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Opinion This July 4, let’s declare our independence from the Founding Fathers

So, since people are born gay and black, you think it’s stupid for those groups to have pride. Hot take. Good luck.

Just looked. You missed calling out Pride month all June. Maybe in February you can catch the blacks. I’ll remind you. :)
You must be exhausted after this.
 
OMG! I never thought of it that way!

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No one really thinks they were perfect.

but the funny thing is they were right about important things in novel ways. Let’s start by respecting that rather than holding our breath like a two year old.
YES, they were correct 250 years ago, but times have changed.
 
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Right now is like the worst time ever to shake up the constitution.

Of course it's necessarily imperfect and we could do better.

But it's also pretty good and is an important grounding mechanism. We can at least agree on it.

The worst time to rethink would be during during hyperpartisan conflict.

You do that during calmer times.
Completely unrelated, but what's with this new trend of spacing after every 1-2 sentences? I think I first noticed it on LinkedIn.
 
The musings of someone who is not proud to be an American.

Oh would you stop. No other industrialized country on earth worships men who died long ago to the same extent we do. The only countries that do this sort of worship of dead political figures are communist nations like China and North Korea where the thoughts of Mao and Kim il Sung still matter in their political life.

No one in Germany is making laws based on the things Otto Von Bismark said or did. No in the UK is worried about the political musings of William Pitt the Younger.

Stop worshipping the founding fathers. Not everything they said and did was some sort of genius level thought that is right for all of eternity. Some things might have been right for their time but wrong for this time. Some things might have just been flat out wrong.
 
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In an 1816 letter to Virginia lawyer Samuel Kercheval on the subject of calling a convention to revise the state's constitution, Jefferson stated that a constitution should be revised every 19 to 20 years. Jefferson's proposed time period was based on the era's mortality rate. Since a majority of adults at any point in time would likely be dead in approximately 19 years, he reasoned, a new generation should have the right to adapt its government to changing circumstances instead of being ruled by the past.

 
This is the most ridiculous post I've had the displeasure of reading in some time. (And on HROT that is saying something.) No one is worshiping the founding fathers. What those of us who love this country, do is appreciate is the forward and open minded thinking of our founding fathers. They created a document that allows for change and updates whenever necessary. However, they made sure it wasn't easy to change the Constitution so the country could rely on consistent rules and laws for future planning. Can you imagine trying to plan for retirement or the future of your business if the laws and their interpretation changed every time the other party came into power or if we surrendered to the to the whims of the loudest voices in society?

Our country is the only one where there is still hope for success even for those living in the most dire of situations. You may be poor but there is no reason you have to stay there.
 
This is the most ridiculous post I've had the displeasure of reading in some time. (And on HROT that is saying something.) No one is worshiping the founding fathers. What those of us who love this country, do is appreciate is the forward and open minded thinking of our founding fathers. They created a document that allows for change and updates whenever necessary. However, they made sure it wasn't easy to change the Constitution so the country could rely on consistent rules and laws for future planning. Can you imagine trying to plan for retirement or the future of your business if the laws and their interpretation changed every time the other party came into power or if we surrendered to the to the whims of the loudest voices in society?

Our country is the only one where there is still hope for success even for those living in the most dire of situations. You may be poor but there is no reason you have to stay there.
Stop with the “We love this country BS”. Clearly our “Founding Fathers” cared more about ideology than people, that’s not even debatable. I guarantee you I do more for this country than you will ever do. And protesting human rights being stripped away from people, such as the overturning of Roe is about as “American” as you can be. So save the BS.
 
Stop with the “We love this country BS”. Clearly our “Founding Fathers” cared more about ideology than people, that’s not even debatable. I guarantee you I do more for this country than you will ever do. And protesting human rights being stripped away from people, such as the overturning of Roe is about as “American” as you can be. So save the BS.
I feel sorry for people like you that always have to find fault with everything and everyone. Maybe you need to pull back and take a look at your life. There is always time to change. Good luck.
 
I feel sorry for people like you that always have to find fault with everything and everyone. Maybe you need to pull back and take a look at your life. There is always time to change. Good luck.
Lol, you’re the type of person should feel sorry for. Constant victimhood.
 
YES, they were correct 250 years ago, but times have changed.
indeed, in certain matters, they have. but in important big picture matters, they haven't.

One thing that has remained constant is that if you are really serious about trying to govern, say, 300 million people as a single nation, when they literally have none of the traditional factors in common (race, ethnicity, language, geographic isolation, religion, etc.) that have tended to hold nations together over history, there are two basic ways to do it: force and moderate consensus. And assuming you don't like the former, it's actually very important to design your governmental structures in a way that will promote the latter.

Now again, they weren't always right in all of the structural choices they made in that respect, but they were right more often than they were wrong, and certainly so in putting us more on a republican, rather than democratic, path. And, as I've noted in the past several weeks' scotus threads, if you set aside the substantive questions underlying the various disputes that people on message boards seem to get most worked up about, a common theme emerges. It is that only by insisting that key social choices be made by the most democratically accountable representatives can we create the pressure for moderate consensus.

So sure, it's easy for modern people to dislike a bunch of old dead white planters and merchants who had the means to spend time to think, but they did do one remarkable thing that nobody had ever done before, and which has stood for a couple of centuries: they established good government through reflection and choice, rather than by accident and force. Which, to paraphrase Cal Naughton Jr., is a pretty good thing - and well worth honoring.
 
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The left is getting awfully close to exposing itself for as actually hating our country. Go against the founding fathers, go against the national anthem at events, low key talk about selecting the country.
 
Lol, you’re the type of person should feel sorry for. Constant victimhood.
How am I claiming victumhood? I literally said in America we can become anything our talents and desires will permit. I know being a leftist you must be a little slow, but that is the exact opposite of victimhood. :D
 
The left is getting awfully close to exposing itself for as actually hating our country. Go against the founding fathers, go against the national anthem at events, low key talk about selecting the country.
Honestly, it's your attitude (held by those on both sides) that is half of the problem. Here's my guide to a healthy polity:
1. Recognize that those you disagree with are the opposition, not the enemy.
2. Assume, in the absence of very clear and specific facts to the contrary, that the opposition in fact earnestly loves the country as much as you do, but has a different vision for it. And that that vision is generally because they are "for" something that is a plausible philosophical good, rather than simply being "against" something else. Figure out what that is.
3. Appreciate that that different vision is actually quite a natural, and quintessentially "American" thing. The only thing that defines what is to be an American is a shared set of values - liberty, equality, limited government, economic opportunity. Yet, those values are in tension with each other. And so for the last 250 years we've been routinely debating, passionately, what the right mix of them is. Our ancestors managed to have that debate with, essentially, only one major bloodletting. Given our prosperity, I'd think the least we can do is to honor them by always striving to do the same.
4. And finally, at least pretend to take a medium to long view as to the debate. You may lose some today, but our history of the debate is almost undeniably cyclical, with ebbs and flows, and ultimately, has tended over time in the direction of classical liberalism.
 
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How am I claiming victumhood? I literally said in America we can become anything our talents and desires will permit. I know being a leftist you must be a little slow, but that is the exact opposite of victimhood. :D
Your posting history says otherwise.
 
In an 1816 letter to Virginia lawyer Samuel Kercheval on the subject of calling a convention to revise the state's constitution, Jefferson stated that a constitution should be revised every 19 to 20 years. Jefferson's proposed time period was based on the era's mortality rate. Since a majority of adults at any point in time would likely be dead in approximately 19 years, he reasoned, a new generation should have the right to adapt its government to changing circumstances instead of being ruled by the past.

Setting aside the fact that Jefferson was something of a historical outlier as to his hyperdemocratic tendencies, we do, and we have. Funnily enough, all within the confines of the existing system, and with one exception (1870-1913), more frequently than Jefferson's generational turnover.
 
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