Sunday School

[Davis]

Uh oh…Unseen is in pendantic grumpy mood today. Watch out!!!

[Strega]

It’s déja vu all over again!

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake,

It’s like I tell my grumpier customers: Nothing that comes out a womb is ‘always right,’ and nothing that comes from something that comes out of a womb is ‘always right.’

And firsts of anything are never always right, and that would include the first propositional nation in human history, the first nation founded on an idea.

What makes the founding of The United States of America great and an experiment worth continuing is that the ideals of The Founding Fathers, while not consistently practiced at first, inspired the struggles for Liberty that go on to this day.

The ideals of The Founding Fathers inspired the struggle against slavery and for racial equality, the struggle for sexual equality of Individual Rights, the struggle for Individual Rights for LGBTQ, our own struggles for Individual Rights and Secularism, and struggles for Liberty all over the world such as in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Red China. The students of Tiananmen Square built a Goddess of Liberty statue that was inspired by our own Lady Liberty.

The fact that The U.S. Constitution has a 9th and 10th Amendment, as well as an Amendment process, and Ben Franklin’s quote “A Republic…if you can keep it” shows that Founders knew they weren’t the last word.

[TheEncogitationer]

Davis,

Everything is motivated by incentives, with economics being a massive incentive. Democracy doesn’t come about without something else driving it. The standard narrative that, oh no, British overlords bad, pioneering founders good…voila…democracy is childish. It came because the founders had everything to gain politically and economically by starting a violent and deadly war against the British (which by the way had absolutely no guarantee of working out despite the bloodshed). The only reason that democracy did not quickly collapse is that the economic benefits of becoming a tyrant weren’t strong enough at the time to maintain sufficient support.

While it is certainly great that America became a “slightly” democratic country which helped propel revolutions already in the works in other countries, it is ridiculous to blindly swallow the whole thirst for democracy narrative…wave a wand (and a few unfortunate deaths) and something exceptional was born. It’s just one more set of men doing something that met their own political/economic interests, only in this (and a few other cases) it was somewhat beneficial for the wider population (for example, non-slaves, non-women, non-indentured servants, non-destitute people).

I would, if I were American, focus a lot more on its trajectory towards a failed democracy, unhealthy set of human rights and appalling lack of support for the destitute and those in need.

Democracy wasn’t what the Founders fought for and got. Democracy would mean absolute power to the Mob. What The Founding Fathers fought for and got was a Constitutional Republic where government was divided and limited and where Individual Rights are protected and defended, something that is in the interest of all.

And The Declaration of Independence told that they tried petitioning the Parliament and The Crown the nice and polite way many times to no avail.

[jakelafort]

Okay Enco. I aint going full Zin for the win cuz i agree we got some good things in the design that answered earlier deficiencies.

[_Robert_]

They did get much of it right. Context is key before morally judging historical figures and/or generations. Our own generation may well go down as the worst in history should our species decline and eventually succumb to a man-made unlivable ecosystem.

[PopeBeanie]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Democracy would mean absolute power to the Mob.

Recently, a mob is a Mob even when Democracy loses to the electoral college.

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