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The founding fathers of the USA hacked out a patchwork of compromises to put together a government. Great work, some of the ideas aged well. But they weren't

The founding fathers of the USA hacked out a patchwork of compromises to put together a government. Great work, some of the ideas aged well. But they weren't prophets and they weren't building a plan for the cyberpunk future we're finding ourselves in.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
The fetish for “founding fathers” as infallible superheroes is really weird.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Mmmh, here's my take: they are not infallible superheroes. They were fallible human beings. Are there better people, today, who could lead the country? Of course. Will they ever actually be elected to do so? Sadly, no. America in the late 1700s was a weird moment in history where educated, forward-thinking intellectuals (not nobility, not just the moneyed elite — actually a lot of men who (mostly) deserved to be called intellectual) actually had a chance to make the rules. They made pretty good ones. Some flawed rules, but good ones. We're not going to get that again. The real-time feedback of TwitterDemocracy would prevent us from ever getting a document as general yet meaningful as the Bill of Rights, with basically unfettered rights to speech and assembly. So until I see a viable path to put people in charge who actually surpass them in wisdom and foresight, I'm going to stick to what they put forward. It has aged and worked amazingly well, and have 0 confidence that the politicians of today, if starting from scratch, would do better.
  - tomrod 6y ago
    You might be interested in reading on many of the other democracies out there that update their constitutions frequently.
    - bpodgursky 6y ago
      There are no other democracies out there that have the almost-unfettered rights to assembly and speech that the US has. This is important to me. And FWIW, there are (by most measures) no other democracies out there which have gone as long under peaceful rule of law as the US. Every other democracy (save by some measures the UK) has fallen to coup or revolution in less than this duration. Their latest constitutions may work to keep them stable as long as the US has managed. Or they may not. Time will tell.
      - crumbshot 6y ago
        > there are (by most measures) no other democracies out there which have gone as long under peaceful rule of law as the US. Are you taking the end of the US civil war as the starting point? If so, then Switzerland has a longer duration of peaceful rule of law.
        bpodgursky 6y ago
        I don't see that as necessary, given that most of the US remained under continuous democratic governance. The rest... got there eventually. Even if you do count from the end of the civil war, I would not consider my central thesis destroyed by the small and frankly uniquely weird country of Switzerland. Switzerland is a country that has done very well for its people, but the lessons which have kept it stable and safe over the past two centuries (have a lot of mountains, and don't be worth invading) are not ones which extrapolate out. And let's be honest -- Switzerland was not functionally independent in WWII. It wasn't necessary to invade, because they did whatever the Third Reich wanted with their stolen gold and borders. This is not the stability I am looking for.
        joubert 6y ago
        > Switzerland is a country that has done very well for its people, but the lessons which have kept it stable and safe over the past two centuries (have a lot of mountains, and don't be worth invading) are not ones which extrapolate out. Would you say that Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political thought has been valuable and influential in the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
    - dang 6y ago
      Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic or ideological flamewar, or any flamewar. We're trying for something else here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - sizt 6y ago
      Jeff Daniels monologue in "The Newsroom" "It's not the greatest country in the world professor, that's my answer. Sharon, the NEA is a loser, yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck but he gets to hit you with it any time he wants. It doesn't cost money, it costs votes, it costs air time, it costs column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so damn smart, how come they lose so bad always? Turns to conservative pundit And with a straight face you're going to tell students that America is so star spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world that have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, BELGIUM has freedom. So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom. And you, sorority girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day there's somethings you should know. One of them is there's absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, Number 4 in labor force and Number 4 in exports, we lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now none of this is the fault of a 20 year old college student, but you none the less are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
  - pm90 6y ago
    > It has aged and worked amazingly well, and have 0 confidence that the politicians of today, if starting from scratch, would do better. It has aged well only if you ignore the fact that millions of Americans who were at first considered property, and then “freed” only to be incarcerated and discriminated against, don’t have a say in what “well” means. Politicians of today understand today’s problems and are better equipped to find answers to those problems. They are armed with a team of educated aides and have access to political science research. I’m confident they could devise a better, modern constitution today.
- ctdonath 6y ago
  They weren’t, but did achieve something remarkable that’s still underappreciated by many.
  - csb6 6y ago
    Underappreciated? The founding fathers have been rubbed continuously in every American's face for the last 200 years. Few people under-appreciate them. Every media property, every news article, every public figure continues to worship them as Gods. The status quo position is that the Constitution and the Founders were basically right about the important stuff, and that overall they were very cool guys (even if some of them had the minor flaw of owning slaves). At least this is the narrative that was driven into me throughout all of my education. It seems to be a common viewpoint for both liberals and conservatives. I agree, though, that the Founders did create something remarkable: a genocidal empire that draped itself in ideals of equality and righteousness when it was largely built by slaves and exploited workers; professed to love diversity and Christian morals as it genocided untold numbers of Native Americans; styled itself as a defender against European imperialism in the Western Hemisphere while it built its own empire and repeatedly intervened militarily in Latin American countries; claimed to be in favor of free markets while using its military and police forces to suppress workers/foreign governments to favor American corporate interests; and so on. It really is a remarkable project. Let's be honest. The Founders were wealthy landowners that wanted to create a political system that favored themselves, while deposing the British powers that were a rung above them.
- jfengel 6y ago
  It makes a lot of sense if you view it through the lens of people preferring the status quo. The "founding fathers" can always be used to justify leaving things as they were. That's good if the status quo is working for you. It's not so good if you're somebody who the system fails for. The really horrifying part is that there are people in the latter group who imagine that they're part of the former. The system is failing them, but for a variety of reasons they're convinced that any change will make it worse. Much of the time, it's because they've been played off against other groups who are also having problems in the current system, and told it's a zero-sum game: if they do better, you must be worse. If you just keep revering the "founding fathers" eventually you too will be successful. The worse they do, the harder they revere. It's a vicious cycle, and I have no idea how to break it.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

The fetish for “founding fathers” as infallible superheroes is really weird.

bpodgursky 6y ago
Mmmh, here's my take: they are not infallible superheroes. They were fallible human beings. Are there better people, today, who could lead the country? Of course. Will they ever actually be elected to do so? Sadly, no. America in the late 1700s was a weird moment in history where educated, forward-thinking intellectuals (not nobility, not just the moneyed elite — actually a lot of men who (mostly) deserved to be called intellectual) actually had a chance to make the rules. They made pretty good ones. Some flawed rules, but good ones. We're not going to get that again. The real-time feedback of TwitterDemocracy would prevent us from ever getting a document as general yet meaningful as the Bill of Rights, with basically unfettered rights to speech and assembly. So until I see a viable path to put people in charge who actually surpass them in wisdom and foresight, I'm going to stick to what they put forward. It has aged and worked amazingly well, and have 0 confidence that the politicians of today, if starting from scratch, would do better.
- tomrod 6y ago
  You might be interested in reading on many of the other democracies out there that update their constitutions frequently.
  - bpodgursky 6y ago
    There are no other democracies out there that have the almost-unfettered rights to assembly and speech that the US has. This is important to me. And FWIW, there are (by most measures) no other democracies out there which have gone as long under peaceful rule of law as the US. Every other democracy (save by some measures the UK) has fallen to coup or revolution in less than this duration. Their latest constitutions may work to keep them stable as long as the US has managed. Or they may not. Time will tell.
    - crumbshot 6y ago
      > there are (by most measures) no other democracies out there which have gone as long under peaceful rule of law as the US. Are you taking the end of the US civil war as the starting point? If so, then Switzerland has a longer duration of peaceful rule of law.
      - bpodgursky 6y ago
        I don't see that as necessary, given that most of the US remained under continuous democratic governance. The rest... got there eventually. Even if you do count from the end of the civil war, I would not consider my central thesis destroyed by the small and frankly uniquely weird country of Switzerland. Switzerland is a country that has done very well for its people, but the lessons which have kept it stable and safe over the past two centuries (have a lot of mountains, and don't be worth invading) are not ones which extrapolate out. And let's be honest -- Switzerland was not functionally independent in WWII. It wasn't necessary to invade, because they did whatever the Third Reich wanted with their stolen gold and borders. This is not the stability I am looking for.
        joubert 6y ago
        > Switzerland is a country that has done very well for its people, but the lessons which have kept it stable and safe over the past two centuries (have a lot of mountains, and don't be worth invading) are not ones which extrapolate out. Would you say that Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s political thought has been valuable and influential in the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic or ideological flamewar, or any flamewar. We're trying for something else here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - sizt 6y ago
    Jeff Daniels monologue in "The Newsroom" "It's not the greatest country in the world professor, that's my answer. Sharon, the NEA is a loser, yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck but he gets to hit you with it any time he wants. It doesn't cost money, it costs votes, it costs air time, it costs column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so damn smart, how come they lose so bad always? Turns to conservative pundit And with a straight face you're going to tell students that America is so star spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world that have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, BELGIUM has freedom. So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom. And you, sorority girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day there's somethings you should know. One of them is there's absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, Number 4 in labor force and Number 4 in exports, we lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies. Now none of this is the fault of a 20 year old college student, but you none the less are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
- pm90 6y ago
  > It has aged and worked amazingly well, and have 0 confidence that the politicians of today, if starting from scratch, would do better. It has aged well only if you ignore the fact that millions of Americans who were at first considered property, and then “freed” only to be incarcerated and discriminated against, don’t have a say in what “well” means. Politicians of today understand today’s problems and are better equipped to find answers to those problems. They are armed with a team of educated aides and have access to political science research. I’m confident they could devise a better, modern constitution today.
ctdonath 6y ago
They weren’t, but did achieve something remarkable that’s still underappreciated by many.
- csb6 6y ago
  Underappreciated? The founding fathers have been rubbed continuously in every American's face for the last 200 years. Few people under-appreciate them. Every media property, every news article, every public figure continues to worship them as Gods. The status quo position is that the Constitution and the Founders were basically right about the important stuff, and that overall they were very cool guys (even if some of them had the minor flaw of owning slaves). At least this is the narrative that was driven into me throughout all of my education. It seems to be a common viewpoint for both liberals and conservatives. I agree, though, that the Founders did create something remarkable: a genocidal empire that draped itself in ideals of equality and righteousness when it was largely built by slaves and exploited workers; professed to love diversity and Christian morals as it genocided untold numbers of Native Americans; styled itself as a defender against European imperialism in the Western Hemisphere while it built its own empire and repeatedly intervened militarily in Latin American countries; claimed to be in favor of free markets while using its military and police forces to suppress workers/foreign governments to favor American corporate interests; and so on. It really is a remarkable project. Let's be honest. The Founders were wealthy landowners that wanted to create a political system that favored themselves, while deposing the British powers that were a rung above them.
jfengel 6y ago
It makes a lot of sense if you view it through the lens of people preferring the status quo. The "founding fathers" can always be used to justify leaving things as they were. That's good if the status quo is working for you. It's not so good if you're somebody who the system fails for. The really horrifying part is that there are people in the latter group who imagine that they're part of the former. The system is failing them, but for a variety of reasons they're convinced that any change will make it worse. Much of the time, it's because they've been played off against other groups who are also having problems in the current system, and told it's a zero-sum game: if they do better, you must be worse. If you just keep revering the "founding fathers" eventually you too will be successful. The worse they do, the harder they revere. It's a vicious cycle, and I have no idea how to break it.