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Traitors who fought their country for slavery weren't heroes. The Founding Fathers were

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
When the American Revolution erupted, society in the Colonies was split pretty evenly between those who rebelled and those who wanted to remain under England. The American Founding Fathers are representative of a side that ultimately won by doing things like burning down many loyalists’ homes, or tar-and-feathering them, and then exiling them to Canada or the West Indies, in order to cow the other loyalists into keeping quiet. Sure, that is a bit less heinous than fighting to perpetuate race-based chattel slavery. But there is no reason to view the American Founding Fathers as heroes unless you are of that small portion of the world’s population that has been through American schools and still has an attachment to the mythology presented in civics classes there.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  There certainly is reason. Did you know that after Washington defeated the British, his officers offered him a military dictatorship? And he turned it down? Who does that? Who else in history did that? When he became President, he turned down titles like "your Excellency" and other trappings of power. He voluntarily left after two terms, establishing a precedent that lasted until FDR. How do you get more heroic than that? As for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, terrible fates awaited nearly all of them. https://michaelwsmith.com/the-sacrifices-made-by-the-declaration-signers/ https://michaelwsmith.com/the-sacrifices-made-by-the-declara...
  - norir 3y ago
    > How do you get more heroic than that? Do the same things without owning people.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      He turned down owning the entire country. Do you know of anyone that meets your standard? The French Revolutionaries, Washington's contemporaries, didn't own anybody. How'd that work out? I'll help. Millions dead, and they arrived right back where they started with Napoleon declaring himself hereditary monarch of France. How about all the other revolutions in the Americas?
      - Apocryphon 3y ago
        What your ascribe to nobility might simply be prudence. The American republic was founded on the ideals and rhetoric of anti-tyranny. Washington may have simply chosen the course of wisdom of not getting overthrown, himself. Or assassinated by any of his various rivals, such as Horatio Gates and the officers of the Newburgh Conspiracy, which sought to remove him as leader of the Continental Army during the war itself. Maybe choosing not to be a dictator was simply the safest course of action. Least path of resistance.
        WalterBright 3y ago
        Look at his later stepping down as President setting a precedent for two terms, despite being a shoo-in for re-election. It's not consistent with him being afraid of assassination.
        Apocryphon 3y ago
        Washington passed away two years after his second term. Him not seeking a third is consistent with him being old and ailing.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    It’s easy to turn honours down when you are among the wealthiest people in a country and therefore retain a great deal of power and influence even without formal trappings.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      Easy? Who else has done it? FDR was very wealthy, but he clung on until he died. People like power, wealthy or not. It's the ultimate seduction.
      - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        Loads of revolutions have ended with one or more of the warlords involved relinquishing any formal role in the subsequent elected government, in exchange for simply keeping their massive wealth and networks of influence. After all, formal roles bring duties and obligations, so why bother if you don’t have to? The idea of Washington as some kind of saintly Cincinnatus is itself a literal textbook example of early American mythology.
        WalterBright 3y ago
        I only listed facts, not mythology. > in exchange for Washington didn't do it in exchange for anything. > any formal rule Washington wasn't offered a "role". He was offered absolute power.
        OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        > Washington didn't do it in exchange for anything. How do you know that? Wielding absolute power makes enemies and Washington could have eventually lost everything, just like any number of historical tyrants that his circle, so keen about Greek and Roman history, were aware of. Turning down absolute power while keeping one’s immense wealth and influence can be an attractive choice, and this is the same calculus that has guided other warlords involved in revolutions up to the present day.
  - chrchang523 3y ago
    Rare virtue, but I wouldn’t say it was unprecedented: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      I didn't know about him, thanks. But it illustrates my point - you had to reach back two thousand five hundred years to find an example.
      - 8note 3y ago
        Theres not a big sample size to pick from. How many people have led armies fighting British, let alone beat them?
        WalterBright 3y ago
        The sample size is people who led successful revolutions. There are plenty in history you can compare Washington to.
      - sifar 3y ago
        For the record, there is also Scipio. But yes, very few people in all of history who voluntarily stepped back when offered absolute power.
      - andrepd 3y ago
        France-Albert René, Jerry Rawlings. Couple of 20th century examples of autocrats who yielded their power to democratic rule.
        WalterBright 3y ago
        > France-Albert René I'm not impressed. He took a dictatorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France-Albert_Ren%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France-Albert_Ren%C3%A9 > Jerry Rawlings Not impressed with him,either. He took it back: "After handing power over to a civilian government, he took back control of the country on 31 December 1981 as the chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  They also fought for freedom and democracy. Without their heroic example the French Revolution would never have happened and the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies. Also, the military in the great nation they founded has consistently protected the democracies of today from falling into dictatorship (like Ukraine)
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    > They also fought for freedom and democracy. They claimed to do so. Most revolutions have some kind of noble ideology that is proclaimed over what is actually a complex mixture of self-interest and enmities. > Without their heroic example the French Revolution would never have happened and the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies The French Revolution is widely regarded as a disaster of sorts: any noble aims were downed in the blood of innocent people during the Terror that immediately ensued. Moreover, even the French reversed its achievements multiple times over the 19th century. That the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies is a stretch considering that even the state that the American Colonies rebelled against had reduced the power of the monarch in favour of Parliament many decades before.
  - andrepd 3y ago
    Oof, bold claims (the world would not have liberal democracies without the American revolution) and bald-faced lies (muh USA military protecting democracy, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, etc, would all like to have a word with you).
vcg3rd 3y ago
The first right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence (not declaration of liberty or equality or rights) is the first sentence: the right to dissolve political bonds. And the US actually did it again after the Revolution when the Articles of Confederate were replaced by the Constitution. Please explain to me how the states which dissolved their bonds with the United States and declared their independence from it (many of which had done so during the Revolution and had ratified both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution while slavery was legal, and several of which did not secede until after the U.S. fired on Ft. Sumpter) were different in exercising the right to dissolve political bonds? Bonus points if you can do it without saying but but muh racist. If you don't accept the first sentence of the Declaration the rest of it is null and void. (While you're at the explain how the three-fifths compromise actually strengthened slave states (who wanted to count each slave as 1 person) because it actually weakened them and also, most importantly, enshrined slaves as persons and not property in the Constitution with the consentand ratification of those states where slavery was still legal.)
- int_19h 3y ago
  That right belongs to the people, not the states. Which in slave states included the slaves. In two Confederate states, slaves were an outright majority, and in most of the rest, they were a large plurality. Do you seriously believe that Confederate politicians could be meaningfully described as representing "the people" dissolving political bonds, given that those politicians did not in any way represent all the slaves by design? It's about as meaningful as claiming that Spartan aristocracy represented helots or Messenians. Not that it matters much. Even if it is democratic, there's no moral right to self-determination if that self-determination is explicitly for the purposes of brutal oppression of some minority.
- CBarkleyU 3y ago
  >Please explain to me how the states which dissolved their bonds with the United States and declared their independence from it were different in exercising the right to dissolve political bonds? Non American here. Honestly, I'm perplexed by the question? Are you being genuine? The difference is that they're the traitors from your perspective. You're American. They seceded from America. Thus they're traitors. The same way that Americans are traitors from the perspective of an Englishman. How is this even a question? There is no absolute right or wrong. There's not even an absolute right. Nothing says you can or cannot secede. It all depends on your perspective. If you're American than the South were the traitors.
readthenotes1 3y ago
" Traitors who fought their country for slavery weren't heroes. The Founding Fathers were" Someone said a few years ago: "On the one hand, we had people who fought with gun and sword to murder, rape, and otherwise exploit my people. On the other hand we had people who fought with pen and parchment to murder, rape, and otherwise exploit my people."

When the American Revolution erupted, society in the Colonies was split pretty evenly between those who rebelled and those who wanted to remain under England. The American Founding Fathers are representative of a side that ultimately won by doing things like burning down many loyalists’ homes, or tar-and-feathering them, and then exiling them to Canada or the West Indies, in order to cow the other loyalists into keeping quiet. Sure, that is a bit less heinous than fighting to perpetuate race-based chattel slavery. But there is no reason to view the American Founding Fathers as heroes unless you are of that small portion of the world’s population that has been through American schools and still has an attachment to the mythology presented in civics classes there.

WalterBright 3y ago
There certainly is reason. Did you know that after Washington defeated the British, his officers offered him a military dictatorship? And he turned it down? Who does that? Who else in history did that? When he became President, he turned down titles like "your Excellency" and other trappings of power. He voluntarily left after two terms, establishing a precedent that lasted until FDR. How do you get more heroic than that? As for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, terrible fates awaited nearly all of them. https://michaelwsmith.com/the-sacrifices-made-by-the-declaration-signers/ https://michaelwsmith.com/the-sacrifices-made-by-the-declara...
- norir 3y ago
  > How do you get more heroic than that? Do the same things without owning people.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    He turned down owning the entire country. Do you know of anyone that meets your standard? The French Revolutionaries, Washington's contemporaries, didn't own anybody. How'd that work out? I'll help. Millions dead, and they arrived right back where they started with Napoleon declaring himself hereditary monarch of France. How about all the other revolutions in the Americas?
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      What your ascribe to nobility might simply be prudence. The American republic was founded on the ideals and rhetoric of anti-tyranny. Washington may have simply chosen the course of wisdom of not getting overthrown, himself. Or assassinated by any of his various rivals, such as Horatio Gates and the officers of the Newburgh Conspiracy, which sought to remove him as leader of the Continental Army during the war itself. Maybe choosing not to be a dictator was simply the safest course of action. Least path of resistance.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        Look at his later stepping down as President setting a precedent for two terms, despite being a shoo-in for re-election. It's not consistent with him being afraid of assassination.
        Apocryphon 3y ago
        Washington passed away two years after his second term. Him not seeking a third is consistent with him being old and ailing.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  It’s easy to turn honours down when you are among the wealthiest people in a country and therefore retain a great deal of power and influence even without formal trappings.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Easy? Who else has done it? FDR was very wealthy, but he clung on until he died. People like power, wealthy or not. It's the ultimate seduction.
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      Loads of revolutions have ended with one or more of the warlords involved relinquishing any formal role in the subsequent elected government, in exchange for simply keeping their massive wealth and networks of influence. After all, formal roles bring duties and obligations, so why bother if you don’t have to? The idea of Washington as some kind of saintly Cincinnatus is itself a literal textbook example of early American mythology.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        I only listed facts, not mythology. > in exchange for Washington didn't do it in exchange for anything. > any formal rule Washington wasn't offered a "role". He was offered absolute power.
        OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        > Washington didn't do it in exchange for anything. How do you know that? Wielding absolute power makes enemies and Washington could have eventually lost everything, just like any number of historical tyrants that his circle, so keen about Greek and Roman history, were aware of. Turning down absolute power while keeping one’s immense wealth and influence can be an attractive choice, and this is the same calculus that has guided other warlords involved in revolutions up to the present day.
- chrchang523 3y ago
  Rare virtue, but I wouldn’t say it was unprecedented: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    I didn't know about him, thanks. But it illustrates my point - you had to reach back two thousand five hundred years to find an example.
    - 8note 3y ago
      Theres not a big sample size to pick from. How many people have led armies fighting British, let alone beat them?
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        The sample size is people who led successful revolutions. There are plenty in history you can compare Washington to.
    - sifar 3y ago
      For the record, there is also Scipio. But yes, very few people in all of history who voluntarily stepped back when offered absolute power.
    - andrepd 3y ago
      France-Albert René, Jerry Rawlings. Couple of 20th century examples of autocrats who yielded their power to democratic rule.
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        > France-Albert René I'm not impressed. He took a dictatorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France-Albert_Ren%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France-Albert_Ren%C3%A9 > Jerry Rawlings Not impressed with him,either. He took it back: "After handing power over to a civilian government, he took back control of the country on 31 December 1981 as the chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings
FormerBandmate 3y ago
They also fought for freedom and democracy. Without their heroic example the French Revolution would never have happened and the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies. Also, the military in the great nation they founded has consistently protected the democracies of today from falling into dictatorship (like Ukraine)
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  > They also fought for freedom and democracy. They claimed to do so. Most revolutions have some kind of noble ideology that is proclaimed over what is actually a complex mixture of self-interest and enmities. > Without their heroic example the French Revolution would never have happened and the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies The French Revolution is widely regarded as a disaster of sorts: any noble aims were downed in the blood of innocent people during the Terror that immediately ensued. Moreover, even the French reversed its achievements multiple times over the 19th century. That the world would still be ruled by hereditary monarchies is a stretch considering that even the state that the American Colonies rebelled against had reduced the power of the monarch in favour of Parliament many decades before.
- andrepd 3y ago
  Oof, bold claims (the world would not have liberal democracies without the American revolution) and bald-faced lies (muh USA military protecting democracy, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, etc, would all like to have a word with you).

vcg3rd 3y ago

The first right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence (not declaration of liberty or equality or rights) is the first sentence: the right to dissolve political bonds. And the US actually did it again after the Revolution when the Articles of Confederate were replaced by the Constitution. Please explain to me how the states which dissolved their bonds with the United States and declared their independence from it (many of which had done so during the Revolution and had ratified both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution while slavery was legal, and several of which did not secede until after the U.S. fired on Ft. Sumpter) were different in exercising the right to dissolve political bonds? Bonus points if you can do it without saying but but muh racist. If you don't accept the first sentence of the Declaration the rest of it is null and void. (While you're at the explain how the three-fifths compromise actually strengthened slave states (who wanted to count each slave as 1 person) because it actually weakened them and also, most importantly, enshrined slaves as persons and not property in the Constitution with the consentand ratification of those states where slavery was still legal.)

int_19h 3y ago
That right belongs to the people, not the states. Which in slave states included the slaves. In two Confederate states, slaves were an outright majority, and in most of the rest, they were a large plurality. Do you seriously believe that Confederate politicians could be meaningfully described as representing "the people" dissolving political bonds, given that those politicians did not in any way represent all the slaves by design? It's about as meaningful as claiming that Spartan aristocracy represented helots or Messenians. Not that it matters much. Even if it is democratic, there's no moral right to self-determination if that self-determination is explicitly for the purposes of brutal oppression of some minority.
CBarkleyU 3y ago
>Please explain to me how the states which dissolved their bonds with the United States and declared their independence from it were different in exercising the right to dissolve political bonds? Non American here. Honestly, I'm perplexed by the question? Are you being genuine? The difference is that they're the traitors from your perspective. You're American. They seceded from America. Thus they're traitors. The same way that Americans are traitors from the perspective of an Englishman. How is this even a question? There is no absolute right or wrong. There's not even an absolute right. Nothing says you can or cannot secede. It all depends on your perspective. If you're American than the South were the traitors.

readthenotes1 3y ago

" Traitors who fought their country for slavery weren't heroes. The Founding Fathers were" Someone said a few years ago: "On the one hand, we had people who fought with gun and sword to murder, rape, and otherwise exploit my people. On the other hand we had people who fought with pen and parchment to murder, rape, and otherwise exploit my people."