be free in the coming century, it will be through vigilance, and not blind faith in our ideologies and statesmen. Something that I feel has been slipping drastically, and which is more keenly felt for those of us under 30. It's hard to reconcile support of the administration when one considers that its actions will gradually erode our significance and leverage to maintain the rights we value. If we truly value the principals of the Democratic Party--personal liberty and prosperity for all--we should endeavor to understand the full consequences of our short-sighted actions. Sure, the terrorists need stopping today, and the easiest way to do that would be to grant absolute power to the police--temporarily, of course.

Insight's a deep word and I did my best to convey what I believe to be my own. But aside from that, I believe our only hope is for the people to wake up, and I fear that will only be after they have lost everything.

[L. Coyote]

15. To understand the founding fathers, visit their graves. The damn imperialists

are on the best land grants in Ohio. There are more revolutionary war officers in Marietta on the Ohio in the Northwest Territories than in the colonies. The noble word smiths overthrew the King's prohibition on invading their sovereign neighbors after the Ohio Company was incorporated.

Imperialism as an enterprise made full use of those noble wordsmiths.
Nations like politicians should be judged on their deeds, not on the wordsmithing that can masks their actions.

[Old School Liberal]

16. One has to consider the context of the time

The founding fathers weren't sitting with over two centuries of hindsight in a 21st century classroom. They were products of their time, and that has to be considered. While they believed in the ideas that they preached--taxation and government monopolies (charters that would grant entry into Ohio) figured highly into their notions of protecting liberty. While believing in Christian ideals (without necessarily being so) they also engaged in acts of genocide; though this may be hypocritical, all of society always was and is, and part of the mentality of imperialism were the conflicting notions of uplifting the natives to Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization, and just going all out and exploiting them/wiping them out.
With your view we should express no admiration of Athenian democracy, because it was restricted to male citizens, many of whom held slaves. It was the first step in an evolutionary process.
I for one hope that people in 100 years have the wisdom to judge us as being fully integrated with our own hypocritical notions, and not merely as uncivilized barbarians, as you would hold any major actors in the gradual uplifting of the human race.

[ashling]

17. They lived in a world of empire

Great Britain, France, Spain, Russia were all empires with their own agendas, and those agendas usually didn't really comport with our own even when some were ostensibly allies). Remember that the new United States was barely a going concern, and there was never a garuantee of success in this new endeavor.