Screw the Founding Fathers

Yeah, I know, they were incredible. And their foresight was inspired.
But the present begs for new founding parents. Ones that take their cues from pre-Kent state mentality.
Kent State was not, as assumed, about stopping dissent against a war.
It was a war against masses of members of our society, being satisfied with warm, supportive communities, strong family structures, pure food and water, aligning processes with nature in mind.
This was KILLED, with a few deaths. What is before us might take a few patriots. A few Martyrs, A few David Bowies. I am here to declare that The IDEA of America is worth fighting for. The country is not.
The persons and families are worth fighting for, not corporations.
We can pressure Obama in a christian direction. And institute, what would again, be a beacon, to the whole earth.
A government, that is tilted towards the taxpayer, and not the vile lobbyist. We can implement public funded campaigns, and tell those pricks, in media, that they WILL be offering public interest time, to candidates. Or byebye.
They in fact, can auction airwave rights, and one will offer us more than the other, in terms of public interest. FOREVER. Amen.
Make products that age well, and are repairable. And employ the otherwise unemployable, as repairers.
Get rid of the concept of houses as investments, and view them as places that keep people safe and warm.
Start to insist on modified diet, as far as a slight lessening of MEAT. And more veg/grain. Learn some damn spices. Learn home repair. Those that were semi-off the grid, are now the plugged in.




We are the new Founding Parents.

Pressure Obama in a Christian Direction? Be a martyr for an idea? A No Meat mandate from the President? No facism, no thanks!

You call a sustainable economy fascism? We are in far more trouble than I thought!!!!!

:wtf:

and I'm a christian.

:crazy:

:shrug:

Christianity, has sought to address balance of wealth. Usury. The poor and widows. Mercy to the sick.

That I relegate that function to government, with those ethics, should not trigger your jesus hate buttons.

I mean a human being centric government. Strange that it should be spooky.

and should not be in any way aligned with any church.

We can support and implement policies that are helpful to everyone who needs it:

a social safety net

college tuition

universal healthcare

less spending on the Dept of Defense.

Those are all things that would bring about the kind of society that Jesus would feel comfortable in.

A just society.

Is there a law against government addressing real human problems? Creating REAL security.

You might also, while you are at it, consider that there MUST be some form, for caring about human needs. This has traditionally been judeo-christian values. That government be aligned with these values, does in NO way mean that gov=religion. I am a christian, and I dont want ANY representation in gov. And I even hope that Obama is overplaying his religion some. If not judeo-christian values, then which? I'm waiting.

You brought it up in the OP!

"We can pressure Obama in a christian direction."

:wtf:

these last 40 or so years as some neo-con, snake oil salesman's version of "christianity" has been shoved down our throats and used to justify the very things you profess to advocate against?

Where have you been the past 8 years when they quit pretending it had anything to do with Christ?

Hell, based on your sign-up date, where have you been these past 5 years?

edit: forgot a word

that talked about a new mission statement for the USA. The Bush doctrine stands, until it is extinguuished. Empire building is asssumed. Priorities are distorted. I am talking about a new set of precepts, concerning the proper role of gov. And who, they work for. Make it durable. Whats this got to do with religion?

You brought in religion.

I replied to #9 that you thought the discussion or presentation of religion is "spooky."

THAT's what it has to do with religion. Your posts.

I dont care which humanitarian vision you choose. Martian is good for me. As long as it does those things I mention. Suggest one. I'm waiting.

Not my problem nor my issue; nor even my OP.

You brought it up. You've been called on it; by me and by others.

You had a decent post then wasted it with the word "christian." In this political climate, at this time.

Naive? Living under a rock? Have an agenda?

I don't know. I don't care.

Defend your premise.

Welcome to DU.

I like banging heads with the opposition. I like showing that libs, christian libs, lefties and every other permutation, is just real people, and I use this authenticity to corner, and destroy right wing perspectives. I was banned from my chosen board though, recently, when I called almost immediately, that Palin was a rove trick, and he would roll out a whole campaign of "girls rules". That it would stifle debate. That sentimentality would rear its ugly head. That she rested on a bed of lies. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, here I am. Our struggle is getting enough exposure now, that I am considering preaching to the choir. And shunning all the right wing fools to their own devices. Leave them in an echo chamber. I started a libertarian, at my core, I am conservative. I use this to devastating effect, and genereally viewed as the "king of the libs", by the right. I fearlessly attack the underpinnings and axioms of the right. They got tired of my shutting down the false debate.

Is this a deep seated insecurity. Should I NOT have a right to express my opinion, without your I'm sure, appeal to your own authority or reputation. Should I pepper my posts with McSame, Failin, Rethugs? Would that grant me the status to expound? Should I be as immature as many of you have revealed? All your attempts to minimize all but your exact recipe for reality, is pathetic. And you that seek to divide all of us as pure, and the rest of us is a joke. Many of you are a joke. Probably teen jokes.

And I mean this kindly. Structure your sentences a bit better, use less rhetoric. If you're not here just to cause trouble-- if I'm reading you right--you'd have people here that would agree with you.


How you say something is just as important as what you say. There are all kinds of forums here with different discussion topics. Jumping in with "Screw the Founding Fathers" topic in GD and you're going to get what you got. You've actually gotten off light.

To me, you seem troubled. Perhaps I'm wrong. You don't have to agree with anyone, but if you are here to promote anti-Democratic bullshit expect people here to call you on it.

What I got was a kneejerk response to my coy reference to caring about needs. I am myself. I dont need to carry anyones water. And I am a dem. I work in that capacity as I am sure, that they represent my concerns far better than repubs. I understand realpolitik, and am not a sucker. Anyone that thinks they can cow me into a straightjacket, doesnt understand democrats. Or democracy. The paranoia about double agents and such is the disturbed, not I. The headshrinking to determine the box you will cram me is hostile. You are no better than many that I complain about. You are pompous and arrogant. Deal.

They dont have an off the shelf product ready to consume. I'm quite certain, that they could do a bang up job, given time. But to create it, vett it, wait for it to accumulate clout, would be cumbersome. So, which structure do we draw from? The ETHER? Rabid anti-spirituality, will get you less than favorable reactions by huge portions of the population. I am about as mild as a Christian gets. I like the deist thing, as a device. Brilliant. And the ubiquitous inalienable rights, genius. given by an abstract god, so that they were beyond the grasp of mere men, inspired. Not religion, genius.

rather than the broad topic of Christianity which has become so narrowed and abused.

Matthew 25:35-40 (New International Version)

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

The overall theme of the Bible is love as stated also in Matthew (22), While many would protest Matthew 22:37-38, few could argue against verse 39, imo:

Matthew 22:37-40 (New International Version)

37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (b) 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

rather than the broad topic of Christianity which has become so narrowed and abused.

Matthew 25:35-40 (New International Version)

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

The overall theme of the Bible is love as stated also in Matthew (22), While many would protest Matthew 22:37-38, few could argue against verse 39, imo:

Matthew 22:37-40 (New International Version)

37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (b) 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

...are not the same thing.

Fail.

I have challenged all of you to replace gladly my judeo-christian ethical basis for just gov. Noone has a clue. Just hate speech. Youall FAIL.

Freedom of religion will not be abolished. Get back in your Republican grave.

...and are you aware how many of them think that Obama will, if not authorize, at least "look the other way" while anti-Christian people & organizations harass and intimidate Christians? Heck, some of them are utterly convinced that outright persecution WILL happen once he's elected.

How do you talk sense into them and try to convince them otherwise? These people are FRIGHTENED. How do you convince them that it isn't that way?

I think it is what we need after the last 8 years.

Not really, but yeah, totally.

The Founders were prisoners of their time, the wealthy and educated elite who - to quote that teacher from Dazed and Confused - didn't want to pay their taxes. They owned slaves. They believed rights were derived from land ownership, that democracy was dangerous because "the people" were prone to flights of fancy/violence/fear/bedlam, and so they created a republic that made holy the vote but made safe the powerful.

They also created a self-improving mechanism of governance unequaled in 30,000 years of cro-magnon society. Weekends and all the other worker's rights we take for granted...and women with the vote...equality despite race, creed or color...separation of powers...checks and balances...and a slow but steady evolution of laws and rights that were unheard of less than 100 years ago.

It ain't perfect. In fact, it's a mess. Bush & Co.'s greatest gift to us all was the way they demonstrated how unutterably fragile this whole thing actually is. Our national soul exists upon the will of good people, and upon their willing obesiance to the rule of law. We'd forgotten that, and Bush reminded us, and while we repair the damage he wrought during the lesson he delivered, let us hope we never again forget how precious and delicate and mortal all of this is.

I'm sorry, but I can't read something like "Screw the Founding Fathers" and be silent. I know what you mean, and I agree with your intent, but you curse the authors of what I live to serve and defend, and that's uncool and stuff. ;)

Seriously, tho. Respect the Founders...not in some kind of 8th-grade hero-worship bullshit manner, but with genuine respect for what they did. Go read the Federalist Papers. It'll blow your whole mind.

I'm Irish, German and English, and my parents are from Boston and Alabama. Your background is totally different, as is everyone else's. We have nothing in common...except those old sheets of paper, those ideas, those old words, the old men who wrote them, and the nation they created. That's all we have in common, but we all have that in common, and by God and sonny Jesus, that is quite a bond between us. The Founders did that, and it is a wonder to behold.

We are tasked to salvage all that, but if we try to replace it, or spurn it, or disdain it, or if we disrespect it even a little bit, we would become what we have fought against. America is an idea, period. The Founders started it, and we carry it onward. Don't say "Screw them" to such a great thing as this. It's all we have.

:toast:

We are the rescuers, and the keepers of the torch. It is a privilege.

We are stuck in a rut. We look too far back, for our inspiration, in a world, that is another planet. Republicans want to insist on original intent. In this world. And resources were plentiful then. Our expand or die economic model, has come up against it's natural limit. This is why we go after so called enemies. They are the only markets "off the grid" and so ripe for plunder. We must become our new inspirations. We are ripe for heroes. Certainly, our constitution, is behind our courage.
I always complained, that every widget had been concieved. And so, a fully better mouse trap was unlikely. The current circumstances, make the possibility of another Washington, or Franklin almost imaginable. With bloggers and such, Thomas Paine is a certainty.

And Locke's Treatise on Government.

Trust me. If you've read them, read them again. I did recently, and it was like downing a big shotglass full of sunshine.

In recognizing that a new form of governance needs to evolve to meet the needs of the 21st century.
I too see that the "founding fathers" were good for their time, but that we NOW need to use
that foundation for building a better structure for the future of not just this nation but for the world.

I too ask why it is that America fails to lead humanity away from the past and those things like war and starvation and other forms of unnecessary suffering that are so characteristic of the 19th and 20th centuries.

For instance:

It would be a really excellent thing if we could all (all six billion or so) spend even just one month working together (and by this I mean excluding all other tasks except those which have to do with protecting and sustaining life *like medical needs*) to solve the issue of world wide hunger, so that we can all show each other that this can be done.

But then you granted them some kind of psychic powers with which they felt comfortable neglecting people in their own time because, after all, we'd eventually pick up the slack. That's a cop-out, as it wasn't a "self-improving" mechanism but a changeable one, the direction--to improve or not--was not set by them nor by their documents.

The Enlightenment trained great minds to devour knowledge, to better themselves, to worship humanity's potential...and to abide by rigid class heirarchies, to live in a culture where there was racism so rampant and insane that it makes our modern bigortry seem quaint by comparison, a culture organized around the idea that wealth and "nobility" were God-granted stations where the fatted few held absolute sway over the haggard many.

That was the world before the Founders put quill to hemp, it was accepted absolutely and without a second thought, it was the way things are...until those new ideas elbowed out some room for those masses. A pinch, hardly a glimmer at first, but some...which was 100% more than had been available before. That space got larger, more inclusive, better, because the capacity to do so was hard-wired into the original idea.

Democracy was invented by awesomely violent cultures which thrived only because of their penchant for warfare and plunder, and their total acceptance and utilization of slavery on a massive scale. They sucked, too, but the theory is sound anyway.

So it is with our flawed Founders. The accepted morality of their day is staggeringly abhorrent in ours, and yet they were still able to craft brilliant ideals for governance...actually, if you think about it, that hard-wired capacity for improvement became (and remains) the means by which we have banished those old ideas and ways. The slavery we abominate Jefferson for having practiced was destroyed - legally and constitutionally - by way of the document he wrote with his very own hand. There are ten times ten dozen examples like this; women's sufferage born from a mysoginist culture, labor rights shattering class barriers to protect workers who'd known nothing of the kind since the pyramids got built, etc.

Ah. Irony. :)

Psychic? No. Educated, readers of Locke, witnesses to the Stuart tyrannies, a dozen other influences, and lightning in a bottle to boot. They wrote out a plan to form a government with the ability to grow, improve, and empower. Don't knock them because of when they lived. Hell, you're probably wearing clothes sewn together by wage slaves with no rights who live and work in Hell so you and I and we can buy jeans for $15 at Target. Who made your coat? Would you treat a dog the way the people who make our products are treated? How will history judge us.

Glass houses...etc.

One of the main reasons I am so intensely for Barack Obama is that every time he talks about the trajectory of this nation from its inception to Now he expresses that same vision I have of human beings (not gods or saints) writing documents that ring through the ages, that call us in each and every generation to reinterpret them for our time's great needs.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are sacred to me, as I know they are to Will. When the President and other public servants swear their oaths of office they swear to Uphold The Constitution. They don't swear to uphold the word of any god, period.

These documents, these ideas, are not to be discarded, ever. They are the rock on which this nation stands -- not Jesus, not God by any name. Jesus has his Church(es) and Peter was his rock. Our nation has the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Americans do not have to choose between one and the other, but they do have to understand that they are separate.

Will gets it. Perhaps the OP and some others will get it at some point too.

Hekate

"The slavery we abominate Jefferson for having practiced was destroyed - legally and constitutionally - by way of the document he wrote with his very own hand."

There are so many things wrong with this statement. Once more you act like abolition was an intended consequence when, if it had been so, it would have been apparent in ACTIONS instead of words (and it's not at all clear that those words were meant to apply to slaves). Even if I granted, and I do not, this bullshit romantic notion that they knew their words would someday lead to freedom for the people they enslaved, it doesn't excuse it one bit. It's the cheapest possible pandering, and the height of arrogance, to do wrong then say you've paved the way for right.

Also, your analogy about slave labour goes to prove my point. How will history judge us? I hope it doesn't do so with the patronising tone of "it was a different time." It would be WRONG to dismissively forgive the world for allowing those conditions, because as you acknowledge we KNOW they're wrong--here and now. Just as they KNEW slavery was wrong then. And, incidentally, union made clothes are widely available thanks to the net.

Great post, I agree.

:toast:

Fuck that shit! We need more George Clintons, Frank Zappas, Ian Mackayes, and Lemmy Kilmisters... and WAY fewer David Bowies.

Low
Scary Monsters
Heros
Lodger
Diamond Dogs?!


Good sir, I appeal to your taste and logic.

Never Let Me Down
"Dancing in the Streets" video (with Mick Jagger)
"The Laughing Gnome"
Pretty Much everything he's done in the last twenty-five years
All those horrible bands he's influenced (Spandau Ballet?!)

My own opinion is that the Ziggy Stardust years ruled and the "berlin" trilogy of albums were pretty cool, but overall Bowie's legacy has been fairly negative. After all, he's the guy who pioneered that stupid 80's idea that image, persona, and media manipulation were more important than the music, and for that we can thank him for giving us Madonna, Morrisey, and pretty much every shitty pop star who's come down the pike since 1983 or so.

Again, JMO.

And WHAT THE FUCK does ANY of this have to do with American electoral politics?!

"Earthling"

that is all

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

...for a paper in one of my graduate classes,and I came across this comment in "Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17":

“…is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is
this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the
spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people
careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It
can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a
legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion
of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every
moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights
disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money,
and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles,
therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain
on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a
convulsion.”


I think these guys knew just exactly what they were talking about, despite their unwillingness/practical inability to end slavery in 1789...

That was the first time that the government used military force against its own citizens, and it happened when our Founding Fathers were still alive and well. The Founding Fathers weren't any better than we are now. They too were merely human, and highly pressured by the wealthy to look after the interests of the elite. It's been the story of America for entirely too damned long.

The moneyed elite, business interests and the criminal corporate elite all design the agenda. . .the politicians just push for it. The agenda means more for them and less for us.

Simply put, government is the PR and policy wing of any business state, which we are becoming since the Business of America is Business, right Calvin Coolidge?

I don't fault the framers or the founders. . .I fault those who perverted the great ideas.

But government is there to serve itself. . .not us. Even in a democracy, it will end the same way. Those with power concentrate it.

amendment allowed the federal government to tell the states what they were allowed to do. It's grown larger ever since that and the "commerce clause" allowed more federalization of the states.

Government should have nothing to do with any religion, nor should any of its programs be associated with any religion. It is a violation of the separation of church and state, which should be a wall. The Constitution is a living document but it was still pretty damn good as written.

We should be a continuum to a better perfection of our republic.

Well, a pretty good idea that favored the ruling class and has been exploited ever since to further the interests of the ruling class.

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine

always struggle to simply put together a coherent thought?

... fucking boring homogeneous controlled petty stupid world that would be.

Who the fuck decides public interest? I'm gonna go buy a bucket of chicken right now in response to this fascist post.

We have to expunge our kneejerk reaction to spit in Jesus face. I too want a purely secular gov. I stated nothing else. I can only think that this reaction stems from an intolerance, bourne from years of indoctrination attempts. For the good of the party, perhaps you should seek therapy for your jesus aversion. Or GOD. I do NOT want to foist God on anyone. I challenged anyone to come up with a proper structure to base our compassionate gov on! You godhaters have no response. Dont be cowards. Answer my question. I am willing to compromise. Unless you can at least organize a thorough atheist code of conduct etc. for the gov to base itself on, then shut your mouths. I truly hope that some well meaning atheist does just that. It would be a great moment. And it would put an end to the lie that you need religion, to have ethics. Enough of your rantings against GOD. What else you got?

That is what the founding fathers did. Now I'll challenge you to leave.

The founding fathers based their sense of compassion on the judeochristian ethic. I propose to do just that, and am attacked as a fascist. I challenge those that want a CHANGE from that, to justify their choice, with the new structure. They refuse, and rant. Then they offer to boot me. You sir are a coward. And I think there are a bunch of cowardly atheists. I respect atheists. Some of my best friends are atheists. You sir, are no atheist.

Look, review history or poly-sci 101, take some women and ethnic studies. The founding father's were propertied white males who did the best they could with what they had, developed a constitution from history's mistakes. We inherited a great framework. Not perfect, no, but an awesome framework-- this from someone like myself, who is critical of history as it's presented to us, the lies and the bullshit.

I can't tell if you're a Randian or a Libertarian. Well you shot down corporations, so I think the latter

As far as religion, I give you George Carlin;



"When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!"

You would have a hard time discerning that I am anything but an atheist. My Libertarian roots were when I was young and would live forever. Well and healthy. I still respect the libertarian tendency for civil rights. I DESTROYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY free market worship. And I do so with understanding the republican is just an unwashed libertarian as far as theology is concerned. I am sensing a putrid intolerance in this crowd, and incidently, that is the general perception of DU posters. Get out in the real world some and check for yourself. It seems I will have to beat the hell outta the taliban, so as to make our club tolerable to regular, less caustic americans. For the good of the Democratic agenda. I hope that I am not banned for telling youall bout truth. You seem to need some.

I've been in the "real" world. On levels of society that would make you piss your pants, little one.

I knew I smelled a little "l" libertarian in there somewhere. There are some good Libertarians on this board btw, with a decency and a caring for the human condition. It's not required that they and I agree with each other.

the topic. You supplied no reason whatsoever to agree with a highly irrational concept of "screw the founding fathers". All you did was rant about shit that had nothing to do with the integrity of the founding fathers. I grade this a big ole F.

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

Youall want to start from scratch? Do we have time? Who else has expounded on a structure to base our whole new gov on? That I do not dot every i and cross t's is not my purpose. and the cries of fascism would be deafening. My perspective is novel and maybe prudent. My eloquence should not be the main point, unless the pimplefaced crowd just wants insult points.

The cultural icons are still potent. They are even honored by our youth. They LOVE the music, the excitement, the import of the 60's. This can save a whole lot of time. Keying into a flow that was interupted seems like a no brainer to me. If that makes me evil, so be it. Think about my concepts, not just shun them. Our sustainable economy was the hippie ideal. We were on that path. To pick back up the scent, seems conservative.

Fuck you, enemanozzle

Many here seem to hate the underpinnings of our gov, with respect to the judeo-christian ethic. I would be thrilled to replace it. Anyone with the courage to be, like me called satan, Bush or another such insult, feel free to do so. If you cannot replace it, then realize that it is not my problem, but all of ours.

is about as coherent as your posts here.

That you dont understand my point? I dont buy it. And my points are perfectly clear. Do you have a replacement for the judeo-christian ethic yet? Thought not. Are there any here but the intellectuals, that dont smear and do cowardly drivebys? Im sure there are good,solid citizens. Why am I getting all the kooks? Plenty of tearing down and NO building up. Except for that Will Pitt guy. I suspect he is solid. Is this a serious place to debate?