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Oh no! The Founders would be displeased! I'm so tired of this kind of argument, as if we should forever substitute our own judgement with games of "what would T
by qzw 4y ago
Oh no! The Founders would be displeased! I'm so tired of this kind of argument, as if we should forever substitute our own judgement with games of "what would The Founders want?" They were men, some were even great men, but men nonetheless. Don't worship them like gods. If there's something particularly great about the founders of the USA, it was that, one, they understood human imperfection, including their own, and two, they knew human societies change over time and so must their laws. They therefore built checks and balances into our system of government, and they put in mechanisms for change into the Constitution. So let's argue about the merits of laws or societal standards, but let's stop using the putative preferences of the founders like they mean anything. It's no better than when charlatans say "God wants this, God wants that" in order to legitimize their own opinions and actions.
- tptacek 4y agoThe real issue here is that the founders would simply not agree with the parent comment. You don't have to reach the issue of whether the argument is persuasive; it's simply not accurate. It's worth digging into this stuff, because it's kind of fascinating. It's a reason to go look up what the largest fortunes were at the time of the founders, or what the major defamation cases where at the turn of the 19th century, or how defamation law differs now from the time of the framers (hint: it got a lot more favorable to defendants). If you use dumb-seeming arguments as an excuse to speed-research weird historical facts, these threads get a lot more fun, and also you tend to end up with more compelling arguments.