Here are a few things the framers did not know about: World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga.
People on the right and left constantly ask what the framers would say about some event that is happening today. What would the framers say about whether the drones over Libya constitute a violation of Article I, Section 8, which gives Congress the power to declare war? Well, since George Washington didn't even dream that man could fly, much less use a global-positioning satellite to aim a missile, it's hard to say what he would think. What would the framers say about whether a tax on people who did not buy health insurance is an abuse of Congress's authority under the commerce clause? Well, since James Madison did not know what health insurance was and doctors back then still used leeches, it's difficult to know what he would say. And what would Thomas Jefferson, a man who owned slaves and is believed to have fathered children with at least one of them, think about a half-white, half-black American President born in Hawaii (a state that did not exist)? Again, hard to say.
The framers were not gods and were not infallible. Yes, they gave us, and the world, a blueprint for the protection of democratic freedoms — freedom of speech, assembly, religion — but they also gave us the idea that a black person was three-fifths of a human being, that women were not allowed to vote and that South Dakota should have the same number of Senators as California, which is kind of crazy. And I'm not even going to mention the Electoral College. They did not give us income taxes. Or Prohibition. Those came later.
Z: I refuse to believe that any writer, even for TIME MAGAZINE, still doesn't understand the 3/5 Compromise,....when will they learn, or is this just to continue the misinformation? And no, they did not give us federal income taxes, they'd have been grieved by it. Odd that Stengel would be so insistent that the framers couldn't have known the specifics he lists above when the Constitution isn't about case by case situations but about so much more than that.
57 comments:
Britain managed to develop in a similar fashion without a written Constitution.
Right now it's primary purpose in America, other than perpetuating silly conventions like the electoral college, is to give southerners the chance to use the tenth amendment as a dodge to their support of slavery.
So much for a patriotic edition of Time for Independence Day 2011.
OK. My blood is boiling, and that doesn't happen too often. What an ignorant piece of trash that Time article is.
The founders understood human nature, and that does not change. Social piffles like Lady Gaga have no relevancy to the constitution. Indeed, it protects a human being's right to such freakishness.
The author also trots out that old lie that we on the right look to the founders as infallible gods and the constitution their holy writ which shall not be questioned.
This is another progressive attack on the last bulwark protecting personal freedoms in this country.
Destroy the constitution (every liberal and progressive's wet dream), and anything is possible. That is the goal, and it has been the goal since Teddy Roosevelt and Supreme Racist Woody Wilson ushered in the progressive era.
@Ducky: Yeah, all that slavery going on down south should be stopped!
@AOW: Our cultural elites like the Obamas, liberal democrats and Time magazine scribbles would never indulge in something so low brow as patriotism.
Britain managed to develop in a similar fashion without a written Constitution.
lol!
I haven't expected much from Time magazine for decades now.
'Representation' IS a degree of humanity!
Oh how the tea partiers who quote the Constitution often yet have never read it (let alone understand it), are spinning in their narrow grooves. Lol!
Silverfiddle; you captured my thoughts when I did the post but I could't focus them: that is IT....you're so right "The founders understood human nature, and that does not change" Exactly. Thanks.
and yes, don't you just hate that rampant slavery in the south?
Thersites, thanks...LOL is right.
Bd, "narrow little grooves" because we cherish the constitution?
How many of your side has read the Health Care bill or the Constitution, by the way? The Republicans had it read at the beginning of Congress last year.
And how do you know who's read or not read the Constitution here? You don't like that we're not enjoying reading TIMES' smear on Conservatives (which, let's face it, if you'd read it, you MIGHT be able to see that's what this basically is), so we're ignorant, is that right? :-)
Cube, we still need to know what the left's slinging, don't we. TIME was an honored periodical in my home growing up....the only place I've seen one in years is a liberal doc's office anymore, come to think of it.
Well Silver fiddle we did fight a war to do just that but,if you've been paying attention, there has been a strong revisionist movement to sate that the war was fought for states rights.
It's quite active and helps establish the colossal myth that The Founders just didn't make serious mistakes.
In fact they had a lot of trouble agreeing. Like the second amendment. That train wreck of a sentence is partially due to Jefferson's fear of standing armies and his belief that militias would be up to the task. The fool even thought a few loosely organized militias could take Canada. So he invaded and the British responded by slapping us and burning Washington. Yeah, that Jefferson was quite a genius.
It should be pointed out continuously that the Democratic Party was founded by anti-Federalists, those who opposed the ratification of the US Constitution in the first place.
It should also be pointed out that the ONLY act of Congress permanently built into the design of the US Constitution was aimed at ending slavery, by forbidding the importation of slavery after 1801 and charging a $10 tax (a half ounce of gold in those days) per slave moved across a state's borders, in addition to limiting the number of representatives to Congress a state could have by not allowing them to fully count their enslaved populations towards enumeration of representatives.
The Constitution was designed to make slavery economically and politically unviable, and this was the point made by Abe Lincoln in his Cooper Union speech.
Curiously missed from Time Magazine's line of questioning is "What would the framers of the Constitution make of the existence of a Department of Education that churned out magazine article writers that are ignorant of US history?"
beamish, imagine misrepresenting the 3/5 compromise as they do? He HAS to know the truth about it, Stengel; it showed me how much we're facing from leftwingers in our culture; and they accuse FOX of lying?
@Ducky,
The first "states rights / successionist" movement popped up in the northeastern "New England" states during the War of 1812, when England tried to re-assert control over its former colonies, and the states that to this day are filled with low IQ left-wing dipshits (like Massachussetts) considered pledging their loyalty to England over defending the United States.
Of course, this didn't go over too well with the patriots that had won the American Revolution by breaking the backs of the British Army in the hills of South Carolina not even a generation before that.
So keep your simpering ignorance of American history to yourself.
beamish, imagine misrepresenting the 3/5 compromise as they do? He HAS to know the truth about it, Stengel; it showed me how much we're facing from leftwingers in our culture; and they accuse FOX of lying?
I don't take it as a necessity that Stengel "has to know" that he's wrong in his misrepresentation of the 3/5ths compromise and other Constitutional features.
The ubiquitous stupidity found left of center is near tautological as an explanation of that.
I suppose you're right, beamish, but I do believe he knows it well and misrepresents it as so many professors do, too; anything to damn America.
I try not to impugn motives when an easily made observation of imbecility is manifest in every sentence they utter. ;)
i.e. they're too stupid to recognize even the fact that they're stupid.
ot:
did you catch Steny Hoyer on CSPAN yesterday leading the Democrats in a chorus of "Moammar Gadhafi is a threat to the American way of life?"
Better than a Twilight Zone episode.
In the sense that our founding fathers did not anticipate that Marxist judges would legislate from the bench, it is true that these near-geniuses were not perfect. No man is. Those who claim that this nation’s founders lacked vision selectively overlook the fact that there is a process for changing the Constitution. We call this process amendment. It is a difficult process, by design. Emotion should not govern whether we change our Constitution, and the founders did anticipate that dimwits, such as Ducky, who thinks queer behavior is natural, would plague us at some period in time.
There are these two truths about our Constitution. Our founding fathers designed it to protect us from government; those who suggest that the Constitution is a living document merely wish to give government more control over us. We ought to wonder about that; we should ask, “Why?”
The second truth is that the Constitution says what the Supreme Court says that it says. This is why there is much more at stake in presidential elections than the color of a man’s skin. The president appoints Supreme Court justices … and who has Obama appointed since that fateful day the American people elected his dumb ass? He allowed American-hating socialists into the tent … and since these are lifetime appointments, we need fear these idiots for decades into the future.
We can damn Obama for doing that, but more to the point is that we should damn any idiot who voted for him in the first place.
Beamish.."did you catch Steny Hoyer on CSPAN yesterday leading the Democrats in a chorus of "Moammar Gadhafi is a threat to the American way of life?" You mean like when he led the Dems in shouts about Saddam Hussein being a threat, too? :-)
Hoyer might as well have been leading them in "BACK OBAMA'S DECISION NO MATTER WHAT!"
Mustang...thanks, as always.
and yes...
"We can damn Obama for doing that, but more to the point is that we should damn any idiot who voted for him in the first place."
And they'll do it again because of the MEDIA and because most Americans aren't getting the truth.
Wait till you see the post I have scheduled in a few hours....if you think we're going to have honest Democratic elections in November, come back and read what I found. horrifying. You see, it won't much matter who AMericans vote for; not if Soros has anything to say about it$$$$
Ducky: You're arguing with straw men again. Nobody said the founders were perfect, and the rest of your commentary is obfuscation to escape the impossible task of defending this libtard Time magazine mashup.
The author of this Time article shows the declined and debased state of thinking in this country.
I am sure this person is sincere in his ignorance, so in that respect he is merely a useful idiot for progressivism. He is unable to make a connection between timeless abstractions expressed in the 18th century and the realities of the 21st century.
That is a failing (success?) of our progressive public education system.
No wonder we have so many deranged leftwing wackadoos in this country. They read this twaddle churned out by overeducated fools crapping noisily in the intellectual gene pool, and it just keeps propagating itself.
It's a self-licking turdcicle.
Z: I apologize for the scatological metaphors, but less debased verbiage escapes me at the moment.
Silverfiddle..no problem.
And thanks for your comment.
There is definitely a penchant by the Left that EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT. If it's not PERFECT, there must be a law made to see that it will be next time.
If the Constitution isn't PERFECT, it's apparently BAD.
Also, you're so right about DUcky and obfuscation; as you get to know him more and more, you'll see he picks a point which deviates from the thrust of the post and runs with it as if that should negate the whole post. One just starts to laugh at it after a while.
Also, with leftwingers, there is no consideration of CONTEXT. Slave owners were bad. Period. as if "White early Americans took it upon themselves to hurt Africans so they went and brought all those people here specifically to beat and overwork and hurt and abuse them....nobody'd ever done it before anywhere else in the world; it's in a total vacuum of typically mean, nasty Americana." that kind of thinking seems to prevail. Of course, now I'll be slammed for championing slavery, wait for it!
You're right about schooling here in AMerica now: Our textbooks also teach only the bad; and they're teaching it to younger and younger children now, making sure they haven't learned to love all the good in their country and then are able to discuss the past of slavery and racism.
It's a very cunning maneuver on the part of liberal educators but I blame us.... the percentage of liberal administration and teachers is overwhelming. That's OUR fault.
Ducky, Sorry, we must have hurt your feelings. But then you do exactly what you always do and what we're all so in tune to by now!:
Ignore my point that the fact that the 3/5 Compromise is constantly misinterpreted so liberals can claim that all Americans hated and demeaned the Black man...and then bring up STROM THURMOND :-)
Okay! Let's bring up SENATOR BYRD! (or, maybe let's not?) :-)
Well I don't know if America did, there was a pretty strong abolitionist movement in many locations.
Fact is that the founders envisioned the republic as a bastion for white male property owners and generally didn't feel anyone else should participate. Wasn't what you call the right wing that changed any of that.
Ducky, 'did' what? Stop slavery? The British and French had had it for years and years and abolished it before we did.
The black AFrican slave traders couldn't have been too happy about that, could they.
Of course they envisioned the country to be predominantly white, the country was predominantly..the whites were those who were educated and who could lead.
This country was made strong first by those leaders and second by the backs of hard working black slaves....who's going to deny that?
"no society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation."
Jefferson in one of his more lucid moments when he wasn't trying to stack the deck for plantation owners.
Ducky, we GET IT! You don't agree about the Constitution and that's fine!
You can stop the GOogling now.
We are not a Democracy, we are a Representative Republic. Each state is allotted two Senators which allows for the states to have equal representation in the Senate, and makes it more difficult for larger states to have more sway over smaller ones.
Furthermore, our founders did eveything they could to make it difficult for govt. to overtake the rights of the people.
"...they are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness....."
We are born with our rights, not given them by our government, and the goverment must have the consent of the people.
"Here are a few things the framers did not know about: World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga."
Besides war, none of the rest on this list which the author mentions, comes under the government's Constitutional purview.
The establishment of Medicare was unconstitutional in that it mandated every working citizen to pay for it. The same with "the New Deal" under Roosevelt.
Imo, these were short term gains, with long term dire consequences. People didn't see the big picture, only immediate compensation.
Today we are seeing how right our founders were about the government not being the be all and end all to the people.
Gradually, over the decades, our freedoms have become curtailed, and eroded.
Now, we have a leadership which wants to put the final nail in the coffin, and only now, do the people begin to see, our backs are up against the wall.
There is no free lunch! We have over time, sacrificed what this great country stood for, and for what, besides temporary monetary gain, and a paternalistic caretaker called the Government, which now has the power of tyranny within reach.
Beamish, thanks for the information.....but leftwingers will keep thinking what they want to think; facts matter not.
Bob Byrd was a recruiter for the K LAN....but they'll nail Thurmond to any wall they can find to expose Republicans for RACISM!?:-)
If only more Black Americans knew the history of the Republican party.
PRIS: You make SUCH good sense and it's irrefutable.
"The establishment of Medicare was unconstitutional in that it mandated every working citizen to pay for it. The same with "the New Deal" under Roosevelt."
Yes, but the Dems have made Americans dependent and entitled now and this will be a tough thing to conquer for the sake of America's well being..
they tore families apart by now allowing fathers to live with mothers in order to get our money, etc etc....they've done terrible hard and, yes, we're now suffering those horrid consequences, economically, and culturally. OUr families were taught to split up..
And look how Ryan has had to back down because his plan was SO maligned SO incorrectly; "killing old people," etc. It might have gone a long way toward fixing the situation...but no, the media can't have that if it means they can't have abortion!
Funny how Palin was creamed for having coined DEATH PANELS and darned if they can barely be known as anything else, considering what they're outlined to BE. But the media gets a hold like an ugly dog with its teeth in someone's pant leg and won't let go.......growling, snarling and chewing..
disgusting stuff.
Great comments, Pris.
"and yes, don't you just hate that rampant slavery in the south?"
Interesting isn't it? Black migration to the North has reversed itself back to that "Old Racist South"?
Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and more?
The supposed places of racism have now become home to a MAJORITY of blacks.
And it's the South that has embraced this demographic change too...as opposed to the "bastions" of Freedom.....in the North East.
As it is now occurring in the South again for Latinos....NM, AZ. TX, CA, Co and beyond.
"If only more Black Americans knew the history of the Republican party."
You're kidding...right? Given the fact that the Republican Party was formed in 1854 to END...END...slavery. The party of Lincoln succeeded ( and too many blacks don't have a clue ) in ending slavery.
Yet...history shows us that the party of slavery, secession, socialism, repression and racism...has always been the Demrat party.
And today...it's the party of racism and incompetence that continues to keep blacks in slavery...to the government...to section 8 to food stamps and to illiteracy / ignorance.
The "democratic" party...the party of slavery and ignorance.
Beamish, go research the rise of Trent Lott's generation of politicians,the "Southern strategy" an all that.
I was born in Alabama also, you can deal with it too.
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddam piece of paper!" George W. Bush.
Z. Ryan's plan taking seniors off Medicade and giving them substandard vouchers which will cover little, ARE the real Death Panels.
Palin was a liar. Insurance companies ALWAYS had end of life counseling in their plans. But when Obama proposed Health Care reform, the right jumped on this and the lie took off. As usual.
Amazing how the you guys get hoodwinked by the corporate right to vote against your best interests or support a plan that will screw you and your families in the long run.
Bd: Bush never said it.
http://factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/
This is what I mean about the hooting loonies on the left cawing into the echo chamber.
Whenever a magazine like Time starts an article with meaningless statements like, " Here are a few things the framers did not know about: World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. ..."., you know that you are about to get a heaping helping of BS.
So the framers of the Constitution did not know about quarks, string theory, germs, or space aliens. So what?
There are many things not covered in the Constitution. Abortion was not covered and there was no reason to include something like that. Killing people has always been illegal, and there is no other reasonable definition of abortion.
A right to privacy of communications is not expressly addressed in the Constitution.
Scientific discoveries like the telephone, cell phones, radio, etc. have caused us to view some of the Constitution in a special light, but has not generated a need for a re-writing the document.
There is a good way to address technical shortcomings in the Constitution, and the framers recognized that situations would arise.
That method is called, AMENDING THE DAMNED DOCUMENT! Pass an AMENDMENT if you want to add or change something in the document. It is not a quick or easy process, and it was not intended to be.
I haven't read Time Magazine in decades, and Z's article reminds me why. It is a bullshit mag for dummies.
Ryan's plan taking seniors off Medicade and giving them substandard vouchers which will cover little, ARE the real Death Panels.
Medicare? Medicade is a program for the poor, NOT seniors.
And the Ryan plan doesn't take anyone OFF Medicare or Medicade... as they NEVER go on it.
Besides, didn't Obama reduce Medicare by $500 billion? Oh that's right he just makes a "Doc Fix" decree that in the future, nothing's going to cost as much as it does today... that REAL leadership (NOT).
ps - Wanna know what the REAL death panels are? Go to Cuba like Chavez did and get yourself a stomach full of socialized medicine.
Only retarded liberals can equate World War II, DNA, Sexting, Airplanes and lady gaga.
Ah TIME, that magazine that's most useful when you run out of toilet paper or firewood.
Honestly, why do we give a damn what TIME has to say about anything. You might as well get a plane ride out to LA or some liberal run shithole and ask the local bums for their opinion. In fact i'd prefer the opinions of the bums to TIME, they definitely know more.
Imagine that instead of Johns Hopkins or Sloan-Kettering or the Mayo Clinic, Americans had to rely on Cuban doctors...
Yet THAT is the "progressive" prescription for the future. Scary, huh!
"Britain managed to develop in a similar fashion without a written Constitution."
Yeah, it worked out real well for muslims, they're much happier in Britain than America. Don't ask any of the Brits fleeing for America and Australia though, you might get a headache from all the facts crashing against your thick skull.
Beamish, go research the rise of Trent Lott's generation of politicians,the "Southern strategy" an all that.
Been there, done that, refuted it epically.
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.928/article_detail.asp
The myth of "racist Republicans in the South" doesn't even have demographic or electoral evidence to support it, at all.
I was born in Alabama also, you can deal with it too.
So was George Wallace. Being born within the borders of the state that leads the nation in applied nuclear power technology and trains astronauts in its spare time doesn't necessarily confer magical status upon you, Ducky. Especially when you've shared that your Massachusettan parents dropped a pantload and fled back to Stupidville, MA when standing up for civil rights in the South would inspire your fellow Democrats to firebomb your house.
the myth of the racist Republican refuted
I went and posted over at the Time article. There's some excellent patriotic conservative pushback going on.
Hey BD...OOPS...not quite so fast...don't believe all the crap you read at KOS:
"Capitol Hill Blue is a not-for-profit, non-commercial experiment in on-line journalism published as an information resource for our readers. All material is © 2006 Capitol Hill Blue. For more information, please check out our FAQ. We take your privacy seriously at Capitol Hill Blue.
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Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 10, 2005, 06:02
This article was based on sources that we thought, at the time, were reliable. We have since discovered reasons to doubt their veracity. For that reason, this article has been removed from our database.
Copyright © 2006 Capitol Hill Blue. All rights reserved
BD, "Amazing how the you guys get hoodwinked by the corporate right to vote against your best interests or support a plan that will screw you and your families in the long run."
Um...'long run'? Just how long do you think Obama can keep borrowing from China and raising the debt and "you and your families" will survive "in the long run"?
Ryan's plan was so good Clinton was encouraging him. Sorry about cluing you in; I know it's painful
FJ .."And the Ryan plan doesn't take anyone OFF Medicare or Medicade... as they NEVER go on it."
exactly. But, these lefties have to spout with no information.
Ducky...from Alabama: Well, aren't YOU the expert!!
It's the SOuth's gain..now.
MAJOR: I do mean that I wish Black America knew the Republican history and the truth of what they did in the Civil Rights fight....maybe they'd vote for themselves next time instead of following the Black Entitlement Junkies, Jackson, Obama, Rangel, Sharpton...
NONE of my Black friends vote for them EVER "they're NOT MY LEADERS" they tell me.
beamish; great link there, thanks.
As if Ducky would read it :-)
By the way; does Republican racism include the millions who want Allan West to vote for President?
Silverfiddle...I'm going to go over there and read them; it'll cheer me up. Thanks.
GOOD JOB at TIME, Silverfiddle. thanks
beamish; great link there, thanks.
As if Ducky would read it :-)
Of course not. Then he'd have to explain to us how if "the Dixiecrats split and formed the basis of today's Republican party" the Republican Party didn't start gaining Southern state US Senate and US House seats until the mid-1980s, barely started gaining state Governorships in the South until the early 1990s, and still to this day haven't cracked the local city government mayorships in most of the South's major cities.
If he wanted to remain partisan and choke on gnats, he would have to face concluding from the actual record of evidence that Republicans from the South aren't by nature racist and that the most concentrated areas of local racism in the South are cities and metropolitan areas run by Democrats.
beamish "local racism?" Have you seen the "local CRIME RATES and POVERTY RATES" in democrat-run cities? It's enormous compared to Republican cities..
"The supposed places of racism have now become home to a MAJORITY of blacks."
Major..you are so right. My hometown, where the bus was burned in the sixties, is now, according to the last census, 51% black, and according to a recent article in the local newspaper, is considered a "minority city."
Ducky:
Anniston, Alabama...look it up.
beamish "local racism?"
Yep. Name the last time a major example of racism - police brutality upon a minority, a black church burning, a racially-motivated lynching, etc. took place in a town or city in the South with a Republican city government.
Hint: it's never happened.
Hi, Jan, how has your city declined since then? what's WITH the Left? They're ruining America like they ruin our left-run cities!
Beamish...You know,when I wrote that, it sounded like I was challenging you but I meant "Not ONLY 'local racism'....how about local poverty, etc.."
Sorry if it sounded like a challenge.
You're probably right in that 'never happening' in Rep-run cities......sad that poverty and criminality are so high in Dem-run cities, isn't it.
Gad, Beamish, if we had honesty in journalism, this information could be out there, discussed, etc., but everybody's afraid of it.
i've seen some conferences on CSPAN where Black Americans talk about the problems in their culture, their community, quite openly, and try to fix it; but they don't go far enough...I don't know if they're embarrassed or if they're afraid of the entitlement seekers amongst them hearing the truth.
OR, they're afraid of ticking off Jesse Jackson or Rangel or Sharpton by taking responsibility for themselves.
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