Where can I find out about the founding fathers of America and America's political stances, etc?
I was thinking about past powers on earth Rome, UK, etc seem to all be the major power due to military action, but America seems to be just good off what I want to know. Why has America been constantly progressive, is it something to do with the constitution, the idealogical stances of the people in America.
Where can I learn about this and Americas history to give me an insight to why America has been so progressive from it’s start almost.
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America did have good military you know…like the rifles and their military tactics utilizing the terrain.
While i was learning US history in Florida, theysaid that the US sniped the key figures in the Brit army with theur long range rifles and that their military formation was better structured for battles (the square formation of the english army easily yielded much casualties)
And to the Americans, their battles were fought to protect their everything while Britain had nothing to lose by losing the war (you know, they still have the navy so the young America wont make a counterstrike) maybe the mindset also affected the outcome??
@frigate1985
You did and still do have good military, but your success doesn’t seem to be down to you taking over countries and exploiting them, such as other super powers did.
You might want to begin by reading the Federalist Papers.
If you graduated from public high school in the US you would have been offered a foundation this information. I say offered because although a Civics/Government class is required in virtually every state, many 17 yos have a tendency to pay minimal attention to anything that doesn’t feed or entertain them. If you are interested now, try a class at a community college. Don’t think you can pick up a best seller or get infornation from political parties. You will need to learn how democracy developed in the classical era, how natural rights theory developed in the Enlightment era, how our Founding Fathers experiences led to compromises and how a changing culture has required adjustments to our system, In fact understanding requires lif long study.
@galileogirl
I’m from the UK, no sort of political classes at all. :(
Rome and the UK didn’t backstab, enslave, and commit near genocide against the indigenous populations of the land they settled. Nor did they have an entire workforce consisting of imported foreign slave labor.
Our founding fathers had some really good, progressive ideas for the time. But America’s early history is just as bloody as any other empire.
@Qingu I didn’t know Rome or the UK had indigenous peoples in the last 4000 years but I understand when they were empire buildind they were kind of rough on the locals.
@galileogirl, eh. Look how Rome treated Greece. They conquered them, which I’m sure must have sucked, but they also respected their traditions and even incorporated many of them into their own culture. The UK, for all the shit the British Empire did, didn’t completely decimate the native populations they conquered (not counting the native Americans). India, for example, while certainly oppressed, still managed to retain much of its cultural identity and now they have sovereignty.
What the American colonists did to the native Americans is probably one of the saddest and most despicable arcs in human history. I mean, their civilizations are gone. The colonists destroyed them. After largely treating them like subhumans, or at best like children in need of “religion.”
The same may be said of the Picts, the Angles and the Etruscans. The answer is not wallowing in ancestral guilt but to learn from history so our descendents 2000 years from now are not bemoaning the decimation of the Afghans and disappearance of Iraqi civilization
If you really want to learn about the founding of the country and it’s politics, well it’s not the only way to do it, there are some good secondary sources, but there’s a whole lot misinformation and propaganda out there, particularly on the internet, much of it generated by the religious right, on this subject. But in this instance, like most any other subject., you would do well to look at the primary sources. Yale Law School has a great site, an effort called The Avalon Project that is a really great source for all sorts of historical documents related to government, governing, law and the rule of law, all that stuff, not just the Constitution, Federalist Papers, etc. but all sorts of things. Check it out. They also have a lot of documents, older ones, really, really older ones.
The constitution and bill of rights is all the proof you need that they were conservative.
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