# If the Founding Fathers could see us now **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 20, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640 "2012-12-20T17:21:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/1 "2012-12-20T17:21:36Z")
This started as a hijack of the main [Don’t we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=673229&page=7) thread. > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/286): > > The Founding Fathers disagree with you: > > [America's Founding Documents | National Archives](http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html) > Now, I hate to argue from authority, but damn, that’s Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John & Samuel Adams, John Hancock and a host of other greats, in whose shadow we don’t even deserve to be. > > If those great men say they were living under tyranny, and took the time to so prove in one of the greatest documents of all time- then they lived under tyranny. Sorry dude, you lose the internet. > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/308): > > What the hell does this even mean? Yes they did impressive things, but they were merely human. And why don’t we “deserve” to live in their shadow? > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/310): > > I expect he means that they were intelligent, educated, thoughtful men who put a lot of time, effort and care into crafting the foundations of our system of government. This is in contrast to people who wish to make sweeping and immediate changes while in the throes of heightened emotions. You can decide for yourself how you compare with regards to intelligence, education, and thoughtfulness. > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/311): > > \<…\>And all of this does beg the question: If these intelligent, educated, thoughtful men were around today, and they saw the power of modern weaponry, the modern landscape where overthrowing the government is a concern only to the lunatic fringe of Montana militiamen or would-be assassins, and most importantly, how families and whole communities were being torn apart by gun violence in epidemic proportions, would they rethink the second amendment? > > It’s not a shock that many of the intelligent, educated, thoughtful men of today think that maybe they would. > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/312): > > I think if the founding fathers were here today they would be appalled that virtually every warning they gave about a central government accumulating too much power has come to pass; almost exactly everything that the authors of the Anti-Federalist papers claimed would result if the new Constitution were ratified and that the Federalists poo-pooed as scare mongering. They would probably insist that the federal armed forces be disbanded and that the right of every citizen to own a full-auto assault rifle be upheld. And given the lessons of history, they’d probably revisit Jefferson’s suggestion that all prohibitory laws expire every nineteen years and a new generation decide whether they want them or not. > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/314): > > **Lumpy** : Hahaha, [no](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation). > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/316): > > Please explain what about the Articles of Confederation you consider rebuts my post. > [@Don't we have an obligation as a society to look at ways to curb gun violence?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-we-have-an-obligation-as-a-society-to-look-at-ways-to-curb-gun-violence/641871/317): > > It’s mind-numblingly simple: What you suggest was tried and failed _while the founding fathers were still around_! No need to raise hypotheticals on this one. > > I realize that RON PAUL and his supporters like to forget that this state autonomy idea was tried and failed, but I don’t think the founding fathers would since they were mostly all able to witness the failure and take a part in trying to come up with something better. > > Unless you think that a bunch of intelligent, educated, thoughtful men would suddenly act real unintelligent, uneducated and thoughtless by trying out something that they already knew first-hand had failed. > > (Note: If you care to have more discussion on it, please start another thread since this is a hijack.) It’s only mind-numbingly simple if you have a numb mind. I contend that if the Founding Fathers could see us now they would conclude that the Constitution that replaced the Articles of Confederation went overboard 180 degrees the opposite direction. They would either drastically cut back the power of the federal government, explicitly add a score of “yes we mean it” clauses to the Bill of Rights, or possibly decide that the Articles of Confederation were the lesser of two evils. If the whole point of the Revolution was to free the country from an overbearing “do what you’re told, you goddamn peasants” government, they would almost certainly conclude based on our country today that they had failed. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/2 "2012-12-20T17:31:35Z")
Oh, yeah? Well _I_ say they would find modern America was AWESOME!!! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/3 "2012-12-20T17:37:07Z")
No, the purpose of the Revolution was to found a country; the last thing they’d want to see is that country weakened or broken up. They’d also be appalled that women and poor people got to vote. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/4 "2012-12-20T17:40:32Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > They’d also be appalled that women and poor people got to vote. This. They were highly intelligent men with an incredible philosophical bent but they are also products of their time and their views on what is acceptable governance is not necessarily relevant to modern needs. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/5 "2012-12-20T17:43:36Z")
What? They made a negro the _President_? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/6 "2012-12-20T17:46:49Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > What? They made a negro the _President_? :eek: And not just three-fifths of him, either. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/7 "2012-12-20T17:51:55Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > This. They were highly intelligent men with an incredible philosophical bent but they are also products of their time and their views on what is acceptable governance is not necessarily relevant to modern needs. True. But then we reach a second problem: how to change the framework when the time is right. These highly intelligent men with their incredible philosophical bent left us a document that was able to be amended. And we did that: when it became clear that slavery was no longer the will of the nation, we passed the Thirteenth Amendment. When it became clear that we needed to tax individual incomes, and the Constitution forbid it, the Sixteenth Amendment was pass – in each case, by two-thirds majority of Congress and three-fourths majority of state legislatures. That’s the kind of change that is consistent with our notion of self-governance. WE, the PEOPLE, are sovereign, and we decide through our elected representatives to amend the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/8 "2012-12-20T17:52:28Z")
I think it would make a good made-for-tv time travel movie myself. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/9 "2012-12-20T17:56:33Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That’s the kind of change that is consistent with our notion of self-governance. WE, the PEOPLE, are sovereign, and we decide through our elected representatives to amend the Constitution. Yes, I took high school civics, thank you. I don’t think anyone here is not aware of the amendment process. As near as I can tell, the discussion, such as it is, is what the FF would think of the government today. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/10 "2012-12-20T17:56:53Z")
I think Ben Franklin would think the internet was awesome, especially the porn. I doubt the Founding Fathers would be as full of themselves as the Founding Fathers Fetishists think they should be. They’d say cool, the right to vote has flourished, control of government has changed hands peacefully several times, and literacy is nearly universal. They’d be impressed with the technology and medicine and be amazed at US for being able to keep everything together for over 200 years. I sincerely doubt that they’d be having a cow over gun control or income tax. They were men of their times. Times have changed, and if they were here, they’d recognize that. Contrast that with the Founding Father Fetishists who think that the Universal Truth was etched in stone in 1789. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/11 "2012-12-20T17:59:35Z")
I’m pretty sure they’d be astonished that we were still using the same Constitution, and with so few amendments at that. They had even provided a means for us to chuck the whole thing and start over if it turned out to be unworkable, just as they were doing with the Articles. Many of them no doubt expected to do just that in their own lifetimes. Many would be not only astonished but elated that we were now a unified country, with only some leftover rhetoric about states’ rights to drag us back to where they were, back to when one could speak seriously about people’s militias and the right to bear arms and the right not to quarter troops. And, depending on their origins, they’d be astonished but either elated or in despair that we had resolved the slavery problem by ending it. They would not be so astonished that racism was still with us, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/12 "2012-12-20T18:00:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Oh, yeah? Well _I_ say they would find modern America was AWESOME!!! Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Wash would sternly disapprove of the ganja prohibition, at least :). ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/13 "2012-12-20T18:03:11Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > It’s only mind-numbingly simple if you have a numb mind. I contend that if the Founding Fathers could see us now they would conclude that the Constitution that replaced the Articles of Confederation went overboard 180 degrees the opposite direction. Perhaps, but I don’t think they’d find fault with the Constitution itself, but rather our interpretation of it. Most of the Federal over-reach you speak of is in defiance of the Tenth Amendment, and a strict reading of the ennumerated powers (such as the interstate commerce clause), after all. This was the prevailing view until the “switch in time that saved nine” in 1937. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/14 "2012-12-20T18:03:28Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > And not just three-fifths of him, either. Well, only half of him is Negro. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/15 "2012-12-20T18:03:37Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > If the whole point of the Revolution was to free the country from an overbearing “do what you’re told, you goddamn peasants” government, they would almost certainly conclude based on our country today that they had failed. Fortunately, the point of the Revolution was to free the country from an overbearing, _unaccountable_ “do what you’re told” government, so everything is peachy. Not that anyone should give a shit. Would you be upset if you reanimated Galen and he was unhappy with the state of modern medicine? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/16 "2012-12-20T18:08:11Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, only half of him is Negro. Which still makes him 30% ineligible ! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/17 "2012-12-20T18:11:23Z")
I would be very interested in hearing what they’d say about the status of things, once they had the chance to live in this society for a decade or so in order to get up to speed. But I wouldn’t give their opinions any more deference than I would the learned folk we have with us today. Keep in mind, they were beginners. We’ve been at this whole thing much longer. They might rethink the importance of the whole “quartering of troops” thing! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/18 "2012-12-20T18:18:13Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Perhaps, but I don’t think they’d find fault with the Constitution itself, but rather our interpretation of it. > > Most of the Federal over-reach you speak of is in defiance of the Tenth Amendment, and a strict reading of the ennumerated powers (such as the interstate commerce clause), after all. This was the prevailing view until the “switch in time that saved nine” in 1937. Agreed; that would probably be addressed by one of those “score of ‘yes we mean it’ clauses in the Bill of Rights” that I gave as a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/19 "2012-12-20T18:31:09Z")
The “switch in time that saved nine” was an abandonment of the “liberty of contract” doctrine, not an expansion of the Commerce Clause. The Lochner-era SCOTUS was mostly striking down state laws, not federal ones; in fact, the _Lochner_ case itself revolved around a state law. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640/20 "2012-12-20T18:48:43Z")
Personally, I think the argument that they put a lot of time and thought into crafting a delicate, yet enduring, framework for government is overblown. The Constitution isn’t a masterpiece of a painting with each facet delicately placed just so; it’s a patchwork of compromise and negotiation made by men of their time. If the Founding Fathers had existed 200 years prior, do you think they would have come up with the same system of government? That seems extraordinarily implausible. Then we should we assume that if they lived 200 years later they would be disappointed with our current system of government? Surely, their views on how our government works today would be the subject of argument and debate among them – just like they argued and debated 220-odd years ago, but we seem to forget about those disagreements. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-founding-fathers-could-see-us-now/644640.md?page=2)