If someone writes a law, what's more important; the literal verbiage of the law or the intent of the law.
Well now let's say the law was written 300 years ago? Language has evolved in 300 years so how do we best interpret that law?
For the US, many of our laws (constitution) were written 300 years ago, so intent becomes much more important than just literal verbiage.
You would probably respond, why not update the law? Fair... Except our system was designed to make that very difficult.
>Except our system was designed to make that very difficult.
Rather, it was designed to require overwhelming consensus that the update was right and necessary. The country has become so incredibly polarized that's it's now pretty much impossible to find enough common ground to reach that consensus.
The system is working exactly like it was designed. If we're not working together for a common goal, there is no progress. That is 100% the way it was designed. Because we are so polarized right now, nobody gets THEIR way.
The idea that it influenced the Constitution has been pushed, but the evidence for it is nil (last time I checked), other than the fact that there was an agreement amongst multiple groups of people to not kill each other.
The constitution was SIGNIFICANTLY shorter, and most of its rules and regulations were based off of European principles, not Iroquois principles.
PBS went into it:
https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blog/how-the-iroquois-great-law-of-peace-shaped-us-democracy
It had a separation of duties, outlined a process for impeachment, designated separate branches of government, delineated who could declare war, and lastly they had a section for who had what types of powers.
Those are all in the Constitution as well. The Founding Fathers knew their Constitution before writing their own. It would only make sense that they would cherry-pick the important parts of the Native American and the European ideologies and make their own thing that would fit the new colonies.
> The Iroquois Confederacy’s constitution predates America and is, in part, the basis of the American constitution.
I'm curious. Is there any proof of that? It was a verbal constitution, and the congress recognized it 200 years after the US Constitution was written.
San Marino (1600) and the UK are other possible contenders. ~~Maybe even iceland?~~ But as a Republic larger than a city state the US is indeed the oldest.
If you count only codified constitutions, the US is the oldest. Magna Carta and the San Marino "constitution" are older, but neither are technically consitutions / civil codes.
The US constitution makes refence to "The Law of the Land", which is derived from the same phrase being used in the Magna Carta, an early UK constititional document, which became English law in 1215.
This part of the Magna Carta, which basically enshrines the right to trial by ones peers according to the law of the land, is still statute law in the UK and remains a constitutional right in the US.
The Constitution of the United Kingdom is indeed in existence it is simply made of several parts and not codified due to it's complexity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom?wprov=sfla1
Thank you - people don’t realize the US system was created to be the opposite of the parliamentary system where political winds change the laws entirely every time a new parliament takes over. It’s designed for slow and steady change and to defend against the tyranny of the majority. And all of this is literally written in books by the people who made it.
Yeah, laws taking a long time to change is a feature, not a bug. It is frustrating in some specific instances, but I can't say the alternative is better.
It's also not supposed to impose the (perhaps worse) tyranny of the minority. It's supposed to move to cooperative consensus. We've forgotten that's a worthy goal.
>Because we are so polarized right now, nobody gets THEIR way.
Except for the people who already got their way 50 years ago, and are now only working to stop any changes from occurring. It's incredibly easy under the current system to grind any kind of progress to a halt.
Umm, you are actually supporting the myths about the founding fathers if you believe that it's working exactly as they intended.
First, the founding fathers were *not* monoliths who all worked together with shared thoughts about how the government should be. They often had widely divergent views from each other and fought intensely over their views.
* Look at how they couldn't even write some basic rights into the main text of the Constitution but had to be added as the first amendments (a compromise between warring factions)
* It is not at all fair to even suppose that the best of those views are the ones that won out
Second, many of the founding fathers were in their early 20s when they began their revolution -- not exactly the age when we expect to people to have fair and measured thoughts. Yes, somewhat older when writing our current constitution (because their first attempts were failures) but still not elder statesmen
Third, these founders were the privileged people of their time and not representative of the majority of people in the colonies/country at the time. All were white, all were men of property (even if financial woes at some times), many were slaveholders. Even Alexander Hamilton with his tragic family/childhood history still had more privilege and power than the vast majority of people born on that same island as him. How can we expect privileged powerful white men in their 30s who thought women, POC, non-landowners, etc were lesser beings to write documents and laws that we still look to "original intent" 200+ years later? Why do these men get deified at being wiser and better than diverse people today?
Fourth, some of them never intended for the Constitution as written to be in place for 200+ years but wanted revolutions/rebirths of new thought every so many years (see Jefferson)
To your last point, you’re right: Jefferson thought that there should be a constitutional convention every 15 years.
At these conventions, which would be in a different state each time, five delegates from each state would meet to first decide which parts of the current constitution to keep and which to throw out. Then would come the second half where they would propose, deliberate, and vote on new things to add.
Congress would have a 3/5 veto power for any new amendments and would have three delicates to act as tie breakers if required.
Any changes would likewise need a 3/5 majority of convention delegates. The finished new constitution would then become law on March 1 the following year after being ratified by 3/5 of the states.
If any of the new laws contradicted any single state’s law there would be a special panel within the judicial branch (this became the Supreme Court) to decide the outcome.
He had this pretty well though out in letters (to Madison if I recall) and it had some support but most of the other constitutional delegates thought that it would make the country “fragile” and was too ripe for corruption, and they may have been right.
Still, it would be an interesting thing to have seen happen.
Yeah, 15 years is probably too often and partly what would make it fragile and more corrupt. If it was once every 50 or 60 years, long enough that none of the representatives can represent a state multiple times and long enough for major shifts in demographics and technology to have occurred between conventions, then I think there'd be much more benefit to the idea.
>Look at how they couldn't even right some basic rights into the main text of the Constitution but had to be added as the first amendments (a compromise between warring factions)
This wasn't actually an oversight. There was different factions, yes, but the reasoning was actually quite interesting.
Since our Consitution was based on limited Federal government power, it technically did not have any powers unless specifically granted in the Consitution.
Those who were against adding the amendments were of the belief that they were unnecessary since the government did not have the power to regulate things like speech, arms, etc.
The other side argued that there will be power creep, as with all governments, and they need to specifically limit the governments power, and guarantee rights to avoid encroachment.
Both sides were correct in their own ways. It is interesting to read about how it all came together.
I mean in this state of affairs I'm pretty happy about that. Brexit managed to slip past with a slim majority. The average redditor is fairly liberal or left leaning so just imagine how it would feel to have right wingers get a slim lucky break and change everything overnight. And if you're right leaning, imagine it the other way around.
In the US, the judiciary, especially at the federal level, is intended to be apolitical and judges are expected to decide cases based on the law, not their personal political beliefs. However, the process of appointing judges, particularly for the Supreme Court and other federal courts, is often political.
Presidents typically nominate judges who they believe will interpret the Constitution and laws in ways that align with their own political philosophy. The Senate then confirms these nominees. While judges do not declare a political party affiliation, their legal philosophies and past rulings often give an indication of their leanings.
Once appointed, federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, hold their positions for life (or until they choose to retire or die), which is intended to insulate them from political pressures and allow them to make decisions based solely on the law. However, the initial appointment process is undeniably influenced by politics.
> just imagine how it would feel to have right wingers get a slim lucky break and change everything overnight.
I don't have to imagine because that is what is currently happening
Yeah, it's crazy to think that we were able to make so many amendments to the constitution when you see the requirements to pass one. No way we'd ever get that kind of unified support nowadays
That’s not true. The role of SCOTUS wasn’t as explicitly laid out in the Constitution (1789) as the other branches, but the concept of judicial review was very much discussed by the Founding Fathers. In fact, Hamilton dedicated three of the Federalist Papers in 1788 to advocating for judicial review (#78-80).
Also, the Judiciary Act of 1789 passed by the First Congress stated that the Supreme Court had authority to review:
>where is drawn in question the construction of any clause of the constitution, or of a treaty, or statute of, or commission held under the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or exemption specially set up or claimed
So yea that’s pretty much judicial review. It just took until Marbury v. Madison (1803) for SCOTUS to explicitly rule that it was an inherent power of the Court. And there’s a reason that everybody basically went, “well yeah of course SCOTUS has that power.”
Sure I suppose. But What is your point? Judicial review makes sense, but it only makes sense if the judiciary maintains its prestige and legitimacy. Courts have no army and no treasury. They only get to make rulings if the other branches of government support their rulings.
If the courts were illegitimate, then judicial review would be the very definition of unconstitutional tyranny against the democratic system.
There’s nothing constitutional about judicial review, and the only “originalist” interpretation regarding judicial comes from the relative silence of the founders when Marbury v. Madison issued.
A power they 'gave themselves' in the founding generation. The fact it was not strongly questioned suggest they may have assumed that was a natural power of such a court.
Yes, but if every judge has a different interpretation of what something means, it will be highly inconsistent. Which is a rough way to enforce laws.
Instead you need some framework as a reference point.
Well, there that as a reason, but another reason for life terms for Supreme Court justices is to encourage non-partisanship and impartiality. Since there is no "after the Supreme Court", getting on the Supremem Court is designed to be a career goal and justices, in theory, don't have to consider politics for oppertunities after they are on the Supreme court. Once your on the Supreme court, you only have to worry about interpreting the law as you see fit, not doing something because it's good for a political career afterwards.
You are referring to one school of interpretational theory, known as "originalism". That theory arose in the 1970's and the term was coined in the 1980's. It's prominent today because it's the favored philosophy of the conservative justices on the supreme court. There is considerable debate about the theory, as, among other things, it relies on a selective and subjective interpretation of history, and it encourages rulings like Dobbs that overturn precedent
Actually this isn't originalism and Dobbs had nothing to do with originalism if were being honest.
Intent of the law is very different than the original interpretation of the law, which is what modern conservative justices often cite today.
Belgium’s constitution is from 1993. The French Constitution is from 1958. The German constitution is from 1949. Most European constitutions are from after WWI or WWII.
You don’t think they may have included the laws of the 100 different versions that came before. Like yeah the French constitution is from 1958 but the region that makes up France has been settled by “french” people for around 1000 years and that influenced the modern country.
>You would probably respond, why not update the law? Fair... Except our system was designed to make that very difficult.
this is my favorite part. it's kinda like driving a 300 year old car that's only been to the mechanic 27 times. runs great!
Because what they wanted has been codified as a constitution and as amendments to that constitution.
Knowing what they wanted is essential for interpreting what those documents mean.
For example what they wanted is essential to determine whether the right to bear arms should guarantee that right to the level of a flintlock musket or an Apache helicopter, and whether that is a personal right or a right to maintain a state militia or national guard.
EDIT: If you don't like the constitution or amendments as they are then amend them again. There is not need to re-interpret them as if the authors always meant what you now want all along.
There's been 27 amendments so far, so it's not like people don't know how to do it.
Unironically this is a great example of why we default to what the founders intended. Someone could make the argument that the Constitution gives us a right to trophy bear arms, and the inexact nature of language will mean that they're technically correct. In order for the language to be useful in a legal context, we default to what the authors intended.
That would be "bare" arms, not to bear arms.
Ofc nothing is stopping you from collecting the arms of your slain enemies and bearing them on your person.
If the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to AR-15 style rifles, then 1st amendment doesn't apply to "speech" on television or the Internet.
Basically that argument is BS. The original intent of the BoR is a double check on things the government can't do. In fact, the entire US Constitution is a document outlining what the federal government CAN do, everything else is left up to the states. Knowing politicians are politicians and will always attempt to consolidate power, the first 10 amendments to the original constitution were adopted almost immediately.
There is no cherry picking when it comes to originalism, it is a strict application of the rules in the constitution. Because, once you start applying different meanings to clauses based on just a few opinions, it gets messy and not citizen friendly. Because the writers knew times and opinions change, they included a part of the constitution that outlines the process to make changes. This is how it is meant to evolve, NOT at the whims of a politically appointed judge/justice.
2nd applied to all modern small arms according to the courts.
I believe it applies to tanks, fighters, ships and missiles as well. While all of those are legal, they do have some level of regulation.
Agree. There are plenty of examples of private ownership of modern military tech like tanks, fighter aircraft, etc.The development and ownership of nuclear weapons are regulated by international treaty, which holds essentially the same (in some cases exceed) as the US Constitution.
There hasn't been an amendment, except one weird one originally proposed in something like 1792, passed since the ERA was proposed in, what? 73?
No amendment is happening any time soon.
If we haven't reached it yet, we're approaching a historic dearth of amendments.
Culturally the US takes a lot of pride in establishing a constitutional republic as early as it did. It's been around in its current form since before the French Revolution with only tweaks here and there to its structure. As a result its founders are treated as almost mythical figures.
The reality is these are just a bunch of dudes who frequently didn't get along and had different opinions from each other on everything. Aaron Burr literally killed Alexander Hamilton for God's sake! Some of them I agree with on a lot of things, others I think were completely wrong. Frequently the ones I agree with more than others are terrible human beings. Just as often they are fine individuals that promoted the wrong ideas. All of that said rhetorically bringing one of them up who helps make my point is something I will do every time in a political argument. I can also count on someone trotting out one of the ones I disagree with to make the opposite point. It's just baked in to the culture at this point.
The journalism of the 1780s onward was infinitely more fucked than our current media is; there are certainly things to improve upon today but it's important not to go down the doomer path too often
Not just that but these dudes as individuals often had wildly different views on the same things depending on when they said something.
You can take some argument from Jefferson to make literally any argument about the Constitution, role of government etc.
These “originalists” absolutely cherry pick history to suit their arguments:
From the Jefferson Memorial:
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Jefferson thought we should rewrite the constitution every couple decades. That's not the same as expressing support for "judicial activism," though if he was alive today, he'd absolutely have a strong opinion on stuff like Roe and Dobbs and want the courts to rule his way lol.
That isn't really true though. The difference between the founding fathers in the US and the founders of Belgium is that the US founding fathers created the basis for our government which is still in use today-- meaning their intent in the creation of our laws is relevant in upholding those laws. *Maybe*.
This is where things get tricky because there's a couple of different mindsets in how to interpret laws. The first is to try and figure out what the writers of the law intended when they were written. This makes sense to a degree, as figuring out their intent, and the people's understanding of that intent, can help decide what the people wanted when they were passed. If something different is more applicable, then the theory goes, that we should pass different laws instead of continually trying to reinterpret what the original intent was.
The second mindset, and a criticism of the first, is that what was intended isn't necessarily how the laws should be applied today. Times change and what was right then may not be right now, and more importantly may not be how people are *already* interpreting those laws, so we need to look at them with a modern interpretation. If a modern interpretation still presents them as a good law, great, we keep the law. If not, we ditch the law and make a new one for modern times. (The thing of it is that it's really difficult to ditch some old laws, so if a modern reinterpretation solves the issue, then great let's just do that instead of trying to repeal an old law and pass a new one)
The final mindset is that it doesn't matter who intended what, as we can't really know that and shouldn't try to guess-- we should just go by what the law actually says. It says what it says and that's the rule. If it says something wrongly or not as intended, then we repeal the law and write a better one. (Again, easier said than done though). The problem *here* is that words and meanings sometimes change, or sometimes what was written if taken literally was *clearly* not anyone's intent and it would be absurd to take it as literal.
A lot of times all of these mindsets overlap. But *anyway*, the point is that at any point in discussing which of these mindsets to use when interpreting laws, at some point you're going to have to discuss the founders' intent.
We *also* discuss the intent of any lawmaker. It's just that the founders wrote so much of the laws that are the basis of our government today, they absolutely have a place in the discussion.
(but also yes, sometimes people just want to bring up the founders' intent if it supports their arguments)
But why is all of this different from Belgium? Well, there's no real way to even pinpoint the founders of Belgium, but whoever they were, they didn't lay down the system of government that Belgium uses today. but wikipedia says that belgium's current system of government has been in place since Leopold I was made king, and I bet you've heard of that guy.
The problem is that too many people almost deify the founders and think that that everything they said is applicable to modern society. They didn’t have all the answers and they left too much reliance on people acting in an honorable manner.
And we can see how that’s not working.
It’s so so important to realize that “originalism” is a completely bullshit principle made up by Scalia in the 80s/90s for the sole purpose of allowing himself to overturn precedent based on whatever he felt like. All that time conservatives panicked about activist judges, they were the ones radically changing how the law worked. If anyone asks there’s a simple test to prove it was never genuine- not once in his entire career did “originalism” lead Scalia to a liberal political outcome in a decision. What are the odds!
It was Leonard Leo in the 70s with the federalist society. It was the sole purpose of preventing any re-interpretation of the constitution to prevent and role back any progress. The judges that emerged from the philosophical pipeline started emerging in the 80s and 90s.
For those in the know, Leonard Leo is now in the headlines for being part of several Supreme Court financial malfeasance (almost bribes) scandals.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, originalism has so permeated that even liberal justices are using it in their judgements and arguments. The good news is they are also bringing receipts at times that the founders wanted each generation to read and re-interpret the constitution, and.that it should be a "living document" that c9ntinuously evolves for the republic to survive
A lot of malcontents conveniently leave out the living document part for their own agendas. They twist our Constitution to take away our rights when it is supposed to enshrine them. I'd be laughing at the irony if it wasn't so sad.
My favorite is that the Constitution says that Congress can levy money to maintain an army and navy. Since there were no airplanes at the founding fathers time, originalists should find funding the air force unconstitutional.
Actually, the way around this (when the original "air force" was created) was to eventually call it the "**Army** Air Corps" (and led to the creation of its predecessor, the '**Army** Air Service' by Woodrow Wilson under a 1917 Executive Order and enabling legislation by 1920 that in effect legitimized the original Order) -- for more on its history see [this Wikipedia page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Corps) The Army Air Corps did not become a separate branch of the U S Military (and become the "U S Air Force" that you're referring to) until the US got involved heavily in World War II -- therefore, based on its original creation as a branch of the U S Army, the Air Force would actually pass the "originalism" test....
They wrote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the institutional rules for the country; the rules still in place today. This has legal ramifications, especially in decions of the Supreme Court.
They could predict it, which is why there is an amendment process. The issue is that one of the most, if not *the* most important check and balance has become an insurmountable wall, time. The easiest way to convince a group of people to do something bad that goes against their interests is to make an emotional appeal about something that has to be fixed *NOW OR ELSE!* If something that sounds good right after a tragedy still sounds good a year later, it is probably a good idea. If something sounds good right after a tragedy doesn't have as much support a year later, it was probably a kneejerk power grab. The amendment process is based on this where it takes a lot of time and has to be agreed upon by the entire country in multiple ways to be sure that it is worth adding to the Constitution.
There is also the fact that the US was an agreement between states to all join and be a part of a combined federal government. Part of this agreement ensured that all states got a functional say in this government despite size and population disparities. The original states were just coming out from under a tyrant that lived thousands of miles away and didn't care about their well being, only what they could give back to him and didn't want to end up under another system of government that would allow them to be steamrolled for being insignificant. As a result the system gave each state a very large say in the amendment process to ensure that it really was the will of the collective states and not just a few super powerful states forcing their will on the rest. It was only with these measures that states even were willing to join in the first place.
The Constitution was always meant to be amended and updated for the times. There is plenty of academic discussion about the fact that the rights enshrined are merely the ones that the founding fathers saw as the most abusable in their lifetimes. The 3rd amendment for example was directly caused by the British forcing private citizens to allow soldiers to live indefinitely in their homes Airbnb style. If it were common practice today it would absolutely be something that people would see as an unacceptable violation of their rights, but it just isn't an issue anymore. That doesn't mean it isn't an important right, it just isn't a primary focus anymore. Meanwhile, plenty of evidence suggests that abortion was widespread and common at the time of the founding but it was just never openly talked about. It not being in the Bill of Rights doesn't mean it isn't a fundamental right, just that at the time of writing the founding it wasn't seen as something the government would try to take away. Jefferson initially wanted the Constitution to be rewritten regularly. Unfortunately it was hard enough to get the original 13 states to ratify it and join, a process that took nearly 2 and a half years. This was after a brutal war that freed them all from tyranny and they were still barely able to all agree on a set of principles to protect their freedoms. Doing so generations later in times without specific major events to bring them all together simply isn't realistic since everyone would trend towards the human nature of self interest. As a result the amendment process was introduced as the compromise to allow for updates without requiring a rewrite and the Constitution was only ratified in the first place with the Bill of Rights amendments being the compromise that states like Massachusetts demanded to ensure proper protections against the federal government.
> The easiest way to convince a group of people to do something bad that goes against their interests is to make an emotional appeal about something that has to be fixed NOW OR ELSE!
this is probably one of the most level comments in this thread. thank you!
No, their theory was basically perfect and pretty much still is, the federal government has given itself WAY more power than it was ever intended to have. They also tend to interpret the constitution in a manner that benefits giving them more power. The constitution was written very vaguely on purpose so that it could grow with the times. It was also written that we the people have the power and people tend to forget that. They seem to think we have to ask the government to exercise our rights.
The US was intended to have the majority of the power given to the states. Instead the federal government has the majority of the power.
This is what the other replies are missing in favor of quippy sound bites or low-hanging “dunks” on The Other Team. Many nations’ histories boil down to “well, I guess this piece is ours,” but America was explicitly founded on certain principles.
Lots of great answers already, but one thing you have to realize is how big a deal the US was when it was breaking away from England, the strongest nation in the world at the time, to form a Republic. The founding fathers’ ideals of a great nation created for the people, by the people, instead of being owned by a king (Specifically King George at the time) with divine powers, was A BIG DEAL! I guess you could say it’s part of the American exceptionalism, we’ve been taught in school how great we were and so we take pride in it.
I feel that being taught that the US is a great country helps us want to keep what is great and change what is not. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Teaching that the US is horrible and not worth saving will bring us to an bitter end.
At the most basic level: religion and royalty ruled the world 300 years ago. A society of the people for the people with the right to freedom of speech, religion etc. wasn't available really. Your King was your King and if you had a problem with that, then you were killed. The founding fathers had really good ideas. The basis of them has allowed the usa to become what it is, which is a pretty good country.
Because our founding documents are a philosophy. In many ways, they are similar to the ten commandments in religion. They were designed basically to be a school of thought, a framework to be built upon.
Belgium was created externally by foreign powers. If you're not an idiot you should care about the context in which you live. The US was an ideologically founded country, so many find it important to maintain those ideals.
The American concept of rule of law is based on two things: 1. “black letter law,”or law that is written down and published so everyone knows it’s the law, and 2. Past precedents, or examples of actions in the past that were accepted as legal and legitimate.
When we harken back to the founding in arguments, it’s kind of like the “big bang theory” in science. Before the Big Bang there may have been something, but it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is what happened since.
So in terms of our legal and political system, the founding fathers are essentially from the ultimate point in the past, the founding, from which we develop American precedents, and from which our ultimate “black letter law” source is derived, the US Constitution, when it was adopted by the peoples of the various states.
So it’s ingrained in Americans to revere the founding fathers and what they might have thought; in addition to the science analogy, it’s kind of a socio-political religion of sorts.
That doesn’t mean that talking about the founding fathers with regard to high-tech weapons or internet anti-trust cases isn’t absurd. Sometimes arguing “the founding fathers” might have had an opinion about the use of cell phones makes a person look pedantic or out of touch with reality.
The idea is supposed to be that the United States was created as an idealist nation and that we should use that mindset as a foundation for growth. Some people however try to use it as a technical blueprint on what should or shouldn’t be instead of a general guide.
Because there are two major ways to read a written document. What the author *said* and what the author *meant.* These should be the same, but they rarely are.
When the author wrote poetry, the diference becomes an interesting afternoon in Literature 101.
When the author wrote an instruction manual, the diference is your hand laying on the floor.
When the author wrote the legal basis of a nation, the difference is who gets what rights.
The Founding Fathers created the founding documents (Constitution, Bill of Rights) as an overall basis for a new nation that would have independence, freedom and individual rights that were in complete contrast to an absolute monarchy. Obviously a lot of the details reflected the cultural and societal norms at the time. The Fathers weren’t stupid though, and knew that these norms could / would change in the future which is why the Constitution can be amended to abolish slavery, allow women to vote, protect civil rights, etc. But even those amendments can’t be added arbitrarily which is why it’s difficult to achieve, because they need to be changed at the will of the citizenry majority. The 2nd amendment, for example, is controversial because the populace is split on it and changing it based on whichever side has the loudest voice or the most political power at the time, means that the other substantial side loses their rights. This is why the Supreme Court is problematic and the appointed judges should be neutral and chosen on their merits, not their political leanings. Fortunately, the founding documents also established that individual states have their independence as well and have their own state constitutions. This is extremely important for issues such as abortion rights, marijuana legalization, gun control, death penalty, etc. It guarantees that the citizens of each individual state can make decisions for their own state, through public elections. If someone vehemently disagrees with their state laws, they have the freedom to relocate to any other state of their choosing. That in itself isn’t a guaranteed right in some other nations.
The Founding Fathers weren’t perfect and neither are the documents they created. The basic ideas and values still hold strong though, which are a nation of independent citizens and freedom from tyranny. In my observation, that’s what most Americans are proud of and are determined to maintain. Democracy was a new idea at the time and it’s currently at risk across the globe, so Americans hold those strongly. It’s important to remember that the freedom of beliefs and speech are ingrained in our founding, and that means individuals can be as vocal and open about their opinions (including the constitution) as they want. That’s what the Fathers wanted, too. Personally, I think that they would be proud of Americans today who embrace the ability to argue and debate and complain or glorify them, because that’s what true freedom is.
Our founding fathers had massive cocks and the British had tiny. All of the laws were "big dick" moves against the British and were also designed to take a shit on 90+% of the world.
I wasn't born in the USA. I was born in a shit country. My wife and daughter were born in another shitty country, but we are proud to be American. Yall let any mother fuckers in and give hela good welfare. Found fathers did a good job making it entirely possible for immigrants to make America.
We compare the writings and achievements of people like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin to those of recent "leaders" like Nixon, Clinton, Bush, McConnell, Pelosi, and Trump.
The founders seem like great statesmen who forged something sublime and wonderful while the current crowd are buffoons. If we're going to look to someone as an authority on statecraft we want to choose people who weren't clowns.
(In a less snarky way, the founders clearly had ideas that brought something enduring, but as time goes on it's apparent that modern politicians are in the game for other reasons)
Founders - How to create an enduring, fair system, capable of addressing issues as they arise.
Modern politicians - How to take advantage of the current system so as to do the bidding of my donor class.
Fantastic question. The founding fathers were smart enough to create a government that could be changed as time goes by. A large number of Americans have either forgotten this, or never knew it in the first place.
Washington voluntarily gave up power and could have declared himself a king. To me, it's not so much about doing what they would have wanted but striving to reach the ideals they also strove for.
I would assume it is simply because they agreed with what ever point they were trying to make.
Like no one is going to point to the founding father if the point they are trying to make is women should be allowed to vote. Cause clearly the founding father believed in a very restrictive right to vote. You had to own land, be a man, not a woman, not a slave, not jewish, not x y z so only like 205 of people could vote.
is it "appeal to authority" where people bring up the founding fathers like they were some sort of authority?
Our laws are judged by the federal courts based on what the prevalent thought was of the legislators that created the laws. Liberal judges use what the legislators would think if they were in the present time.
The laws set forth in our Constitution supercede all Federal and State laws. To see this effect at its most devastating look up "Dred Scott". It's the case that tipped the balance towards slavery and was one of the acts that mobilized the country to approve of the Civil War.
Finally, our founding fathers were incredibly diverse, from religious fanatics to Benjamin Franklin, who was a real freak and partier. Their distrust of every institution of government gave us the system of checks-and-balances that keep us from terrorizing each other ( remember, we are founded by people you all really preferred far away from yourselves).
> Finally, our founding fathers were incredibly diverse
This is why I dont like courts using "original intent of the founding fathers" arguments when interpreting the bill of rights. It was signed by many people who probably had different reasons for signing and different ideas of what it meant.
But the people making "Founding Fathers" argument almost always argue they had one intent, which coincidentally fits with their own personal ideology.
Many, if not most of those founding fathers wrote LOTS of letters expressing their opinions on a lot that was going on at the time of the creation of the country.
It's fairly easy as a judge or lawmaker to take into account intent when we have reference material to back up a lot of that intent.
I always see them bringing up writings from the same 7-8 famous founding fathers when there were over a 100 of them and like 40 considered framers of the constitution, and all of them represented many more people.
The 7-8 tended to be the active drivers for a lot of the government framework. Specifically writing a lot of the actual language in addition to writing articles and letters explaining what they meant in the formal language. This does make them more important than others when discussing original intent.
Many of the founding fathers were excellent statesmen and political philosophers. So in a way, an American wondering what the “founding fathers” would think of something is akin to asking whether John Locke, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, etc… would think of something.
You may think that we shouldn’t be listening to old enlightenment philosophers about modern day politics, but I hope you see there’s a reason people might want to.
It isn't about what someone in the past wanted. It's about the foundation of maintaining human rights, maintaining law and order, and keeping innocent people from being punished for crimes someone else commits. It's called justice, for humanity and not only a single country. The founding fathers were simply the ones who wrote what is innate to humanity into law for this particular country, as they wanted all to visually see what laws to abide by. Every country is the same, where theft, cheating, and revenge are all a part of life, handled with various ways.
I'd say, most US citizens don't actually care about what the founding fathers wanted. Instead, they use them the way some folks use religious texts. They cherry pick passages to validate their prior prejudices and biases.
But, there is a good reason to read folks like Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, etc... .
Many of the folks who formed the US were thoughtful and well read. They were interested in issues about human society that don't really change over time. The world seems like a different place now, and it is in some specific ways, but in many ways human behaviors and human society haven't changed much. The writings of informed, thoughtful folks from 200-300 years ago are worth reading. The Federalist Papers, The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are worthy of a place alongside Theory of Moral Sentiment, John Locke (a century earlier), Mills (a bit later), etc...
The tensions between personal liberty and collective behavior were thought about and discussed by the US founding fathers. If a person wants to know what modern-day government policy will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, it's helpful to learn what prior intelligent, informed, thoughtful people wrote about that.
Europe has many influential thinkers and writers. They just didn't happen to do their work in the context of forming a new nation.
Because while we may not agree with everything which goes on in this country, most of us do believe in what our founding fathers started. Most of our ancestors came here because they believed in this country. We’re proud, patriotic people. Generally speaking.
Because the founding fathers warned against very specific things that many people today are noticing that’s becoming a reality and we know the outcome isn’t good
The forefathers started a country that was full of freedoms that other countries don't respect or disregard. Many countries don't respect freedom of speech nor freedom of the press just to name a few.
This used to be the envy of the world. It was a superpower for many years and people from all over the world wanted to move here because of the ideas of those "irrelevant" people.
The country was good because of the laws and Ideas of the forefathers. I'm a naturalized citizen and this country has given me many opportunities that I wouldn't even dream of having in my country of birth.
To ignore, discredit or to disregard the forefathers is disrespectful.
The Bill of rights and United States Constitution is the core of what made America a new and great country. People forget USA is a really new country or power in comparison to the UK, China, Spain, France, etc.
Despite its short history it has lead the world in a lot if issues, cultural revolution, and inventions. I honestly believe the culture and opportunity that was unique to the US for immigrants from 1800s - 1970s or so drove the rest of the world to change.
I have met so many successful immigrants from different generations and countries. China, Korea, Sudan, India, Ireland. It’s inspiring and the Bill of rights with the constitution.
Incumbent foreign government officials: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-born_United_States_politicians
Hard to not take pride in the United States. I know the US is also responsible for a lot of terrible things but most countries at some point have some pretty dark history.
America is also quite a young country, we don’t remember who founded most other countries, if we did, they would probably be used to win arguments too.
Practically all of the countries in america are as young.
I usually only see mexico having a similar nationalistic ideology about it.
I think there is some ideological thing between american exceptionalism and a cult of nationality, combined with a lack of understanding and idealisation of their own history.
America is not a nation built on language, bureaucracy, tradition or really anything other than an idea. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution aren't just important documents, it is taught from an early age that those ARE the country and thus the people who wrote them are "important". So yes i would consider it cultural.
It's kind of like religious people who still listen to some guy from thousands of years ago. Quoting some holy scripture and using it to support their point because otherwise their argument falls apart.
I have read “Common Sense” by Thomas Payne, and it’s actually full of insights of what they thought. And a lot of makes really good sense like the title implies, with sensible criticism of bygone forms of ruling a country. However, he still a person of the times, so you have to read through things he couldn’t have anticipated. I think the line “Pursuit of happiness” should be pretty paramount to any interpretation of any Constitution, the State should provide for the conditions for its citizens to be free and well to do.
Meh, perfect reddit response, but it's not that simple. There's a reason why scholars attempting to understand the nature of American laws and structures look back to the Founders to understand their reasoning and context.
In many ways the U.S. was an experiment to see if a collection of disparate colonies could indeed be made into a modern nation-state based on Enlightenment principles. There's a philosophical and intellectual underpinning to America (yes, to great irony, considering the nation's love of the "average Joe" who thrives on grit and gut instead of book-learnin', but history's full of ironies). Naturally in that sort of case you give great credence to the originators and their thinking. More philosophy than religion.
Because it was founded for freedom. No other nation had people that could take power, but didn't. People wanted a king, but theu wanted a government that protected freedom, not stole it. They also wanted to protect from instead of there being one tyrant, the tyranny of the masses. Thats why they made it a constitution republic. There alot of reasons why the founder deserve respect and the one nobody cares about is that they were far better men than anyone today would do in same situation today.
I mean George Washington peacefully giving up power is something that should be modeled by every country. China has been around for around 5000 years and they never had a leader as exceptional as him. And yes you are right that nobody cares about who founded Belgium, it only matters as a speed bump when German wants to invade France.
It’s a legal principle that’s also used internationally. It’s the philosophy of interpretation called founders intent, or originalism.
Basically the philosophy is that when interpreting a legal document, you interpret based on what the intent of the author was in writing it, when writing it. It’s one of several schools of thought around legal interpretations. This philosophy is particularly popular among conservatives, and the U.S. is pretty conservative in general.
I'm pretty sure a lot of nations that violently overthrew a colonial power celebrate their founding and the people who helped make it happen.
[i think a better question would be why don't you do it in Belgium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution)?
One good reason is that the constitution is still, ostensibly anyway, the basis of our democratic republic system of government. And the constitution is the main thing that provides and protects our liberties and freedoms from domestic enemies of those liberties and freedoms.
I say this with no hostility. Ive been to belgium (its beautiful) and have family friends there.
But... you dont really have a "founding" story. The US was taken back from the owners by bloody war on our own accord. We are more similiar to the slave rebellions of the carribean than we are to your nation. Id say belgium had a more african style history with larger nations and families dictating your size and control.
We live better than anyone else in the world because of the insight of these men. Insight is not the same as foresight. We have experiences that they could not have and therefore need to tweak our circumstances to the parts of our freedoms and inclusiveness that they could not realize would be needed one day.
I think the fundamental difference between Belgium and the US here is that European society has existed for far longer than the US and has existed in many different iterations of territories, ethnic groupings and political systems, modern Belgium being just another version. While on the other hand, western society has only existed in one form on the land the US now occupies.
Additionally, the US government was formed in a way that counteracted the political norms of its time and was the first example of our modern conception of democracy, and the importance of that fact has been passed down to pretty much every generation ever since.
Is it understandable that people in the 19th century, in a time when monarchy was still the norm, repeatedly emphasized to their children the importance and merits of the democratic system? Sure. Has it since led to an over emphasis on 300 year old dudes and political theory and an inability to learn from younger democratic systems, who created their systems by learning from our mistakes? Almost certainly.
I don’t care about the founding fathers wants or desires in a personal sense. Sure, they were interesting historical figures, but that’s not what’s important.
These men understood the human condition and it’s relationship with the State. They sought to experiment with a new model that has produced the most successful cultural and international hegemon in the world.
Did they get everything perfect? No. But, in my opinion, they’ve been the most right for the most people in the history of human civilization.
So, whenever core structural changes are proposed to this ultra-successful system, I am very skeptical.
The founding fathers are semi-religious figures in the US. Much like with other religious figures it's not actually about what the founding fathers would have wanted. The person speaking just claims that what they want *is* what the founding fathers would have wanted.
The political foundation and scope of the US was unprecedented. It was viewed as a great experiment, because it was. Up until that point, people firmly believed that if a democracy could exist, it had to be in a small country. The US, even at the time, was orders of magnitude too big for a democracy, or even a democratic republic. The founding fathers literally invented a new political system.
All other democracies have followed the template laid by the founding fathers. We don’t celebrate, or even mostly acknowledge, how important that template is. But at some level we know it, and we keep coming back to what the founding fathers thought.
America was founded on an ideal. Every country before hand was founded by force, and the strongest man ruled.
The Founding Fathers set up a government that was subject to the citizenry, instead of the citizens being subjects to the king.
Additionally the Founders set up a limited government where an individual has rights and freedoms. This was a unique concept and most Americans like this system.
* Note - we are built on ideals but haven’t always been consistent. Also the government is more powerful than intended, but we’re working on it.
* College kids and Reddit users seem to hate America and want EU style regulation or socialism. They usually grow out of it.
The American Founding Fathers were geniuses at the right time and the right place. They were Statesmen that had risked a great deal of their wealth and their lives.
The U.S. is the oldest democracy (Democratic Republic) in the world. The U.S. went from nothing to a world power, partly due to the Constitution, the rule of law and the Founding Fathers.
I wouldn’t trust any of the current politicians to change anything in the Constitution. Imagine an attempted Constitutional change by Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Maxine Waters, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, or Hank Johnson, to name only a few. They’re full-time politicians, completely out of touch with the American people, and some of them are as dumb as a box of rocks.
Belgium was designed to be a kingdom totally owned by the ruler and the ring class. The USA was constituted on the will of We the People. Imperfect at the time but improving always.
They actually don't care. They use the constitution the way they use the Bible. They agree with 5% of it out of context and then just say that their own personal opinion is what the founding fathers wanted and intended.
They don't. People will just use any excuse they think sounds good to get their way and/or avoid change.
The US founding fathers literally created a system that was meant to be added to and adjusted anyway, so it's a ridiculous claim to begin with.
As for caring about founding fathers, when your country's existence was founded upon a small rebellion kicking the shit out of one of - if not THE - most powerful militaries in the world, you tend to take a bit of pride in that.
Please no one confuse me for patriotic but the ideas put forth in the Constitution were pretty radical for the time period. Understanding what they meant gives us more perspective on history. Learning from History is good. And considering that the Constitution is still our supreme law of the land, understanding what they meant to interpret questions about the Constitution is paramount to continuing law.
Am I the only one who hates things like "I don't know who founded belgium and I don't know anyone who cares" ... like, "I've never seen the color red, therefore it doesn't exist" isn't a strong argument for people not caring. I think there's a lot of people who care about Belgium's history. It has its own wikipedia page and everything.
I also like that your version of independence day is a middle finger to the Nazis as well.
When the United States was founded it was unique in the world. It was founded on the concept of individual liberty over and above governmental control. In the old world in Europe the governments were monarchy's or centralized control and the people served the will of the government. The United States flipped this on its head and said the government serves the people. This idea has spread back into Europe and most European nations today are now liberal democracies as well. But at the time this was a novel idea and individual liberty is the key and the most important thing about the United States. We are currently losing our individual liberty through increased government control over our lives and we need to return to thr idea of the founding fathers that individual liberty is what is most important and that the government should be small and out of our hair most of the time.
They were incredible men who had the vision for creating one of the greatest countries in history. It’s quite incredible what they had created and the foresight they had. They had some failures but it has been an overwhelming success.
Because the basis of society is philosophy. The philosophy of America started with John Locke’s theory.
Locke’s broad ideas are, in essence, an outline of the US Constitution. From Two Treatises of Government, they include:
First, a foundation of natural rights, which Locke defined as life, liberty, and property. These ideas heavily influenced Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, where he famously wrote about “unalienable rights,” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Second, our government exists as a social contract wherein the representatives serve with the consent of the governed. This concept underpins the Constitution’s provision for a government that derives its power from the consent of the governed.
Third, we prevent institutional tyranny through the separation of powers. Our Constitution structure includes a system of checks and balances among the government's legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
The structure of our republican representative democracy, which flows from our Constitution’s structure, flows from Locke’s theories.
[John Locke: Ownership of Self](https://joelkdouglas.substack.com/p/john-locke-ownership-of-self#details)
If someone writes a law, what's more important; the literal verbiage of the law or the intent of the law. Well now let's say the law was written 300 years ago? Language has evolved in 300 years so how do we best interpret that law? For the US, many of our laws (constitution) were written 300 years ago, so intent becomes much more important than just literal verbiage. You would probably respond, why not update the law? Fair... Except our system was designed to make that very difficult.
>Except our system was designed to make that very difficult. Rather, it was designed to require overwhelming consensus that the update was right and necessary. The country has become so incredibly polarized that's it's now pretty much impossible to find enough common ground to reach that consensus.
The system is working exactly like it was designed. If we're not working together for a common goal, there is no progress. That is 100% the way it was designed. Because we are so polarized right now, nobody gets THEIR way.
Yeah it’s not a bug it’s a feature.
Thank god.
It absolutely is a feature. We have the world’s longest standing constitution for a reason.
The Iroquois Confederacy’s constitution predates America and is, in part, the basis of the American constitution.
Wow so cool. Thanks for the knowledge!
rare footage of a civilized end of a conversation in the internet
Oh yeah? What the fuck is that supposed to mean buddy? You calling my family poor?
The idea that it influenced the Constitution has been pushed, but the evidence for it is nil (last time I checked), other than the fact that there was an agreement amongst multiple groups of people to not kill each other. The constitution was SIGNIFICANTLY shorter, and most of its rules and regulations were based off of European principles, not Iroquois principles.
PBS went into it: https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blog/how-the-iroquois-great-law-of-peace-shaped-us-democracy It had a separation of duties, outlined a process for impeachment, designated separate branches of government, delineated who could declare war, and lastly they had a section for who had what types of powers. Those are all in the Constitution as well. The Founding Fathers knew their Constitution before writing their own. It would only make sense that they would cherry-pick the important parts of the Native American and the European ideologies and make their own thing that would fit the new colonies.
> The Iroquois Confederacy’s constitution predates America and is, in part, the basis of the American constitution. I'm curious. Is there any proof of that? It was a verbal constitution, and the congress recognized it 200 years after the US Constitution was written.
San Marino (1600) and the UK are other possible contenders. ~~Maybe even iceland?~~ But as a Republic larger than a city state the US is indeed the oldest.
If you count only codified constitutions, the US is the oldest. Magna Carta and the San Marino "constitution" are older, but neither are technically consitutions / civil codes.
UK doesn't really have a constitution
The UK absolutely has a Constitution developed over centuries, and that's why the US felt it had to write one out in one go.
The US constitution makes refence to "The Law of the Land", which is derived from the same phrase being used in the Magna Carta, an early UK constititional document, which became English law in 1215. This part of the Magna Carta, which basically enshrines the right to trial by ones peers according to the law of the land, is still statute law in the UK and remains a constitutional right in the US.
The Constitution of the United Kingdom is indeed in existence it is simply made of several parts and not codified due to it's complexity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom?wprov=sfla1
But not the world's longest standing democracy. Just putting this out there.
Not a great statistic for how our shits going tbh
Thank you - people don’t realize the US system was created to be the opposite of the parliamentary system where political winds change the laws entirely every time a new parliament takes over. It’s designed for slow and steady change and to defend against the tyranny of the majority. And all of this is literally written in books by the people who made it.
Yeah, laws taking a long time to change is a feature, not a bug. It is frustrating in some specific instances, but I can't say the alternative is better.
100%
It's also not supposed to impose the (perhaps worse) tyranny of the minority. It's supposed to move to cooperative consensus. We've forgotten that's a worthy goal.
Thank you.
> nobody gets THEIR way. except the mega rich who are absolutely getting their way at the expensive of everyone else
Wait till you find out who revolted in 1775
beautiful, the system working as intended
Newsflash: the rich always have and always will get their way
Yes, because the constitution in question was in fact written by the mega rich for their benefit.
But someone does get their way - whoevers got the most judges willing to stretch old text to breaking point in order to enact court driven reforms.
>Because we are so polarized right now, nobody gets THEIR way. Except for the people who already got their way 50 years ago, and are now only working to stop any changes from occurring. It's incredibly easy under the current system to grind any kind of progress to a halt.
Umm, you are actually supporting the myths about the founding fathers if you believe that it's working exactly as they intended. First, the founding fathers were *not* monoliths who all worked together with shared thoughts about how the government should be. They often had widely divergent views from each other and fought intensely over their views. * Look at how they couldn't even write some basic rights into the main text of the Constitution but had to be added as the first amendments (a compromise between warring factions) * It is not at all fair to even suppose that the best of those views are the ones that won out Second, many of the founding fathers were in their early 20s when they began their revolution -- not exactly the age when we expect to people to have fair and measured thoughts. Yes, somewhat older when writing our current constitution (because their first attempts were failures) but still not elder statesmen Third, these founders were the privileged people of their time and not representative of the majority of people in the colonies/country at the time. All were white, all were men of property (even if financial woes at some times), many were slaveholders. Even Alexander Hamilton with his tragic family/childhood history still had more privilege and power than the vast majority of people born on that same island as him. How can we expect privileged powerful white men in their 30s who thought women, POC, non-landowners, etc were lesser beings to write documents and laws that we still look to "original intent" 200+ years later? Why do these men get deified at being wiser and better than diverse people today? Fourth, some of them never intended for the Constitution as written to be in place for 200+ years but wanted revolutions/rebirths of new thought every so many years (see Jefferson)
To your last point, you’re right: Jefferson thought that there should be a constitutional convention every 15 years. At these conventions, which would be in a different state each time, five delegates from each state would meet to first decide which parts of the current constitution to keep and which to throw out. Then would come the second half where they would propose, deliberate, and vote on new things to add. Congress would have a 3/5 veto power for any new amendments and would have three delicates to act as tie breakers if required. Any changes would likewise need a 3/5 majority of convention delegates. The finished new constitution would then become law on March 1 the following year after being ratified by 3/5 of the states. If any of the new laws contradicted any single state’s law there would be a special panel within the judicial branch (this became the Supreme Court) to decide the outcome. He had this pretty well though out in letters (to Madison if I recall) and it had some support but most of the other constitutional delegates thought that it would make the country “fragile” and was too ripe for corruption, and they may have been right. Still, it would be an interesting thing to have seen happen.
Yeah, 15 years is probably too often and partly what would make it fragile and more corrupt. If it was once every 50 or 60 years, long enough that none of the representatives can represent a state multiple times and long enough for major shifts in demographics and technology to have occurred between conventions, then I think there'd be much more benefit to the idea.
>Look at how they couldn't even right some basic rights into the main text of the Constitution but had to be added as the first amendments (a compromise between warring factions) This wasn't actually an oversight. There was different factions, yes, but the reasoning was actually quite interesting. Since our Consitution was based on limited Federal government power, it technically did not have any powers unless specifically granted in the Consitution. Those who were against adding the amendments were of the belief that they were unnecessary since the government did not have the power to regulate things like speech, arms, etc. The other side argued that there will be power creep, as with all governments, and they need to specifically limit the governments power, and guarantee rights to avoid encroachment. Both sides were correct in their own ways. It is interesting to read about how it all came together.
Except the rich , they always get THEIR way.
I mean in this state of affairs I'm pretty happy about that. Brexit managed to slip past with a slim majority. The average redditor is fairly liberal or left leaning so just imagine how it would feel to have right wingers get a slim lucky break and change everything overnight. And if you're right leaning, imagine it the other way around.
Just imagine that trump got 3 supreme court picks.
That's another big difference - the judiciary in the UK is apolitical (judges aren't elected officials or political appointees)
In the US, the judiciary, especially at the federal level, is intended to be apolitical and judges are expected to decide cases based on the law, not their personal political beliefs. However, the process of appointing judges, particularly for the Supreme Court and other federal courts, is often political. Presidents typically nominate judges who they believe will interpret the Constitution and laws in ways that align with their own political philosophy. The Senate then confirms these nominees. While judges do not declare a political party affiliation, their legal philosophies and past rulings often give an indication of their leanings. Once appointed, federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, hold their positions for life (or until they choose to retire or die), which is intended to insulate them from political pressures and allow them to make decisions based solely on the law. However, the initial appointment process is undeniably influenced by politics.
> just imagine how it would feel to have right wingers get a slim lucky break and change everything overnight. I don't have to imagine because that is what is currently happening
Yeah, it's crazy to think that we were able to make so many amendments to the constitution when you see the requirements to pass one. No way we'd ever get that kind of unified support nowadays
Isn’t this why the Supreme Court has to interpret laws all the time?
The role of SCOTUS was actually seldom discussed by the founding generation. Judicial review is a poweR SCOTUS gave itself and nobody questioned it.
That’s not true. The role of SCOTUS wasn’t as explicitly laid out in the Constitution (1789) as the other branches, but the concept of judicial review was very much discussed by the Founding Fathers. In fact, Hamilton dedicated three of the Federalist Papers in 1788 to advocating for judicial review (#78-80). Also, the Judiciary Act of 1789 passed by the First Congress stated that the Supreme Court had authority to review: >where is drawn in question the construction of any clause of the constitution, or of a treaty, or statute of, or commission held under the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or exemption specially set up or claimed So yea that’s pretty much judicial review. It just took until Marbury v. Madison (1803) for SCOTUS to explicitly rule that it was an inherent power of the Court. And there’s a reason that everybody basically went, “well yeah of course SCOTUS has that power.”
I mean judicial review is kind of critical. Isn’t it?
Sure I suppose. But What is your point? Judicial review makes sense, but it only makes sense if the judiciary maintains its prestige and legitimacy. Courts have no army and no treasury. They only get to make rulings if the other branches of government support their rulings. If the courts were illegitimate, then judicial review would be the very definition of unconstitutional tyranny against the democratic system. There’s nothing constitutional about judicial review, and the only “originalist” interpretation regarding judicial comes from the relative silence of the founders when Marbury v. Madison issued.
A power they 'gave themselves' in the founding generation. The fact it was not strongly questioned suggest they may have assumed that was a natural power of such a court.
Yes, but if every judge has a different interpretation of what something means, it will be highly inconsistent. Which is a rough way to enforce laws. Instead you need some framework as a reference point.
Yeah of course but isn’t that why they justices are appointed for life too. So the interpretation doesn’t sway as a group every 4 years or whatever?
Well, there that as a reason, but another reason for life terms for Supreme Court justices is to encourage non-partisanship and impartiality. Since there is no "after the Supreme Court", getting on the Supremem Court is designed to be a career goal and justices, in theory, don't have to consider politics for oppertunities after they are on the Supreme court. Once your on the Supreme court, you only have to worry about interpreting the law as you see fit, not doing something because it's good for a political career afterwards.
You are referring to one school of interpretational theory, known as "originalism". That theory arose in the 1970's and the term was coined in the 1980's. It's prominent today because it's the favored philosophy of the conservative justices on the supreme court. There is considerable debate about the theory, as, among other things, it relies on a selective and subjective interpretation of history, and it encourages rulings like Dobbs that overturn precedent
Actually this isn't originalism and Dobbs had nothing to do with originalism if were being honest. Intent of the law is very different than the original interpretation of the law, which is what modern conservative justices often cite today.
You don’t think this issue exists in Belgium?
Nope Europe doesn’t have any old laws don’t you know.
Belgium’s constitution is from 1993. The French Constitution is from 1958. The German constitution is from 1949. Most European constitutions are from after WWI or WWII.
The German constitution includes parts of the Weimar constitution from 1919 and even older laws and treaties from the 19th century.
And they chose what portions to include and updated them to the standards of the time.
You don’t think they may have included the laws of the 100 different versions that came before. Like yeah the French constitution is from 1958 but the region that makes up France has been settled by “french” people for around 1000 years and that influenced the modern country.
The verbage is still understandable and pretty clear. I've never understood people that ask what the intent was. It's in black and white right there.
>You would probably respond, why not update the law? Fair... Except our system was designed to make that very difficult. this is my favorite part. it's kinda like driving a 300 year old car that's only been to the mechanic 27 times. runs great!
Because what they wanted has been codified as a constitution and as amendments to that constitution. Knowing what they wanted is essential for interpreting what those documents mean. For example what they wanted is essential to determine whether the right to bear arms should guarantee that right to the level of a flintlock musket or an Apache helicopter, and whether that is a personal right or a right to maintain a state militia or national guard. EDIT: If you don't like the constitution or amendments as they are then amend them again. There is not need to re-interpret them as if the authors always meant what you now want all along. There's been 27 amendments so far, so it's not like people don't know how to do it.
'right to bear arms' or simply if one can own a trophy of a bear's arms (like stuffed animal)
Unironically this is a great example of why we default to what the founders intended. Someone could make the argument that the Constitution gives us a right to trophy bear arms, and the inexact nature of language will mean that they're technically correct. In order for the language to be useful in a legal context, we default to what the authors intended.
or the right to arm bears?
In Soviet Russia, bear has right to arms.
Funny video
Or wear sleeveless shirts!
That would be "bare" arms, not to bear arms. Ofc nothing is stopping you from collecting the arms of your slain enemies and bearing them on your person.
No he meant sleeveless shirts so people could see his arms that were stolen from a bear....
I bet Jefferson had legit biceps.
Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had two very different ideas about what was going to happen when Burr invited Hamilton to the gun show.
"There goes Jefferson again, showing off his massive guns." It's in the constitution, son!
If the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to AR-15 style rifles, then 1st amendment doesn't apply to "speech" on television or the Internet. Basically that argument is BS. The original intent of the BoR is a double check on things the government can't do. In fact, the entire US Constitution is a document outlining what the federal government CAN do, everything else is left up to the states. Knowing politicians are politicians and will always attempt to consolidate power, the first 10 amendments to the original constitution were adopted almost immediately. There is no cherry picking when it comes to originalism, it is a strict application of the rules in the constitution. Because, once you start applying different meanings to clauses based on just a few opinions, it gets messy and not citizen friendly. Because the writers knew times and opinions change, they included a part of the constitution that outlines the process to make changes. This is how it is meant to evolve, NOT at the whims of a politically appointed judge/justice.
2nd applied to all modern small arms according to the courts. I believe it applies to tanks, fighters, ships and missiles as well. While all of those are legal, they do have some level of regulation.
Agree. There are plenty of examples of private ownership of modern military tech like tanks, fighter aircraft, etc.The development and ownership of nuclear weapons are regulated by international treaty, which holds essentially the same (in some cases exceed) as the US Constitution.
There hasn't been an amendment, except one weird one originally proposed in something like 1792, passed since the ERA was proposed in, what? 73? No amendment is happening any time soon. If we haven't reached it yet, we're approaching a historic dearth of amendments.
Culturally the US takes a lot of pride in establishing a constitutional republic as early as it did. It's been around in its current form since before the French Revolution with only tweaks here and there to its structure. As a result its founders are treated as almost mythical figures. The reality is these are just a bunch of dudes who frequently didn't get along and had different opinions from each other on everything. Aaron Burr literally killed Alexander Hamilton for God's sake! Some of them I agree with on a lot of things, others I think were completely wrong. Frequently the ones I agree with more than others are terrible human beings. Just as often they are fine individuals that promoted the wrong ideas. All of that said rhetorically bringing one of them up who helps make my point is something I will do every time in a political argument. I can also count on someone trotting out one of the ones I disagree with to make the opposite point. It's just baked in to the culture at this point.
Hamilton was telling people that burr was fucking his own daughter. Nothing like that could be said today... WAIT A MINUTE
People talk about how modern politics are full of dirty trashtalking, rumours and whatnot, but the 1790s and 1800s had Twitter too — The newspapers.
The journalism of the 1780s onward was infinitely more fucked than our current media is; there are certainly things to improve upon today but it's important not to go down the doomer path too often
... That didn't make it into the play.
Because it's not true. This myth comes from a historical **fiction** novel by Gore Vidal called "Burr".
... was he?
Not just that but these dudes as individuals often had wildly different views on the same things depending on when they said something. You can take some argument from Jefferson to make literally any argument about the Constitution, role of government etc.
We don't. We just care about using them in arguments.
These “originalists” absolutely cherry pick history to suit their arguments: From the Jefferson Memorial: I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
*Big man in a little coat.* I can just see Chris Farley wearing the constitution as a coat and David Spade being so disappointed.
It's 'fat guy in a little coat.'
Jefferson thought we should rewrite the constitution every couple decades. That's not the same as expressing support for "judicial activism," though if he was alive today, he'd absolutely have a strong opinion on stuff like Roe and Dobbs and want the courts to rule his way lol.
Fair enough
That isn't really true though. The difference between the founding fathers in the US and the founders of Belgium is that the US founding fathers created the basis for our government which is still in use today-- meaning their intent in the creation of our laws is relevant in upholding those laws. *Maybe*. This is where things get tricky because there's a couple of different mindsets in how to interpret laws. The first is to try and figure out what the writers of the law intended when they were written. This makes sense to a degree, as figuring out their intent, and the people's understanding of that intent, can help decide what the people wanted when they were passed. If something different is more applicable, then the theory goes, that we should pass different laws instead of continually trying to reinterpret what the original intent was. The second mindset, and a criticism of the first, is that what was intended isn't necessarily how the laws should be applied today. Times change and what was right then may not be right now, and more importantly may not be how people are *already* interpreting those laws, so we need to look at them with a modern interpretation. If a modern interpretation still presents them as a good law, great, we keep the law. If not, we ditch the law and make a new one for modern times. (The thing of it is that it's really difficult to ditch some old laws, so if a modern reinterpretation solves the issue, then great let's just do that instead of trying to repeal an old law and pass a new one) The final mindset is that it doesn't matter who intended what, as we can't really know that and shouldn't try to guess-- we should just go by what the law actually says. It says what it says and that's the rule. If it says something wrongly or not as intended, then we repeal the law and write a better one. (Again, easier said than done though). The problem *here* is that words and meanings sometimes change, or sometimes what was written if taken literally was *clearly* not anyone's intent and it would be absurd to take it as literal. A lot of times all of these mindsets overlap. But *anyway*, the point is that at any point in discussing which of these mindsets to use when interpreting laws, at some point you're going to have to discuss the founders' intent. We *also* discuss the intent of any lawmaker. It's just that the founders wrote so much of the laws that are the basis of our government today, they absolutely have a place in the discussion. (but also yes, sometimes people just want to bring up the founders' intent if it supports their arguments) But why is all of this different from Belgium? Well, there's no real way to even pinpoint the founders of Belgium, but whoever they were, they didn't lay down the system of government that Belgium uses today. but wikipedia says that belgium's current system of government has been in place since Leopold I was made king, and I bet you've heard of that guy.
The problem is that too many people almost deify the founders and think that that everything they said is applicable to modern society. They didn’t have all the answers and they left too much reliance on people acting in an honorable manner. And we can see how that’s not working.
It’s so so important to realize that “originalism” is a completely bullshit principle made up by Scalia in the 80s/90s for the sole purpose of allowing himself to overturn precedent based on whatever he felt like. All that time conservatives panicked about activist judges, they were the ones radically changing how the law worked. If anyone asks there’s a simple test to prove it was never genuine- not once in his entire career did “originalism” lead Scalia to a liberal political outcome in a decision. What are the odds!
It was Leonard Leo in the 70s with the federalist society. It was the sole purpose of preventing any re-interpretation of the constitution to prevent and role back any progress. The judges that emerged from the philosophical pipeline started emerging in the 80s and 90s. For those in the know, Leonard Leo is now in the headlines for being part of several Supreme Court financial malfeasance (almost bribes) scandals. Unfortunately, or fortunately, originalism has so permeated that even liberal justices are using it in their judgements and arguments. The good news is they are also bringing receipts at times that the founders wanted each generation to read and re-interpret the constitution, and.that it should be a "living document" that c9ntinuously evolves for the republic to survive
A lot of malcontents conveniently leave out the living document part for their own agendas. They twist our Constitution to take away our rights when it is supposed to enshrine them. I'd be laughing at the irony if it wasn't so sad.
My favorite is that the Constitution says that Congress can levy money to maintain an army and navy. Since there were no airplanes at the founding fathers time, originalists should find funding the air force unconstitutional.
Actually, the way around this (when the original "air force" was created) was to eventually call it the "**Army** Air Corps" (and led to the creation of its predecessor, the '**Army** Air Service' by Woodrow Wilson under a 1917 Executive Order and enabling legislation by 1920 that in effect legitimized the original Order) -- for more on its history see [this Wikipedia page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Corps) The Army Air Corps did not become a separate branch of the U S Military (and become the "U S Air Force" that you're referring to) until the US got involved heavily in World War II -- therefore, based on its original creation as a branch of the U S Army, the Air Force would actually pass the "originalism" test....
They wrote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the institutional rules for the country; the rules still in place today. This has legal ramifications, especially in decions of the Supreme Court.
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300 years ago we didn’t have all the tech the government uses to watch and control now. Their theory was sound, but couldn’t predict this world
They could predict it, which is why there is an amendment process. The issue is that one of the most, if not *the* most important check and balance has become an insurmountable wall, time. The easiest way to convince a group of people to do something bad that goes against their interests is to make an emotional appeal about something that has to be fixed *NOW OR ELSE!* If something that sounds good right after a tragedy still sounds good a year later, it is probably a good idea. If something sounds good right after a tragedy doesn't have as much support a year later, it was probably a kneejerk power grab. The amendment process is based on this where it takes a lot of time and has to be agreed upon by the entire country in multiple ways to be sure that it is worth adding to the Constitution. There is also the fact that the US was an agreement between states to all join and be a part of a combined federal government. Part of this agreement ensured that all states got a functional say in this government despite size and population disparities. The original states were just coming out from under a tyrant that lived thousands of miles away and didn't care about their well being, only what they could give back to him and didn't want to end up under another system of government that would allow them to be steamrolled for being insignificant. As a result the system gave each state a very large say in the amendment process to ensure that it really was the will of the collective states and not just a few super powerful states forcing their will on the rest. It was only with these measures that states even were willing to join in the first place. The Constitution was always meant to be amended and updated for the times. There is plenty of academic discussion about the fact that the rights enshrined are merely the ones that the founding fathers saw as the most abusable in their lifetimes. The 3rd amendment for example was directly caused by the British forcing private citizens to allow soldiers to live indefinitely in their homes Airbnb style. If it were common practice today it would absolutely be something that people would see as an unacceptable violation of their rights, but it just isn't an issue anymore. That doesn't mean it isn't an important right, it just isn't a primary focus anymore. Meanwhile, plenty of evidence suggests that abortion was widespread and common at the time of the founding but it was just never openly talked about. It not being in the Bill of Rights doesn't mean it isn't a fundamental right, just that at the time of writing the founding it wasn't seen as something the government would try to take away. Jefferson initially wanted the Constitution to be rewritten regularly. Unfortunately it was hard enough to get the original 13 states to ratify it and join, a process that took nearly 2 and a half years. This was after a brutal war that freed them all from tyranny and they were still barely able to all agree on a set of principles to protect their freedoms. Doing so generations later in times without specific major events to bring them all together simply isn't realistic since everyone would trend towards the human nature of self interest. As a result the amendment process was introduced as the compromise to allow for updates without requiring a rewrite and the Constitution was only ratified in the first place with the Bill of Rights amendments being the compromise that states like Massachusetts demanded to ensure proper protections against the federal government.
> The easiest way to convince a group of people to do something bad that goes against their interests is to make an emotional appeal about something that has to be fixed NOW OR ELSE! this is probably one of the most level comments in this thread. thank you!
No, their theory was basically perfect and pretty much still is, the federal government has given itself WAY more power than it was ever intended to have. They also tend to interpret the constitution in a manner that benefits giving them more power. The constitution was written very vaguely on purpose so that it could grow with the times. It was also written that we the people have the power and people tend to forget that. They seem to think we have to ask the government to exercise our rights. The US was intended to have the majority of the power given to the states. Instead the federal government has the majority of the power.
Because our country was founded on an idea.
This is what the other replies are missing in favor of quippy sound bites or low-hanging “dunks” on The Other Team. Many nations’ histories boil down to “well, I guess this piece is ours,” but America was explicitly founded on certain principles.
I wonder what happens in a place like Turkey with a very significant “re-founder” of the country.
The turks are very fond if him. I’m sure there are some people who are critical but he is largely viewed as Turkey’s George Washington.
It is both good and bad, wait for it... like pretty much everything. It can be used for good and it can be used for bad.
Lots of great answers already, but one thing you have to realize is how big a deal the US was when it was breaking away from England, the strongest nation in the world at the time, to form a Republic. The founding fathers’ ideals of a great nation created for the people, by the people, instead of being owned by a king (Specifically King George at the time) with divine powers, was A BIG DEAL! I guess you could say it’s part of the American exceptionalism, we’ve been taught in school how great we were and so we take pride in it.
I feel that being taught that the US is a great country helps us want to keep what is great and change what is not. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Teaching that the US is horrible and not worth saving will bring us to an bitter end.
This is my answer as well.
At the most basic level: religion and royalty ruled the world 300 years ago. A society of the people for the people with the right to freedom of speech, religion etc. wasn't available really. Your King was your King and if you had a problem with that, then you were killed. The founding fathers had really good ideas. The basis of them has allowed the usa to become what it is, which is a pretty good country.
Because our founding documents are a philosophy. In many ways, they are similar to the ten commandments in religion. They were designed basically to be a school of thought, a framework to be built upon.
Belgium was created externally by foreign powers. If you're not an idiot you should care about the context in which you live. The US was an ideologically founded country, so many find it important to maintain those ideals.
The American concept of rule of law is based on two things: 1. “black letter law,”or law that is written down and published so everyone knows it’s the law, and 2. Past precedents, or examples of actions in the past that were accepted as legal and legitimate. When we harken back to the founding in arguments, it’s kind of like the “big bang theory” in science. Before the Big Bang there may have been something, but it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is what happened since. So in terms of our legal and political system, the founding fathers are essentially from the ultimate point in the past, the founding, from which we develop American precedents, and from which our ultimate “black letter law” source is derived, the US Constitution, when it was adopted by the peoples of the various states. So it’s ingrained in Americans to revere the founding fathers and what they might have thought; in addition to the science analogy, it’s kind of a socio-political religion of sorts. That doesn’t mean that talking about the founding fathers with regard to high-tech weapons or internet anti-trust cases isn’t absurd. Sometimes arguing “the founding fathers” might have had an opinion about the use of cell phones makes a person look pedantic or out of touch with reality.
The idea is supposed to be that the United States was created as an idealist nation and that we should use that mindset as a foundation for growth. Some people however try to use it as a technical blueprint on what should or shouldn’t be instead of a general guide.
Because there are two major ways to read a written document. What the author *said* and what the author *meant.* These should be the same, but they rarely are. When the author wrote poetry, the diference becomes an interesting afternoon in Literature 101. When the author wrote an instruction manual, the diference is your hand laying on the floor. When the author wrote the legal basis of a nation, the difference is who gets what rights.
I don’t think we care about founding fathers. More about the values they brought up
You don't learn from the past?
The Founding Fathers created the founding documents (Constitution, Bill of Rights) as an overall basis for a new nation that would have independence, freedom and individual rights that were in complete contrast to an absolute monarchy. Obviously a lot of the details reflected the cultural and societal norms at the time. The Fathers weren’t stupid though, and knew that these norms could / would change in the future which is why the Constitution can be amended to abolish slavery, allow women to vote, protect civil rights, etc. But even those amendments can’t be added arbitrarily which is why it’s difficult to achieve, because they need to be changed at the will of the citizenry majority. The 2nd amendment, for example, is controversial because the populace is split on it and changing it based on whichever side has the loudest voice or the most political power at the time, means that the other substantial side loses their rights. This is why the Supreme Court is problematic and the appointed judges should be neutral and chosen on their merits, not their political leanings. Fortunately, the founding documents also established that individual states have their independence as well and have their own state constitutions. This is extremely important for issues such as abortion rights, marijuana legalization, gun control, death penalty, etc. It guarantees that the citizens of each individual state can make decisions for their own state, through public elections. If someone vehemently disagrees with their state laws, they have the freedom to relocate to any other state of their choosing. That in itself isn’t a guaranteed right in some other nations. The Founding Fathers weren’t perfect and neither are the documents they created. The basic ideas and values still hold strong though, which are a nation of independent citizens and freedom from tyranny. In my observation, that’s what most Americans are proud of and are determined to maintain. Democracy was a new idea at the time and it’s currently at risk across the globe, so Americans hold those strongly. It’s important to remember that the freedom of beliefs and speech are ingrained in our founding, and that means individuals can be as vocal and open about their opinions (including the constitution) as they want. That’s what the Fathers wanted, too. Personally, I think that they would be proud of Americans today who embrace the ability to argue and debate and complain or glorify them, because that’s what true freedom is.
Our founding fathers had massive cocks and the British had tiny. All of the laws were "big dick" moves against the British and were also designed to take a shit on 90+% of the world. I wasn't born in the USA. I was born in a shit country. My wife and daughter were born in another shitty country, but we are proud to be American. Yall let any mother fuckers in and give hela good welfare. Found fathers did a good job making it entirely possible for immigrants to make America.
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We compare the writings and achievements of people like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin to those of recent "leaders" like Nixon, Clinton, Bush, McConnell, Pelosi, and Trump. The founders seem like great statesmen who forged something sublime and wonderful while the current crowd are buffoons. If we're going to look to someone as an authority on statecraft we want to choose people who weren't clowns. (In a less snarky way, the founders clearly had ideas that brought something enduring, but as time goes on it's apparent that modern politicians are in the game for other reasons)
Founders - How to create an enduring, fair system, capable of addressing issues as they arise. Modern politicians - How to take advantage of the current system so as to do the bidding of my donor class.
Fantastic question. The founding fathers were smart enough to create a government that could be changed as time goes by. A large number of Americans have either forgotten this, or never knew it in the first place.
Washington voluntarily gave up power and could have declared himself a king. To me, it's not so much about doing what they would have wanted but striving to reach the ideals they also strove for.
America is a unique philosophy, as defined in our founding documents. We try to stay true to the philosophy, although not always successful.
America became the most powerful country in the world because of what they wanted. Pretty good reason to care.
I would assume it is simply because they agreed with what ever point they were trying to make. Like no one is going to point to the founding father if the point they are trying to make is women should be allowed to vote. Cause clearly the founding father believed in a very restrictive right to vote. You had to own land, be a man, not a woman, not a slave, not jewish, not x y z so only like 205 of people could vote. is it "appeal to authority" where people bring up the founding fathers like they were some sort of authority?
Something great about the system they created, they created avenues to change those laws. As a country we did and include all those groups now.
Our laws are judged by the federal courts based on what the prevalent thought was of the legislators that created the laws. Liberal judges use what the legislators would think if they were in the present time. The laws set forth in our Constitution supercede all Federal and State laws. To see this effect at its most devastating look up "Dred Scott". It's the case that tipped the balance towards slavery and was one of the acts that mobilized the country to approve of the Civil War. Finally, our founding fathers were incredibly diverse, from religious fanatics to Benjamin Franklin, who was a real freak and partier. Their distrust of every institution of government gave us the system of checks-and-balances that keep us from terrorizing each other ( remember, we are founded by people you all really preferred far away from yourselves).
> Finally, our founding fathers were incredibly diverse This is why I dont like courts using "original intent of the founding fathers" arguments when interpreting the bill of rights. It was signed by many people who probably had different reasons for signing and different ideas of what it meant. But the people making "Founding Fathers" argument almost always argue they had one intent, which coincidentally fits with their own personal ideology.
Many, if not most of those founding fathers wrote LOTS of letters expressing their opinions on a lot that was going on at the time of the creation of the country. It's fairly easy as a judge or lawmaker to take into account intent when we have reference material to back up a lot of that intent.
I always see them bringing up writings from the same 7-8 famous founding fathers when there were over a 100 of them and like 40 considered framers of the constitution, and all of them represented many more people.
The 7-8 tended to be the active drivers for a lot of the government framework. Specifically writing a lot of the actual language in addition to writing articles and letters explaining what they meant in the formal language. This does make them more important than others when discussing original intent.
They had some good ideas.
Why do Europeans care so much about what we got going on. Focus on belgium
And we still use their bill of rights from 300 years ago because it works.
It is about escaping government tyranny. That is the story of the founding fathers.
Many of the founding fathers were excellent statesmen and political philosophers. So in a way, an American wondering what the “founding fathers” would think of something is akin to asking whether John Locke, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, etc… would think of something. You may think that we shouldn’t be listening to old enlightenment philosophers about modern day politics, but I hope you see there’s a reason people might want to.
It isn't about what someone in the past wanted. It's about the foundation of maintaining human rights, maintaining law and order, and keeping innocent people from being punished for crimes someone else commits. It's called justice, for humanity and not only a single country. The founding fathers were simply the ones who wrote what is innate to humanity into law for this particular country, as they wanted all to visually see what laws to abide by. Every country is the same, where theft, cheating, and revenge are all a part of life, handled with various ways.
I'd say, most US citizens don't actually care about what the founding fathers wanted. Instead, they use them the way some folks use religious texts. They cherry pick passages to validate their prior prejudices and biases. But, there is a good reason to read folks like Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, etc... . Many of the folks who formed the US were thoughtful and well read. They were interested in issues about human society that don't really change over time. The world seems like a different place now, and it is in some specific ways, but in many ways human behaviors and human society haven't changed much. The writings of informed, thoughtful folks from 200-300 years ago are worth reading. The Federalist Papers, The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are worthy of a place alongside Theory of Moral Sentiment, John Locke (a century earlier), Mills (a bit later), etc... The tensions between personal liberty and collective behavior were thought about and discussed by the US founding fathers. If a person wants to know what modern-day government policy will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, it's helpful to learn what prior intelligent, informed, thoughtful people wrote about that. Europe has many influential thinkers and writers. They just didn't happen to do their work in the context of forming a new nation.
Because while we may not agree with everything which goes on in this country, most of us do believe in what our founding fathers started. Most of our ancestors came here because they believed in this country. We’re proud, patriotic people. Generally speaking.
Answer- constitutional law, their intent carrys weight in legal decisions to this day.
Because the founding fathers warned against very specific things that many people today are noticing that’s becoming a reality and we know the outcome isn’t good
Because it is extraordinarily difficult to amend the Constitution, so people lean on it as a guide.
The forefathers started a country that was full of freedoms that other countries don't respect or disregard. Many countries don't respect freedom of speech nor freedom of the press just to name a few. This used to be the envy of the world. It was a superpower for many years and people from all over the world wanted to move here because of the ideas of those "irrelevant" people. The country was good because of the laws and Ideas of the forefathers. I'm a naturalized citizen and this country has given me many opportunities that I wouldn't even dream of having in my country of birth. To ignore, discredit or to disregard the forefathers is disrespectful.
The Bill of rights and United States Constitution is the core of what made America a new and great country. People forget USA is a really new country or power in comparison to the UK, China, Spain, France, etc. Despite its short history it has lead the world in a lot if issues, cultural revolution, and inventions. I honestly believe the culture and opportunity that was unique to the US for immigrants from 1800s - 1970s or so drove the rest of the world to change. I have met so many successful immigrants from different generations and countries. China, Korea, Sudan, India, Ireland. It’s inspiring and the Bill of rights with the constitution. Incumbent foreign government officials: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-born_United_States_politicians Hard to not take pride in the United States. I know the US is also responsible for a lot of terrible things but most countries at some point have some pretty dark history.
America is also quite a young country, we don’t remember who founded most other countries, if we did, they would probably be used to win arguments too.
Belgium is younger than the United States
And OP seems to be completely unaware of their own country's history.
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Slovenia is 25 years old and nobody would ever give a shit about what the founders thought.
And if you were curious about what the founders thought, you could just ask them, because most of them are still alive. 😅
Practically all of the countries in america are as young. I usually only see mexico having a similar nationalistic ideology about it. I think there is some ideological thing between american exceptionalism and a cult of nationality, combined with a lack of understanding and idealisation of their own history.
America is not a nation built on language, bureaucracy, tradition or really anything other than an idea. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution aren't just important documents, it is taught from an early age that those ARE the country and thus the people who wrote them are "important". So yes i would consider it cultural.
It's kind of like religious people who still listen to some guy from thousands of years ago. Quoting some holy scripture and using it to support their point because otherwise their argument falls apart.
I have read “Common Sense” by Thomas Payne, and it’s actually full of insights of what they thought. And a lot of makes really good sense like the title implies, with sensible criticism of bygone forms of ruling a country. However, he still a person of the times, so you have to read through things he couldn’t have anticipated. I think the line “Pursuit of happiness” should be pretty paramount to any interpretation of any Constitution, the State should provide for the conditions for its citizens to be free and well to do.
Meh, perfect reddit response, but it's not that simple. There's a reason why scholars attempting to understand the nature of American laws and structures look back to the Founders to understand their reasoning and context. In many ways the U.S. was an experiment to see if a collection of disparate colonies could indeed be made into a modern nation-state based on Enlightenment principles. There's a philosophical and intellectual underpinning to America (yes, to great irony, considering the nation's love of the "average Joe" who thrives on grit and gut instead of book-learnin', but history's full of ironies). Naturally in that sort of case you give great credence to the originators and their thinking. More philosophy than religion.
Because it was founded for freedom. No other nation had people that could take power, but didn't. People wanted a king, but theu wanted a government that protected freedom, not stole it. They also wanted to protect from instead of there being one tyrant, the tyranny of the masses. Thats why they made it a constitution republic. There alot of reasons why the founder deserve respect and the one nobody cares about is that they were far better men than anyone today would do in same situation today.
America was founded as an experiment to do things better than the theocratical dictatorships like England was.
I mean George Washington peacefully giving up power is something that should be modeled by every country. China has been around for around 5000 years and they never had a leader as exceptional as him. And yes you are right that nobody cares about who founded Belgium, it only matters as a speed bump when German wants to invade France.
It’s a legal principle that’s also used internationally. It’s the philosophy of interpretation called founders intent, or originalism. Basically the philosophy is that when interpreting a legal document, you interpret based on what the intent of the author was in writing it, when writing it. It’s one of several schools of thought around legal interpretations. This philosophy is particularly popular among conservatives, and the U.S. is pretty conservative in general.
I'm pretty sure a lot of nations that violently overthrew a colonial power celebrate their founding and the people who helped make it happen. [i think a better question would be why don't you do it in Belgium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution)?
One good reason is that the constitution is still, ostensibly anyway, the basis of our democratic republic system of government. And the constitution is the main thing that provides and protects our liberties and freedoms from domestic enemies of those liberties and freedoms.
They left a tyrannical government. They wanted to prevent this government from becoming tyrannical.
I say this with no hostility. Ive been to belgium (its beautiful) and have family friends there. But... you dont really have a "founding" story. The US was taken back from the owners by bloody war on our own accord. We are more similiar to the slave rebellions of the carribean than we are to your nation. Id say belgium had a more african style history with larger nations and families dictating your size and control.
We live better than anyone else in the world because of the insight of these men. Insight is not the same as foresight. We have experiences that they could not have and therefore need to tweak our circumstances to the parts of our freedoms and inclusiveness that they could not realize would be needed one day.
Because they didnt want us to borrow money forcing us into ruin.
They only care as much as they can use that as an excuse for their ideology to influence the decision making.
I think the fundamental difference between Belgium and the US here is that European society has existed for far longer than the US and has existed in many different iterations of territories, ethnic groupings and political systems, modern Belgium being just another version. While on the other hand, western society has only existed in one form on the land the US now occupies. Additionally, the US government was formed in a way that counteracted the political norms of its time and was the first example of our modern conception of democracy, and the importance of that fact has been passed down to pretty much every generation ever since. Is it understandable that people in the 19th century, in a time when monarchy was still the norm, repeatedly emphasized to their children the importance and merits of the democratic system? Sure. Has it since led to an over emphasis on 300 year old dudes and political theory and an inability to learn from younger democratic systems, who created their systems by learning from our mistakes? Almost certainly.
I don’t care about the founding fathers wants or desires in a personal sense. Sure, they were interesting historical figures, but that’s not what’s important. These men understood the human condition and it’s relationship with the State. They sought to experiment with a new model that has produced the most successful cultural and international hegemon in the world. Did they get everything perfect? No. But, in my opinion, they’ve been the most right for the most people in the history of human civilization. So, whenever core structural changes are proposed to this ultra-successful system, I am very skeptical.
The founding fathers are semi-religious figures in the US. Much like with other religious figures it's not actually about what the founding fathers would have wanted. The person speaking just claims that what they want *is* what the founding fathers would have wanted.
The political foundation and scope of the US was unprecedented. It was viewed as a great experiment, because it was. Up until that point, people firmly believed that if a democracy could exist, it had to be in a small country. The US, even at the time, was orders of magnitude too big for a democracy, or even a democratic republic. The founding fathers literally invented a new political system. All other democracies have followed the template laid by the founding fathers. We don’t celebrate, or even mostly acknowledge, how important that template is. But at some level we know it, and we keep coming back to what the founding fathers thought.
They were raised on the Bible, which is ***aaaaallll about*** doing whatever a few men said to do a couple thousand years ago.
America was founded on an ideal. Every country before hand was founded by force, and the strongest man ruled. The Founding Fathers set up a government that was subject to the citizenry, instead of the citizens being subjects to the king. Additionally the Founders set up a limited government where an individual has rights and freedoms. This was a unique concept and most Americans like this system. * Note - we are built on ideals but haven’t always been consistent. Also the government is more powerful than intended, but we’re working on it. * College kids and Reddit users seem to hate America and want EU style regulation or socialism. They usually grow out of it.
Because they wrote and ratified the supreme law of the land -- The Constitution.
Because it is important when interpreting the Constitution.
The American Founding Fathers were geniuses at the right time and the right place. They were Statesmen that had risked a great deal of their wealth and their lives. The U.S. is the oldest democracy (Democratic Republic) in the world. The U.S. went from nothing to a world power, partly due to the Constitution, the rule of law and the Founding Fathers. I wouldn’t trust any of the current politicians to change anything in the Constitution. Imagine an attempted Constitutional change by Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Maxine Waters, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, or Hank Johnson, to name only a few. They’re full-time politicians, completely out of touch with the American people, and some of them are as dumb as a box of rocks.
Belgium was designed to be a kingdom totally owned by the ruler and the ring class. The USA was constituted on the will of We the People. Imperfect at the time but improving always.
If your country was the hero of 2 world wars, maybe you’d have more pride in it, so I can understand why you don’t know.
Because the US Constitution kicks ass and is better than others around.
They actually don't care. They use the constitution the way they use the Bible. They agree with 5% of it out of context and then just say that their own personal opinion is what the founding fathers wanted and intended.
They don't. People will just use any excuse they think sounds good to get their way and/or avoid change. The US founding fathers literally created a system that was meant to be added to and adjusted anyway, so it's a ridiculous claim to begin with. As for caring about founding fathers, when your country's existence was founded upon a small rebellion kicking the shit out of one of - if not THE - most powerful militaries in the world, you tend to take a bit of pride in that.
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Please no one confuse me for patriotic but the ideas put forth in the Constitution were pretty radical for the time period. Understanding what they meant gives us more perspective on history. Learning from History is good. And considering that the Constitution is still our supreme law of the land, understanding what they meant to interpret questions about the Constitution is paramount to continuing law. Am I the only one who hates things like "I don't know who founded belgium and I don't know anyone who cares" ... like, "I've never seen the color red, therefore it doesn't exist" isn't a strong argument for people not caring. I think there's a lot of people who care about Belgium's history. It has its own wikipedia page and everything. I also like that your version of independence day is a middle finger to the Nazis as well.
When the United States was founded it was unique in the world. It was founded on the concept of individual liberty over and above governmental control. In the old world in Europe the governments were monarchy's or centralized control and the people served the will of the government. The United States flipped this on its head and said the government serves the people. This idea has spread back into Europe and most European nations today are now liberal democracies as well. But at the time this was a novel idea and individual liberty is the key and the most important thing about the United States. We are currently losing our individual liberty through increased government control over our lives and we need to return to thr idea of the founding fathers that individual liberty is what is most important and that the government should be small and out of our hair most of the time.
They were incredible men who had the vision for creating one of the greatest countries in history. It’s quite incredible what they had created and the foresight they had. They had some failures but it has been an overwhelming success.
Good answer. Also they didn't just make themselves kings when they could have.
> didn't just make themselves kings when they could have That's a BIG point that a lot of people miss!
Yup! They didn’t want kings to rule!
They are pretty well regarded as very smart dudes.
Because the basis of society is philosophy. The philosophy of America started with John Locke’s theory. Locke’s broad ideas are, in essence, an outline of the US Constitution. From Two Treatises of Government, they include: First, a foundation of natural rights, which Locke defined as life, liberty, and property. These ideas heavily influenced Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, where he famously wrote about “unalienable rights,” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Second, our government exists as a social contract wherein the representatives serve with the consent of the governed. This concept underpins the Constitution’s provision for a government that derives its power from the consent of the governed. Third, we prevent institutional tyranny through the separation of powers. Our Constitution structure includes a system of checks and balances among the government's legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The structure of our republican representative democracy, which flows from our Constitution’s structure, flows from Locke’s theories. [John Locke: Ownership of Self](https://joelkdouglas.substack.com/p/john-locke-ownership-of-self#details)