Could I trouble you for a few examples of infringements on your liberty?
I wonder. I think, if they were brought up to date gradually, they’d cope. People from much more primitive societies have managed to encompass modern societies. It isn’t easy for them, but, ultimately, people are still people. Don’t drop 'em in the middle of Times Square (like Captain America) but give 'em some coaching. They’d be fine.
Personally, I think they’d be impressed as hell. “You’ve been to the Moon? Wow!”
Definitely, as several have noted, they would have very different views on a lot of things. Some would be appalled that we are members of the United Nations; others would wonder why the hell the U.N. isn’t the real functioning government of the world with the U.S. as one “state” in the new “union.” Some would wonder why we still have poverty; others would wonder why we don’t have gigantic family-owned farming plantations any more.
I’m pretty sure, overall, they’d nod sagely and say, “Well enough done; well enough.”
I am not entitled to the fruits of my labor. I am required to register for the draft. I can’t start my own business without following a myriad of federal regulations. If I travel by air, I am subject to unreasonable searches and seizures. I could be monitored by the federal government without warrant. I could be assassinated without due process if a power hungry sociopath with great campaigning skills, who cobbles together a majority coalition by promising certain groups special treatment, is elected to office.
Oh idk the most deadly conflict in the history of the continent?
Secession, or the threat thereof, would limit the power of the federal government. Some founders would appreciate this, while others would not.
I disagree. They never got to see the consequences of omitting a right to secession. The consequences of not allowing secession include the Civil War. This was a big turn towards imperialism in the US. I don’t think the founders wouldn’t have been interested in Mr. Lincoln’s view of the Constitution and the accompanying increase in federal power. Especially the etatism favored by the old Whig Abe Lincoln.
ETA: of course when I say “founders” I mean “some of the founders who I am more ideologically inclined to, including Madison”
But that’s true, anytime, anywhere, ever, in any human society. You might as well say, “I’m not safe from being murdered by some crackpot.” Yeah, true; you aren’t. But that isn’t a rational indictment of our system of government.
I’m not asking to be protected from crackpots. I’m asking for due process as promised in the Constitution. If a government can’t keep to the rule of law, that government is unacceptable. That’s rule one.
You are required to register for selective service, and are fortunate enough to live in the only period of American history where no draft occurs, or is likely to occur, or is politically feasible to enact.
Washington commanded conscripts. States required able bodied men to join militias and receive training. In 1778, the continental congress, those founding fathers who are bastions of liberty, required the states draft men from their militias to serve in the continental army for a period of 1 year.
You get a pat down. I fully agree it is annoying, but it is hardly onerous.
You’ve always been able to be monitored by the government without a warrant. Perhaps you meant to suggest that the monitoring can now be used against you in certain circumstances?
As for due process, they certainly didn’t seem to think it was all that important, considering they exempted members of the armed services from it(which remains to this day. Go liberty!). Plus it says ‘No person’, not ‘No citizen’, something that seems to have been ignored by almost all past presidents.
And in one glorious swoop, Marley23 anticipates WillFarnaby’s handful of whining posts and dismantles them before they were even posted. Bravo.
The government set up by the founders did not deliver the promises of the Constitution to the majority of the adult population and never intended to. Political suppression of poor whites ended around 1830 with the end of a property requirement to vote. Blacks continued to be denied voting rights until the 20th century in some states. Women, of course, not until 1920.
This seems to be more of an IMHO thread than GD, not that it matters.
No doubt. However, I bet they’d agree with the ruling that the Constitution implies a right to privacy, but not its application in Roe v Wade.
Right, and also how much compromise and capitulation was involved, the two biggest probably being federalism and slavery. The former was somewhat held in check; the latter was mostly ignored (permitting progress but sewing the seeds for the Civil War, as a country so divided cannot long endure.
I bet they’d be deeply ambivalent. Most would think the Federal government had overreached their intent, and they’d lament the way party politics dominates, rather than serving the country (as I suspect we all do – at least, I HOPE we all do). I sure wish I knew of some kind of poison pill amendment that would reduce partisanship, but I can’t think of any cure that isn’t worse than the disease.
In any case, I agree with John Mace that we should give them time to thaw, and that while their opinions would be very interesting, we shouldn’t allow them to dominate. I even wonder how many of them would end up being strict constructionists.
I’m in favor of strict constructionism, but we can’t institute it all of a sudden at this late date. Too much history went the other way, and we’d need amendments to keep up. It just might be that the amendment process was a tad to difficult. (In general I think they got that pretty close, since we don’t want heaps of amendments. We also don’t want, IMHO, a 4000-page constitution, like the EU almost got.)
Thanks for responding.
You may not like keeping 100% of your income, but without taxation you wouldn’t have the infrastructure or secuirty that makes your income possible.
Nations require standing armies and the ability to quickly organize a large one in the event of war. Your registration may offend you, but it makes rapid mobilization possible in the event it is needed.
Depends what it is. If you want to open a meat market, the rest of us have a vested interest in not getting sick from your meat and the inspection and storage of your wares is a matter of public health. If there are regulations that you think are unneeded those could be debated.
But the rest of us want to get to our destination in one piece so we don’t mind having you pass through a detector because our lives may very well depend on it.
Easiest way to avoid that would be not to become a terrorist.
In fairness, if you’re going to owned by someone, Washington’s not a bad choice as bragging rights go. 
I don’t dispute that the Articles of Confederacy didn’t address the needs of the new nation adequately, and I’m not claiming (for the purposes of this discussion anyway) that a minarchist libertarian society should have been attempted. What I’m claiming is that those who agreed to ratify the new Constitution- many with misgivings- ended up buying a pig in a poke. I’m still going through the Federalist/ Anti-Federalist debates (links below), but to name just two example related to firearms:
In the AntiFederalist #23, addressing the power of the proposed Congress to maintain a standing army, it says in part:
Bear in mind that pressing men into a national army was considered virtually slavery at the time. And that’s exactly what happened in WW1, when the Supreme Court upheld conscription into the national army in Arver v. United States, on precisely the grounds of it being “proper and necessary” to empower the declaration of war.
In the Federalist #29, Hamilton dismissed fears over giving the federal government power over the militia, or establishing a limited militia:
And in fact “select corps” is exactly what we got, when the last vestige of the older citizen’s militia was transformed in the modern National Guard (though we now say “organized” rather than “select”.)
The Anti-Federalist papers: http://www.wepin.com/articles/afp/index.htm
The Federalist papers: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html
In Federalist 46, Madison pointed out that there was no need to worry about that (and he was right, at the time):
I said that my personal liberty is not being protected. I didn’t say there haven’t been inadequate reasons put forth by politicians to justify the lapses in protection.
And that was unacceptable. Not sure why you think I am in favor of political suppression.
OK, but now, having staked out that position, the burden is on you to show the inadequacy – and to show that the FFs would have agreed in your judgment of same.
Sure, it wasn’t important to them at all. That’s why they included it in the Bill of Rights.
Maybe so, but the past two-plus centuries have proven Hamilton entirely right, in his view that it is ridiculous for us to “apprehend danger” from such a militia.