A recent post in comments gave me an epiphany.
If you actually bothered to read the Constitution, Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers, etc., you will find that none of the Founding Fathers supported anything even approaching the power of the Federal government from the New Deal onward. Claiming that just because they disagreed about how much power the Federal government should have relative to the States and the People, no more means that Hamilton and the other Federalists would've supported Obama's vision of Federal power than that the Anti-Federalists (and most of your commenters) wanted no government at all. That's just more of your dishonest, dick-headed, asinine Calvinball "logic". Hamilton wanted a national bank? Well then obviously he would've supported nationalized/socialized healthcare and all the other apparatus of a semi-socialist state. Riiight. If he or any others did, it should be quite easy for you find where they actually said something like that, right? Right?
Let's take a closer look at the part of the statement I bolded (Obama's vision of Federal Power) because that raises the question: what would the Founding Fathers have thought of Obama's vision of Federal Power? The answer is quite simple and it reveals, quite starkly, why sentences that begin with "The Founding Fathers would have never..." are completely full of shit and (surprise, surprise) have no place in reality.
The Founding Fathers wouldn't given an ounce of thought to Obama's vision of Federal Power because our current president, in their time, would have been three fifths of a person. Granted, this designation was largely used for political purposes but the general view of black people at the time was that they were "less than." Some of the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves and very likely wouldn't have even been able to get past the fact that a black man was president.
This is why discussion of what the Founding Fathers would have thought about government today are generally ridiculous. Their views on government were a product of their time and their circumstances with England. Certainly, the Constitution and the decisions made by each of them while they were leading this country are excellent foundations from which to work. But they are not intended to be so limiting that they ignore reality...reality in 2012. Health care is a great example of this. How the system currently works is not at all in the best interests or general welfare of the people. It's become a for-profit industry with out of control costs that it would seem completely alien to Josiah Bartlett, Matthew Thornton, Benjamin Rush or Elbridge Gerry. It's nearly impossible to say what they would think of Medicare and it's likely that they wouldn't have the first clue because our historical place would be completely foreign to them.
Yet, we can look to some examples of their time and compare it to our time and see if there is a precedent or similarities. We can also see how difficult it is for words to match actions at times. With health care, one need only look at An Act for the relief of sick and disabled seamen (passed in 1798 and signed by John Adams) which ordered private seamen to pay 20 cents out of their wages to pay for medical care of sick and disabled seamen. Does this translate into a nation wide system of Medicare? I don't think it's possible to answer this because the Founding Fathers would have no adequate frame of reference. They only knew what was crucial to their young country at the time and that was clearly socialized medicine. This also shows how concepts of limited government work in theory but not necessarily in action. Being products of the Age of Enlightenment, they would likely have the humility to admit that they couldn't make an judgement due to ignorance. Heck, the term "economics" wasn't even in regular use during their time! And health insurance?
Of course, if they were all around today, their thirst for knowledge and wisdom (something on which we call all agree) would propel them to eliminate that ignorance and the likely result would be continued debate with the fathers split into various factions...just as they were at the outset of our country's journey. Some would argue that the states should decide. Others would argue over the necessity of insurance and explore free market options of direct consumer to seller relationships. Some would look at the improvement of general welfare because of our social programs (from the New Deal onwards) and find it hard to argue with success.
In the final analysis, we only know what they thought of federal power during their time in history and, as I've demonstrated three times now (the first national bank, the whiskey rebellion, and mandated health care for seamen), even the people that wrote the Constitution didn't rigidly follow it. That includes ALL of their context and virtually NONE OF OURS.
6 comments:
that was clearly socialized medicine
Uhhm, no it's not.
Arguments about what the Founding Fathers would do today are generally a waste of time. When this nation was founded, only white men who owned property could vote in most states. That meant only the rich and powerful had any voice in running this country. How many people think the Founding Fathers would believe that if they were alive today?
Most of the Constitution is concerned with establishing the means by which we change and administer our laws, amend the Constitution and elect the people who do those jobs. By providing mechanisms for us to change the Constitution and our laws, the Founders authorized to do what we saw fit.
At some point the old always gives way to the new. Social standards and mores, just like individuals, can become senile and die. The idea that only property owners or whites or men can vote is a vile and outdated notion that many of the Founders embraced. They were dead wrong on that score. Many of them knew it at the time (four states didn't require property ownership for voting), but they could not convince all their fellows of the injustice that denied voting rights to women, blacks, American Indians and the working men who actually built this country from the ground up.
The Bible, as many conservatives will tell you, does not include any provisions for amendments or tweaking its laws. The Constitution does.
The United States is functioning democracy, not a religion. As technology changes, scientific and medical knowledge is gained, and shifts in population and demographics occur, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that our Constitution and laws keep pace with those changes.
That is our charge and mandate from the Founders, who were wise enough to know that they didn't know everything and that one day their great work would need additional refining.
because our current president, in their time, would have been three fifths of a person.
Really? Obama is a descendant of slaves? There were no free people of [partly] African origin in the U.S. at the time?
You see, the President's views on the proper role of govt are not a function of his skin color - and you certainly sound like Lester Maddox making the argument that it is.
By providing mechanisms for us to change the Constitution and our laws, the Founders authorized to do what we saw fit.
And yet progressives are forever eschewing that and arguing that we only need to interpret the Constitution to give license to whatever good thing they want govt to do. Would that all proggies were to heed your words.
What other un-Constitutional legislation was passed in 1798?
The Alien & Sedition Acts!
Fuck the 1st Amdt - if the Founders could ignore "Congress shall pass no law...", so can we! No more free speech - only speech that is approved for your own good! Is that the example you are looking for M? Probably since you don't seem to care what abuses the Great Leader demands.
And what of the Whiskey Rebellion? People didn't want to pay a tax and threatened the federal agent there to collect it. The govt put down the "rebels". Are you claiming that the tax was un-Constitutional, the suppression of the rebellion was, or what exactly? People don't like paying taxes? That is hardly unusual in this country (since it was a considerable part of the revolutionary rhetoric just a few years before the WR).
Here is an excellent article on what is wrong with Obama's proposals (for taxes) in his SOTU. It includes criticism by Bruce Bartlett, so spare me accusations of partisanship since you are so fond of Bartlett these days.
Women also weren't allowed to vote at that time. Nice dodge, though...
...moving right along.
So, I'm looking at the headlines yesterday...not over the week or even a month, just yesterday's headlines .
"CBO says real unemployment at 10%..."
"Obama runs up another trillion-dollar deficit..."
"Federal taxes to jump 30% in 2 years..."
"US DEBT BALLOONS: $15,356,140,000,000..."
"AMERICAN AIRLINES to cut 13,000 jobs..."
(and this is the abridged version)
Please, help me spin this. It's no longer the beginning of a new term, but the final year and time to put things in proper perspective for a rousing campaign season. Despite the inevitable artistic license present in these (as any) news article, is this all still Dubya's fault?
Helpful analogy: The Indianapolis Colts and are delt a bad hand with an injury laiden team. But, in the end, they still suck. Do you fire the coach?
The Colts did. Will America?
I suppose it depends from which those headlines originate. There are also stories like this...
"Bernanke Sees Improvement in Economy"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/bernanke-says-economy-vulnerable-to-shocks-even-amid-signs-of-improvement.html
and this one...
"CBO sees falling deficits in 2012, 2013"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cbo-sees-falling-deficits-in-2012-2013-2012-01-31-105440?link=MW_latest_news
is this all still Dubya's fault?
The first thing you should consider when answering this question is what would you have done differently given what President Obama was handed? In your estimate, what would've happened? Next, look at what President Obama's actions did in regards to GDP growth and jobs gains. I've put up this information previously.
It's not all W's fault. The housing debacle was allowed to happen under Clinton and the GOP in Congress at the time. W was responsible for the debt and deficit issues because he cut taxes, spent money in Iraq that we didn't have, and enacted Medicare D with money we didn't have. If he had left office with budget surpluses and lower debt (as Clinton did) and then we had these problems, one could easily point to Obama and say it was his policies.
Yet this is not the case. The majority of economic problems have nothing to do with what President Obama has done or not done. The policies that he has pursued have largely been triage on gaping wounds. Does he get credit for GM? For the private sector jobs? For the elimination of public sector jobs? For the stock market being nearly double what it was when he took office?
No. And that pretty much proves my point about "winning the argument" and "proving liberals wrong." dave, in the fall of 2008, you were able to get money out of you bank's ATM because of the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The policies of the people you support nearly prevented you from being able to do that. This is what I mean by willful ignorance and continually acting our of your self interest. Are you that pathological about not being able to admit when you are wrong and Democrats are right that you would support (and continue to call for) policies that are detrimental to our economic health?
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