Fifteen “Loaded” Questions That Should Provide a Springboard for Lively, Fruitful Discussion
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| In Congress July 4, 1776, Philadelphia, PA |
We are grateful to Truthseeker, whoever he or she may be, for posing these questions yesterday, and to Les Carpenter for reposting them at his blog.
TruthseekerJuly 4, 2014 at 4:55:00 PM EDT (edited and emended by FT)
On This July 4th, 2014, please don’t "thank a liberal"for our splendid heritage. Marxian-Fabian-Socialist-Liberal-Progressive-Statists today often boast that the likes of Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin, and many other founding fathers were "liberals", and as such ought to be given credit for the achievements of the Founding Fathers, who risked everything and suffered incalculable loss and hardship in their quest to establish a government that stood for individual liberty.
This, of course, is not true, because the meaning of the term “liberal” has changed drastically since it was craftily adopted by the Progressives to neutralize their growing fear of opposition to the quasi-Marxian, collectivist initiatives that characterized political activism -- in both parties -- early in the twentieth century. Given the nature of our Founding Documents it’s dubious that the Founders, who were never unified in their views in any case, would have supported the social and economic agendas promoted by the Left for the past hundred years.
1. Would our Founding Fathers have supported a bloated, reckless, out-of-control federal government?
2. Would they have supported aborting millions of unborn babies under the guise of "privacy" and "reproductive rights"?
3. Would they have supported marriage between two men and marriage between two women?
4. Would they have supported the influx of millions of illegal aliens streaming across our borders unchecked?
5. Would they have supported providing millions of illegal aliens with federal and state-funded education, food, housing, and medical care?
6. Would they have supported deficit spending, crushing national debt, and the fiat currency system?
7. Would they have supported the creation of the Federal Reserve System and the resulting manipulation of our money supply and our country's economic health by the Federal Reserve Board?
8. Would they have supported the executive branch bypassing the legislative and judicial branches and unilaterally making laws via Executive Orders?
9. Would they have supported our participation in military actions in foreign countries that did not pose direct threats to the United States?
10. Would they have supported the breakdown of the family unit through divorce or illegitimacy or abuse or irresponsibility?
11. Would they have supported the erosion of state's rights via the judiciary?
12. Would they have supported the erosion of religious freedoms?
13. Would they have supported a gridlocked legislative branch and an extremely partisan and subjective judicial branch?
14. Would they have supported the widespread voter fraud that has affected countless local, state, and federal elections?
15. Would they have supported negotiating with terrorist organizations for the release of American hostages?
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| Were his immense sacrifices made in vain? |
1. Would our Founding Fathers have supported a bloated, reckless, out-of-control federal government?
ReplyDeleteI found this on the web yesterday, and it seems to answer Question 1:
When Hamilton made a broad interpretation of ‘promote the general welfare’ to have the feds involved in private enterprise, Madison had a furious rebuttal. Madison viewed this as an expression of the enumerated powers that followed the phrase promote the general welfare (like coin money and run post offices). If they did as Hamilton wanted, Madison argued, they could take religion into their hands, establish teachers in every state, county and parish and pay them, take over the education of children. Congress could take everything under its power, down to the police. It would drive the nation to a Hobbesian state via a vast federal leviathan.
The dispute about the proper role of government -- big government vs. small government -- a debate back then, too.
So, not all our Founders supported the idea of big government. I believe, however, that most of those who did support that concept had America's survival at heart. America was an infant nation back then -- and a grand experiment.
15. Would they have supported negotiating with terrorist organizations for the release of American hostages?
ReplyDeleteSome did. In fact, some did negotiate with terrorists -- for a time.
From this source:
...he pirates of North Africa, operating variously with or without the approval of the nominal rulers of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, had long been a thorn in the side of the European powers. Even Britain, the rarely disputed ruler of the seas, paid tribute to these pirates. Due to Britain's payments, colonial American merchants were rarely accosted, but after the peace of 1783 ships flying the Stars and Stripes were seen as easy prey. Fortunately for our young, cash-strapped nation, unable either to pay tribute or protect shipping, Portugal declared war on Algiers in 1785, sending a fleet to patrol the Strait of Gibraltar and prevent the Corsairs from passing into the Atlantic. In 1793, the war ended and in the last three months of that year eleven American ships were seized. Unable to raise funds to pay the ransom for the crews, the American negotiator was compelled to borrow from a Jewish moneylender living in Algiers to pay the nearly million-dollar ransom.
During President Washington's administration, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson disagreed sharply over policy toward the Corsairs. Adams strongly favored paying off the pirates, arguing that a long and protracted war would financially ruin the young nation. Jefferson vehemently disagreed, appealing not only to an American sense of honor, but also to the notion that a single, decisive war might be more cost-effective than annual bribes for perpetuity. Not surprisingly, their subsequent administration policies reflected these beliefs. Adams was anxious to prevent conflict, and ensured payment of all demanded tribute. In addition, Adams even agreed to build and deliver two warships for the Algerian Corsairs. Since the Corsairs were considered more a force of nature than a foreign nation, the fact that this was contrary to the popular,"millions for defense, not one cent for tribute," attitude toward French demands for bribes, was rarely noted. Yet, frustrated during tribute negotiations with Tunis, negotiator William Eaton wrote home that,"there is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror."...
More at the above link.
13. Would they have supported a gridlocked legislative branch and an extremely partisan and subjective judicial branch?
ReplyDeleteThe latter -- no.
The former -- Well, our Founders did not like the two-party system; they recognized the potential for abuse of that system. That said, our Founders deliberately created a legislative process that is slow, slow, slow -- thus providing time for serious deliberation and discussion.
Something that our Framers should have done: set certain term limits for members of both Houses of Congress. We should remember, too, that our Founders did not establish term limits for the POTUS, either. George Washington was offered a third term, perfectly Constitutional at the time. He refused.
Thanks for the mention FreeThinke.
ReplyDeleteAnything, whether conservative or liberal views that provokes honest thought and discussion is good.
Thanks for reminding us that the Founders were hardly unified in their thinking, AOW. The nation was conceived amidst much divisive rhetoric and myriad conflicts -- some of them bitter, long lasting and never fully resolved to this day.
ReplyDeleteThe modern concept of "bipartisanship" would have been entirely foreign to the Founders.
From my own limited experience in business I can tell you that the constant tension between me and my business partner, while aggravating and often unpleasant, was in the main a good thing, because our frequent battles over policy resulted in tempering and refining the ideas of two willful, headstrong personalities each determined to get his own way.
Had we not had those battles, each of us would have made grievous errors that would have adversely affected our line of products.
One of us was "left-brained," the other "right-brained." Two different "operating systems," as it were, that complemented each other very well.
If it's true that "In Unity there is Strength," then it's equally true that Conflict often sparks Creativity.
The genius of our Constitution lies in its innate hostility to mindless, lockstep conformity to any set of ideals and tenets.
The Refiner's Fire of honest argument -- as opposed to the dissemination of disingenuous, manipulative demagogic propaganda -- forges guidelines and legislative initiatives of greater ntegrity, superior tensile strength and dependable durability.
2. Would they have supported aborting millions of unborn babies under the guise of "privacy" and "reproductive rights"?
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible to give an authpritative answer, because it's unlikely the Founders - or the general public at the time -- would have concerned themselves with issues that must then have been literally "unthinkable."
Unless I am much mistaken, the Founders were not interested in meddling in the way individuals conducted their personal affairs -- Puritanism in Massachusetts notwithstanding.
About refusal to sign the Constitution:
ReplyDeleteIn all, 70 delegates were appointed to the Constitutional Convention, but out of that 70 only 55 attended, and only 39 actually signed. Some simply refused, others got sick, still others left early. One of the most famous reasons for why certain delegates didn't sign was that the document lacked a legitimate Bill of Rights which would protect the rights of States and the freedom of individuals. Three main advocates of this movement were George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, and Edmund Randolph.
FT,
ReplyDeleteCertainly, some types of abortions were performed back in the days of our Founders. See this at Wikipedia.
Pure conjecture, since the times we live in are vastly different from the "O tempora O mores" the Founding Fathers lived in.
ReplyDeleteThis is an exercise in imposing one's one political and moral views on what one THINKS Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, etc. what have thought. Our F.F.s were all complicated men, many of whom are still enigmas to historians who spend their lifetimes studying them.
Whatever opinions people here give will be a reflection of their own political and moral biases.
Although they pride themselves on being open-minded, liberals generally have far less contact with conservatives than conservatives do with liberals. They also are far more bigoted than conservatives are.
ReplyDeleteEvery conversation a conservative has with a liberal is going to wind up being a argument that will result in to a fight. Liberals never want to accept the truth if it won't fit into their agenda.
Really? A revelation that unfolds as well with respect to consevatives methinks.
Delete3. Would they have supported marriage between two men and marriage between two women?
ReplyDeleteAgain, I think it unlikely the subject would ever have arisen for public consideration at the time of our founding. I am reasonably sure, however, since homosexuality has been woven inextricably by Mother Nature into the woof and warp of human existence, that activities of this nature must have been conducted very quietly by interested parties, but never officially acknowledged and certainly not flaunted.
It is my personal belief as a libertarian that none of these highly personal practices should ever be the subject if legislation. The only time anyone's sexual desires concern me is on the (increasingly rare) occasions when someone expresses an interest in having sex with me.
And that is just as it should be.
A showy, self-righteous portrayal of the role of "Mrs. Grundy, Guardian of Personal Moral Conduct and Enforcer of Standards of Decency in Private Relationships, should be regarded as the EIGHTH DEADLY SIN.
Shaw Kenawe made my point in her comment above..
ReplyDelete... and IRMC has just added confirmation to mine.
DeleteRN please go bCk to banter with that other Moron DS at that Sleepong blog, you fit in perfectly there
DeleteIn my view, cognitive bias has its place. After all:
ReplyDeleteCognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context.
"Thank a liberal?"
ReplyDeleteI have never found the need to.
Furthermore:
ReplyDeleteA mind that takes in every scrap of garbage tossed at it, much like an open mouth takes in flies, mosquitoes, and other trash.
And note these other examples from the same link:
ReplyDeleteJust as an intelligent biker keeps his mouth shut while he rides, an intelligent keeps his mind shut when idiotic ideas fill the air.
An open mind, kept open without discrimination, soon gets filled with bilge.
The liberal says, "just because an idea is unpopular, that doesn't mean it's not true." That's right liberal! And the converse is also true: Just because an idea is popular, that doesn't mean it's true.
YUP! Oscar Wilde said, "Whatever becomes popular is wrong."
ReplyDeletePopularity cheapens and degrades even the worthiest of subjects.
Ozzy Mandias asks
ReplyDeleteBy the way isn't there always a delicate balance between having sincere convictions and harboring prejudice?
No matter what position you take, you are vulnerable to being accused of 'bias" by anyone who thinks differently.
We view EVERYTHING subjectively, and interpret events accordingly.
ReplyDeleteSo what's the point of trying to guess how the Founding Fathers would have responded to these questions that are obviously criticisms of the Obama administration. That in itself makes this an exercise in self-absorption, nothing else.
ReplyDeletePointing out that these are obvious attacks on modern liberalism is not being biased, it's merely being observant.
Remember, all the people involved in crafting the founding documents ignored women, slaves and non-property owners. That's the "tempora and mores" of the times, how can you apply these question to a time when more than half the population was not allowed to participate in its own representation?
these questions that are obviously criticisms of the Obama administration
ReplyDelete...while we're on the subject of self-absorption, who knew that Obama was the very next President after the Founders? What heppened to "Blame Bush", pShaw?
the people involved in crafting the founding documents ignored women, slaves and non-property owners.
That's right, they put the "capstone" on their finished project and made sure that the Constitition could never be amended.
Please. YOU have reason to feel resentful?
from "History Boys"
Hector: Mmm – the important thing is that he has a name. Say Hardy is writing about the Zulu Wars or later the Boer War possibly, these were the first campaigns when soldiers…or common soldiers…were commemorated, the names of the dead recorded and inscribed on war memorials. Before this, soldiers…private soldiers anyway, were all unknown soldiers, and so far from being revered there was a firm in the nineteenth century, in Yorkshire of course, which swept up their bones from the battlefield of Europe in order to grind them into fertiliser. So, thrown into a common grave though he may be, he is still Hodge the drummer boy. Lost boy though he is on the other side of the world, he still has a name.
Grow up!
Whatever opinions people here give will be a reflection of their own political and moral biases.
ReplyDeleteForgive me, my dear Miss Shaw, but if that isn't a clear case of the Pot calling the Kettle Black, I can't imagine what else would be.
You seem to have skirted the realization that
A) I very deliberately advertised these as "loaded" questions,
B) that they ARE questions and not "pronouncements,"
C) that I opened the "floor" to personal observations regarding each, any or all of the questions as a point of departure.
Whether i agree with them or not, I find examples of the way different people think on basic issues to be interesting and often stimulating -- possibly even instructive.
What you have said about the impossibility of knowing what the Founders "really" thought is patently absurd. People don't change very much over millennia. The costumes, sets and props vary more than Human Nature. Besides, there's ample evidence in the personal papers and correspondence they left behind.
One needn't have directly participated in "pillow talk" -- or done business with -- figures from the past to understand their salient characteristics.
You are a good poet, and artistic as well, so it mystifies me how ardently you seem to want to adhere to dull, literalistic interpretations of history and those who populated it.
Surely you must have learned by now that the meaning of poetry is best found by reading between the lines?
When we listen to great music, we are not stirred by the NOTES, we are moved by the artist's unique INTERPRETATION of the notes. That is why we favor certain conductors, chamber groups or soloists over others. It's the subtle differences in their SUBJECTIVE view of the music that fascinates and sometimes moves us.
Most of the things that give life substance, meaning, color, wit and vitality are intangible, immeasurable, illimitable and unquantifiable. They cannot be captured and put in a jar, a box, a drawer, hung in a closet or placed on a shelf, yet these "essences" are the very stuff of life. Without them everything tangible would have no more vitality than a deserted library full of unread volumes thickly covered with dust.
The "Modern/ Common Era" didn't just materialize one day with a progressive thinker's brain fart.
ReplyDelete...and please, FT, it's clear that Ms. pShaw has never heard of the Subjunctive.
ReplyDelete"Grow up!"
ReplyDeleteVery funny.
This from a grown man who spammed my blog for two years and still comes to it and leaves comments.
Yes, please do tell us all about being "mature."
When I want pedantic piffle, I'll ask Professor Gilderoy Lockhart for it. He, at the least, he was an honest narcissist.
This from a grown man who spammed my blog for two years and still comes to it and leaves comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd how many comments have you NOT immediately deleted? How mature!
AnNd yes, DO go find a proper "Daddy" to run to and tell your tribulations to. I'm sure he's just as interest...
*Z-Z-z-z-z-z*
"Momus goes where Phthonos dwells!"
ReplyDelete...or perhaps more apropos:
ReplyDeleteCallimachus, Hymn 2 to Apollo 105 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) :"Spake Phthonos privily in the ear of Apollon : ‘I admire not the poet who singeth not things for number as the sea.’ Apollon spurned Phthonos with his foot and spake thus : ‘Great is the stream of the Assyrian River, but much filth of earth and much refuse it carries on its waters. And not of every water do the Melissai carry to Deo [Demeter], but of the tricking stream that springs from a holy fountain pure and undefiled, the very crown of waters.’ Hail, O Lord, but Momos --let him go where Phthonos dwells!"
"Multi famam, conscientiam pauci verentur"
ReplyDeleteGOOD GOD!
ReplyDeleteWhy should anyone object to these questions? Especially the way that Free Thinker posed them.
UNLESS . . .
some are realizing that if they answer the questions honestly, they'll have to admit that they are violating the spirit of the constitution.
CHILDREN! Cease thy squabbling THIS INSTANT.
ReplyDeleteWe are not assembled here to indulge in rebarbative commentary about one another. Instead, we should be graciously SHARING our differing points of view without rancor or defensiveness. Lapsing into bilious rhetoric is not only distasteful, it's destructive to good order, and defiles any integrity there might be in the debate.
f course that is exactly what the authors and practitioners of CRITICAL THEORY had in mind. To disrupt, derail, destroy the free flow of honest opinion in order o spread confusion and resentment. In this way thy win through ATTRITION.
Militant disingenuousness is a powerful weapon, indeed, but not so much once its victims become aware of the way thy are being cheated and abused without even the pretense of justification.
CRITICAL THEORY is a dishonest, notably vicious TACTIC employed without qualm or conscience in the endless War of Wills.
Speaking of which... what do you think of the Left's "Internationalist" designs upon the country.
ReplyDeleteIs there an coordinated subversive agenda behind the US border crisis?
Hello, AbMarx!
ReplyDeleteA devious internationalist agenda behind the sudden influx of desperately poor, unaccompanied Honduran and Guatemalan children across our southern border?
It wouldn't suprise me in the least. I don' believe in accidents or coincidences -- certainly not of THAT magnitude.
I suspect it's facet of the Cloward-Piven strategy dreamt up long ago by Communist Professors at Columbia University. The obvious goal is to overwhelm us with unsustainable burdens to bring about the collapse of the USA as we've known and loved her.
Once we're in our death throes, the Communist bastards will charge in to "save" us, and we will be their slaves forever after.
I am so glad I'm not young anymore!
I must say this to Thersites-FJ-JoeConservative.
ReplyDeleteAll women are not like Betty Friedan.
All southern white males do not long to be members of the Ku Klux Klan whose idea of practicing Civic Responsibility is to get all liquored up, and then go out lynching Negroes on Saturday night.
All Jews are not like Marx, Engels, Freud, Gompers, the Rosenbergs, Alinsky, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug and Medea Benjamin, nor are they all money-grubbing mockies who've made a career out of using aggressive paranoia as a weapon to get the better of non-Jews in fake confrontations they generate in stores, restaurants and on sidewalks with malice aforethought.
All businessmen are not greedy, flint-hearted SOB's who make Scrooge seem like St. Nick.
All Republicans are not sniveling, ineffectual RINO's like John MCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Christopher Shays, bellowing Chris Christie, and the late, unlamented Eric Cantor, etc.
All Liberal-Progressves are not vicious subversives and professional troublemakers like Rosa Luxembourg, Abbey Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Susan Sontag, Morris Seligman Dees, Joe Conason, Seymour Hersch, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Ward Churchill, Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn. Some are just confused, well-meaning, weak-minded Mercy Freaks and Grievance Junkies who follow the loudest, most persistent voices who blame the USA for everything but Original Sin.
All Negroes are not niggers.
All Hispanics are not Spics.
All Irishmen are no alcoholic.
All Irientals are not Gooks or Wogs.
All Italians are not mafiosi who sink of garlic.
All Germans are not Storm Troopers.
And all HOMOSEXUALS are not obnoxious, in-your-face pedophiles, screaming drag queens and Sado-Masochistic, promiscuous, drug-addicted perverts who prance around the streets in sequined jockstraps mocking God, Jesus, Family Values and Decency, itself, while making a pathetic spectacle of themselves.
The thing that ties all these fractious, undesirable, unwelcome elements together is DISINGENUOUSNESS and the kind of ACTIVISM that wants above all to destroy Capitalism, Christianity and individual Freedom while firmly establishing a worldwide Marxian Dictatorship.
BUT Jersey is STILL an Idoot
DeleteOMG! I can't believe you posted that retarded list! LOL!
ReplyDeleteThe Founders were liberals then, and they'd be liberals today. By the retarded logic of this retarded list, the Founders would have created an aristocracy with a state church, you idiots.
JMJ
Oh yeeeeaaaahhhh....
ReplyDeleteWhat a stupid list of stupid questions. One of the nice things about the Founders is that they were not hung-up, awkward, uncomfortable bothers (well, a couple were).
In you guys minds, they were just a crowd of Edmund Burke clones.
JMJ
Jersey,
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to come back an give us your reasons for your poor opinion if the questions. If we fail to give reasons and back tem up with factual data that clearly supports ou position -- or at the very least -- a sincere outline of the personal observations and perceptions that led to our point of viewm the conversation reduces itself to nothing more than:
A) "You're an idiot"
B) No YOU'RE an idiot!
A) No YOU'RE an idiot!
Etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum
How, how can you imagine any greater understanding or productive course of action could ever come from that?
Or do you just like to blow off steam, and let it go at that?
Tell me the truth, please. Did you even bother to READ the questions?
By the way, Hersey -- and everyone ELSE -- it might help enrich the threads if you read the comments carefully. There's much worth considering in many of the remarks posted -- even if many of them tend to rub you the wrong way.
ReplyDeleteThe aim here is always to do our best to stimulate THOUGHT.
There's no value -- and no fun -- in becoming a repository for knee-jerk reactions and a dumping ground for BOILERPLATE.
All...
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
The thing that ties all these fractious, undesirable, unwelcome elements together is DISINGENUOUSNESS and the kind of ACTIVISM...
The cult of Momus.
The CULT of MOMUS, indeed!
ReplyDeleteBut, isn't that just an earlier name for CRITICAL THEORY?
The mendacious malefactors, intellectual perverts and splenetic malcontents who promoted CRITICAL THEORY weren't even original. They STOLE their ideas from the ancients and from the viciousI talian troublemaker Antonio Gramsci.
The difference between the Frankfurters and the deranged philosophical precepts they appropriated from others lies in the positive genius the Frankfurters had for presenting every conceivable form of perversion and degradation and destructive behavior as a grand and glorious "new" means of effecting Heaven on Earth.
The CULT of MOMUS goes far beyond the good clean fun of holding up the objects of your disap[roval and scorn to ridicule through elegant forms of parody and satire. Instead it verges into the territory of boorish travesty by using crude, humorless, dishonest, unprincipled, utterly vicious frms of defamation and character assassination.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYou should take comfort in the fact that you care less for your reputation than your conscience. For it is only through the assault upon another's reputation that the proponents of political correctness exerts their limited powers. And since the threat is fundamentally disingenuous, it lacks any compulsive force upon those possessed of conscience.
ReplyDelete...it only works on RINO's.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jersy is STILL an Idiot
ReplyDelete