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".. because our founding fathers .." It's interesting to see that all sides of political dispute in US, even parties (like this one) which want to cater to the

• dylkil 5y ago
  thats the result of making millions of people pledge to a flag every morning when they were kids
• hef19898 5y ago
  That American obsession with the founding fathers always puzzles me as a non-American. France is in tis 5th Republic, the second since WW2. Germany went through a lot of Government changes since the 18th century as well, as did a lot of other countries in Europe. With the exception of some wierdos nobody puts those long gone governments on a pedestal.
  • disneygibson 5y ago
    Germany doesn’t exactly have a good record when it comes to new governments. Nor does France. Very odd to use them as positive examples. As flawed as the American government may be, the Constitution is still a more solid foundation than pretty much anything that has come out of Europe since.
    • hef19898 5y ago
      Well, the 5th French Republic is going well since the 50s, isn't it? As is the post-war BRD in Germany. Both used to have an Emperor at some point, Italy went from Kingdom to Facist regime to democracy. So yes, if the situation changes you can change your government form. Basing 21st Century politics on something written in the 18th century is... weird. Especially as it is more the interpretation of what the authors thought, and might think today, based on these writings. Just my outside opinion.
      • disneygibson 5y ago
        No, it isn’t weird, it’s simply rejecting the frankly naive notion that you should change everything all the time according to the whims of the populace. History and human nature didn’t begin in 1950. Again, the US has never had anything remotely as horrible as the French Revolution or Nazi Germany. That’s likely a consequence of a constitutional government with limited powers. The United Kingdom is in a very similar situation, although their specific version is different. —- Editing because apparently I am “posting too fast” and can’t reply. What a passive aggressive move. Responding to your comment: The American Revolution preceded the French one by a decade plus. Your chronology is backwards. The French Revolution also didn’t pave the way for much at all. It failed, led to Napoleon, that failed, led to other monarchic systems until WWW1, another disaster, which led to fascism and WW2, an even bigger disaster. And the US isn’t a democracy and never has been. The founders set it up as a representative republic for a specific reason. My thesis still stands that the US is infinitely more stable and has been in comparison to Europe, largely due to its adherence to the original constitution and legal setup.
        • rndgermandude 5y ago
          >Again, the US has never had anything remotely as horrible as the French Revolution or Nazi Germany. Google the Three-Fifth compromise some day. Or whip out your copy of the US Constitution and closely read Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. It took a civil war that almost tore apart the nation to rectify. That's what those - infallible to some - founding fathers compromised on.
          • mythrwy 5y ago
            You work with what you have. In the time you exist.
            • hef19898 5y ago
              In the case some founding fathers, quite literally. Or rather who you own works for you as long as they exist.
  • netcan 5y ago
    I think you have a point in terms of choice of symbols, but ultimately... these are just symbolic choices. The nature of politics, usually, is that it defines and harnesses "who we are." That's kind of what defines politics. EU politics may be where a lot of power is, but it's not where most of the politics is. "Who we are as europeans," beyond a point, isn't a sensible way to start a sentence. No morality tale or symbol of the EU commands that kind of sentiment. In the US, it's the opposite. State politics might house a lot of power, but the politics is a lot meeker. "Who we are as Californians" commands a lot less sentiment that "as Americans." No one cares who fathered California, or how many constitutions it has had. There isn't much existential anxiety about how California might lose influence relative to Texas. So, whether it's the constitution of the 5th Republic, founding fathers... it's all just symbols, like a flag, but with more depth. Ancestor tales aren't new. It's rare that they don't play a major role in human culture.
  • boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Our schooling drills the near divinity of our founding fathers and the constitution they created into us from a very young age.
  • gmadsen 5y ago
    I think its more philosophical than an rubric for actual governance. The constitution was deeply influenced from enlightenment thinkers and basically the first of its kind that influenced the rest of the world.
    • eej71 5y ago
      Agreed! Towards that end I would recommend the recently published book _America's Revolutionary Mind_. It provides a comprehensive (and sometimes exhausting!) overview of the influence of Locke and other enlightenment thinkers on the evolving mindset of the pre-Revolutionary war era. It's not just a review of well known names - but shows just how much Locke's ideas really reached a large range of the then every day royal subjects of the crown in the colonies. Even with that - its still amazing we got something as good as the Constitution. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44807363-america-s-revolutionary-mind https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44807363-america-s-re...
      • gmadsen 5y ago
        very cool! appreciate the recommendation.
  • jean_tta 5y ago
    Every country has its own myths to both give legitimacy to the government and unify the people around a national project. Sure, the US is more extreme in its focus on its foundation as the core of its national myth, but is it so different from the French left rhetoric about the CNR program or the French right name dropping the founder of the (latest) republic left and right?
  • sakopov 5y ago
    As someone who grew up under communism and has one remaining grandparent who fought fascism all the way to Berlin, I am puzzled how any seemingly complacent westerner can call the topic of "founding fathers" an obsession. I guess it's an obsession with the foundations of freedom? I wasn't born American, but I have embraced the fact that my life no longer feels like prison in the US and I truly think that calling America's relationship with the work of founding fathers an "obsession" is truly idiotic, especially considering a trend suggesting more and more countries are playing with authoritarian regimes. [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28399317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28399317
    • jimmygrapes 5y ago
      I truly believe that most people who dismiss the founding fathers as an obsession or otherwise irrelevant to modern day are also the same people who have never read any of the well-documented and freely available discussions they had about governance in general. Excluding technological and other scientific advancement, they really did think of almost everything. Even the oft-cited claim that the country was founded upon "Judeo-Christian values" is argued to death in their correspondence and shows that they were ultimately neutral and fantastically "tolerant"... so long as you take their words for their meanings at the time of their writing and not by modern renditions.
  • holywar20 5y ago
    Fair! But I think the Founding Fathers specifically had a vision for the nation that was transformative. And it actually goes all the way back to European Philosophers like John Locke. The U.S. Constitution has embedded within it the Enlightenment observations that created the modern world. I believe these observations were profound. I also believe that's why we aren't on the the 5th republic. Despite being a young country, we have the oldest constitution on the planet. And much of the trouble we are in as a planet is that the enlightenment itself is under siege. It's worth it at this time of turmoil to consult history with a bit of prudence.
• disneygibson 5y ago
  The moment that the Founding Fathers cease to be the mythology glue holding the nation together will be the minute that the country fractures into 20 different nation-states.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • inglor_cz 5y ago
    People seem to take the unity of U.S. for granted. But there is nothing granted about it. The former Spanish colonies from Mexico to Argentina were part of the same empire, speak the same language, derive their legal systems from the same framework, but they shattered into 20 different states and even led wars against one another. The only attempt to build something bigger out of them, Greater Colombia, only lasted from 1819 to 1831, and the country split precisely on the centralist vs. federalist question. In contemporary intellectual climate, it is almost a heresy to say this aloud, but American political model proved to be messy but durable. Of course, it may yet split on the social network toxicity much like it did split in 1860, but its longevity is pretty significant. Of course, it helped that U.S. is isolated from other powers of the world by two great oceans. Invasion by an external enemy was by far the most frequent cause of problems in my corner of the world. Being located right in the center of a historically violent continent is a recipe for trouble.
    • ericmay 5y ago
      > People seem to take the unity of U.S. for granted. But there is nothing granted about it. I agree completely. It’s hard for us to imagine seeing it break up but there is nothing that prevents that except our general desire to live together. I think large democracies with functioning governments are very unstable over long time horizons. The reason I mention functioning is that if the government of a large democracy is largely non-functional than you can mostly keep doing whatever you want with whatever cultural norms you have where you live. But a functional one will actually pass laws and actually enact things that affect your life that you may disagree with - look at the current abortion stuff. There is no reconciliation to be had on many of these issues. Or look at the Republicans rhetoric around the debt limit “they’ll have to do it without us” - yikes. The US has lasted as long as it has because for most of the time the country was somewhat homogenous and where it wasn’t you could “go fuck off into the woods” and nobody would bother you. With that being less of a possibility the country was always on a collision course for instability, but WW2 and the Cold War kept people united around a common enemy that threatened basically held beliefs. With that gone we will either have a new uniting enemy, or we’ll eventually just form some different governments.
• lucienmaxwell 5y ago
  This is actually not true at all, especially if you consider wings or movements within the two dominant parties. Examining American political history over the past century reveals all sorts of differing views on the Founding, including a president that was openly hostile to many of their thoughts and ideals (Wilson). Part of the general trend of radical adherence to the Founding is an understanding of the equally radical philosophies they championed and that many (if not all) of these are universal and timeless. Rights like being able to say just about anything without being detained or killed by your government don’t expire — they’re central to liberty, period. Also, the Enlightenment was a movement very much based in rational thinking. There’s lots of American political rhetoric based in emotion, but respect and adoration for the Founding is hardly the worst of it.
  • holywar20 5y ago
    An important point. There are ideas worth keeping in an era of revolutionary change. I believe many if not most of the ideas ( if not specific implementation ) within the American Constitution are among them.
• nemo44x 5y ago
  The USA is an extremely different country than when founded and the founders wouldn’t recognize it today. We don’t number our republics but it’s clear they have taken dramatic changes at various times from Hamilton (Federalism) to Lincoln to New Deal Roosevelt, each era transforming American politics and the role the government plays in people’s lives. We share the founding myth of the country (this is important - you need a shared foundation) but the country has faced dramatic transformation at various times from loose confederation of independent states to global empire with concentrated federal power.
• AniseAbyss 5y ago
  The founding fathers are like the Bible: they can and have been interpreted in thousands of ways to support whatever popular cause of the day. I'm sure Davis quoted them in 1860. And they were a diverse group who only came together against the British.