If Our Founding Fathers could see America today, what would they say?

“Well, we had a good run”.

I believe it’s fair to assume that they were pleased with what they created.

If that’s so I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want it to be subjected to what Obama promised to be, quote Fundamental change.

This is what we founded?!

Why did these idiots elect Bush? Twice.

I think they’d be amazed at the results of the foundation that they laid. But mostly, I can’t imagine how they’d be able to focus on anything but the amazing changes that technology has made in the world.

“fuck…”

Fucking ye, man. Fucking ye.

they had their eye on this prize all along.

They would say, “Holy shit, look at the assholes who believe they are acting in our name. Interfering in Terry Schiavo’s death, invading countries willy-nilly, catering to oligarchs, invoking God all the time, preventing women from making medical decisions with their doctors, Jesus, we should have been a lot more specific when we wrote the Constitution that these pricks are traducing.”

Willy-nilly: a slap in the face of every man and woman that served.

willy- nilly is a bit harsh

Defend Iraq. I don’t blame the soldiers, pal. I blame the people who made them die for no good reason.

They would ask where their casket is so they can roll over in it a few times.

“Do not associate us with this mess.”

Really…. this is what we bled and died for… come on people… make it worth the sacrifice… Don’t just take those disease ridden blankets… They just want to kill us because they want our land… AND THEY call us savages… Ehhh gads…

To be honest, I have no idea. Since they came from a time when women were oppressed, black people were thought of as animals, and no one even knew what a homosexual was, I don’t think they would be too interested in the improvements we’ve made in civil rights and such. Can’t really blame them, though, just a completely different time.

And to everyone who answered, I know it’s cool to be all negative and cynical and everything, but if you look at the country that used to allow slavery, didn’t let women vote, had a KKK membership of 5 million, allowed child labor, etc. there have been a LOT of improvements over the decades.

In my response to the question about what shocked me most in 2009, I wrote:

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“That California voters supported Proposition 8 that revoked existing rights from a minority, when those rights had no present or future effect on the rights of the majority.

Minority rights should never be in the hands of the majority!
It is how things work under fascist governments such as the Third Reich (Nazis) and theocracies such as those of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The USA was not established as a theocracy and the notion of separation of Church and State was meant to prevent such a government.

(Soapbox ON)

The extreme right which includes many or most republicans and many or most of the “Teabaggers” would impose their conception of their faith as the critical factor in any decision affecting their political convictions and behaviour. Their ideas don’t derive from the teaching of Jesus but from those who speak for their faith as if they had access to all divine wisdom. Televangelists and Radio and Television talk show hosts have repeatedly shown themselves to NOT be people of faith! Make your own list of financial, sexual and drug related scandals among such people. The same is true for far too many elected officials as well.

For the most part the Democrat party is no where as far to the left as most Americans believe. Most are not even that progressive!

Unless you consider equal pay for work of equal economic value to be a radical or Communist viewpoint, it should be supported by everybody.

Unless you believe that all the rich have earned their own wealth all by themselves and believe that all those struggling to survive and care for their families in the USA deserve to starve, lose their homes, or died prematurely of preventable diseases, you can hardly believe that protections for the sickest, weakest and poorest in the nation are not the business of government.

Those who oppose welfare for the working poor, health care access for all regardless of their family incomes, and support for veterans, the elderly and the disabled should take their assets. invest them overseas, and leave the country and relinquish their American Citizenship. The Country would be better off without you.

Those things they oppose are not Socialist values, they are American values.
They are the values that used to make America great in the eyes of Americans and others around the world.

(Soapbox OFF)

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The Founding Fathers would be appalled at how poorly the separation of Church and State is being maintained. The USA has become a theocracy.

The Founders would be sickened by how perverse religious dogma that is a dishonest interpretation of the teachings of Jesus is being used to oppress minorities, perpetuate long standing injustices and to sustain a class based society worse than any of the injustices of British rule in the late eighteenth century. The privileges of the rich and their corporations are worse than any of the vices of the King and British Nobility. The policies that promote the oppression of the poor, the weak and the disabled would make the founding fathers feel that their carefully crafted constitution has been disregarded if not intentionally mocked.

The notion of which Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg a century after the founding of the Nation, “of a government by the people and for the people and of the people” the founding fathers would concede has perished from this Nation.

The founders would call for a new American revolution to restore the path of the country to one worthy of the respect the USA once warranted in the world.

An American that renounces torture, that does not wage wars to promote a perverted distortion of Christianity to overthrow countries that have other faiths.

The USA’s foreign and economic policies have created the need for the Taliban and Al Qaeda in foreign lands into which they have intervened without invitation or just cause.

American could have supported Israel’s right to exist and maintained constructive relations with the Arab and Muslim world if they were not so focused on exploiting and manipulating other countries in service of short-sighted domestic goals.

Despite the progress made in America in the early and middle 20th century in the areas of civil rights and labor laws, the last fifty years have seen so many political and economic errors that have undone the prosperity and security of Americans at home despite unparalleled technological advances.

In recent decades America has lost its way and compromised so many of its own values to economic and political expediency in international relations. These failings have come to be reflected in a deterioration in Americans’ trust and respect for their own government. Its elected officials have become more greedy and corrupt as fewer and fewer citizens even bothered to vote.

In the last eight years, the justice department because responsible for injustice at the command of the executive branch. Americans were conned into giving up freedoms hard fought for in two World Wars in “Patriot Act” legislation rushed through Congress without most elected officials knowing what implications it would have.

The creation of the department of Homeland Security gave unprecedented powers to government that citizens had no say on and now have no way to undo. The mechanisms put in place define a terrorist as anyone said to be a terrorist by the government. This is a powerful disincentive for anyone to dare speak out for fear of political oppression by their own government.

The founding fathers would wretch their guts out at what American has devolved into.
They would demand a do-over to enshrine protections they never imagined would have been needed to protect freedoms and to prevent tyranny by the government for the government and of the government.

I grew up admiring what the USA declared it stood for. I now see the stark contrast between the awe-inspiring words and the present reality.

I am not anti-American! I believe it what American intended to be and what it yet can be!
I’m sure the founding fathers would still believe in America’s potential but they would be very concerned about where it has come.

@Dr_Lawrence Bravo! too bad I can only give you a GA for that

I told you people to stay neutral, don’t you EVER listen?!

A short elaboration on my “bravo” for @Dr_Lawrence. I am not terribly politcally savvy so usually I do not get into these things. However, I wish to highlight a few points in that answer:

1) whenever the rights of minority groups are handled by the majority group, it comes into clash with the wishes of the majority. This is why I do not think that the rights of a minority group should be handled by the majority.

2) The separation of Church and State has been an issue for some time and bringing Church into any political decision violates the precepts of such separation. The Founding Fathers were very specific regarding separation of Church and State. Protesting things done by the current administration is a basic right which should not be challenged but much of the protesting is done based on religion. Again, there goes the separation of Church and State.

3) I would be considered a liberal leaning moderate and, as @Dr_Lawrence said, the Democratic party is not as radical as is portrayed by many Republicans/Conservatives. They are equating the tendencies of all of them to the very few far lefters.

4) I do not believe that the USA should be involving itself where it is not wished and should not be taking such blatant sides.

5) America said to give us your tired, sick, and poor. It did not state that we should allow said tired, sick, and poor to continue in that condition. That is exactly what is happening in the USA today: American citizens are being allowed to starve and die from treatable medical conditions.

It seems that America is built on the foundation of “get what you can for yourself, fuck the rest.” The healthcare thing has brought this attitude to a high point.

Personally, I think that the Founding Fathers would NOT be happy.

Yes, that was the short version

They would be too busy vomiting to say anything. Most of them were Enlightenment free-thinkers. Those that lived long enough saw the religious fundamentalists beginning to highjack the political process early in the 19th century. Washington’s admonition about staying clear of European squabbles was heeded for a little over a century.

Many right-wingers conveniently forget that the Constitution does not address what economic system will be used.

The founders definitely did not intend the US to become the heir to the power of the British Empire. The US was supposed to be a refuge from such international hooliganism.

We must remember that the founders were men of their time. Fundamental paradigms were: Women were not intellectually equal to men, Africans were sub-human, Native Americans were savages to be assimilated or annihilated (but deprived of their lands regardless) and that higher education was for the wealthy who had the leisure time to devote to scientific and philosophical inquiry.

Pilgrims what have they done

Holy mother of Christ, who let the crazies run the asylum?

I was totally gonna say “What the hell happened to separation of church and state??” GfrigginA @Dr_Lawrence.

Awesome answer from @Dr_Lawrence!

This book might provide some insight. It takes modern questions and attempts to answer them using the Founders’ own words.

Somebody care to show me where the Constitution promises separation of church and state?

All kinds of idiots have been cherry-picking the Federalist Papers and other sources for years to advance their own agendas. You can do the same thing with the Bible. You can get it to mean anything you like, “using it’s own words”.

“Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion.” Then, the phrase was interpreted, Constitutionally, of course, by the Supreme Court, which was established by the Constitution for that express purpose. Do you really think we are idiots?

When was our nation overthrown?

@proXXi First Amendment on separation of church and state.

@pdworkin – I’m just saying it’s an interesting read. If they were cherrypicking to advance a particular agenda (left or right), I didn’t pick up on it.

“Holy shit! What the hell happened here?!”

@pdworkin The Federalist Papers are a good background reference source, but one has to remember that it was a debate forum to some extent, which makes it ripe for “cherry picking”. Another point that many forget is that the main body of the Constitution is reserved for describing the structure of the federal government and its relationship to the states. That is why the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) was separated out as they describe individual rights.

The Supreme Courts recent ruling on the second amendment being an individual right closes the circle on this. If it had been intended to be a state right, the text would have remained in the main body of the constitution. Another key is that the 18th century meaning of the words “regulated” and “militia” are very different from todays meanings. If the founders had been talking about something like the National Guard they would have used the term “organized militia”, as they did in the main body of the constitution. (Thus endeth the lecture)

“You gotta be kidding me!!”

@pdworkin Only the first paragraph of my last posting was directed at you. The second is a more general remark.

@Dr_Lawrence @Arisztid I wish there was an “Uber-GA” button for truly exceptional answers like yours.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land Thankyou :D

I figure the Founding Fathers would say something like this.

@Dr_Dredd :D Great one!

Thanks. I just about peed my pants when someone showed it to me the first time.

@Dr_Dredd ROFLMFAO. But seriously, that’s what the electoral college was supposed to be for. But what happens when most of the college are f**king morons, too?

@stranger_in_a_strange_land… and therein lies the problem.

Agree with @Arisztid. The electoral college is useless, IMHO.

@Dr_Dredd The only thing the electoral college accomplishes now is preventing urban interests from bulldozing over rural interests. Fixing the “moron” problem would probably require not only qualification standards for candidates but standards for voter registration also.

The sci-fi author Robert Heinlein suggested a solution: A voting machine where you must insert a $100 bill to enter the booth, the machine then asks you 10 questions about basic government structure, economics, general knowledge,etc. If you answer at least eight correctly, the machine allows you to vote and returns your $100 when you leave the booth. If you fail to answer the minimum number of questions correctly, the machine does not allow you to vote, keeps the $100 and a flashing light and siren go off above the booth to indicate that a “f**cking moron” just tried to vote.

We could use a similar system to qualify political candidates where they are publicly quizzed on similar topics

Ah!! the joys of utopian solutions…we’d never get the Constitution amended to allow such.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land Too bad that most of the people that have $100 bills in this economy are fucking morons. Of course, if you could spot me $100, I’ll give it back to you in a few minutes….

The electoral college is set up so that you could theoretically get 1 vote in each of 13 states and win even if your opponent gets 100% of the eligible voters in the other 37. Why do you think many politicians spend most of their time/effort/money on the big states.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land Interesting! I’d make one change, though. Instead of having the machine not allow you to vote, I’d have it keep you in there, reading social studies texts, until you could answer the questions correctly!

Which Heinlein book was that in? I thought I read most of them, but I don’t remember that particular solution.

@Dr_Dredd I think it’s from one of his short stories. I don’t recall which one right now.

“I told you they would fu*k it up. Come on Abe don’t cry!”

“Where are the servants?”