You know, there’s this weird fact: Republicans generally support conservative values and Democrats generally support liberal ones. Wanting more Republicans in office isn’t me wanting my team to win, it’s wanting the values of our Founding Fathers restored.
The “Right” Viewpoint: To Be Clear… is that you’re a shamelessly pompous ass.
What is it? Do you have a hotline to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or Alexander Hamilton? Goddamn, do Conservatives say some stupid things or what…? I’ve seen your side’s work before, so I’ll put in a little more than a belittling insult that they would leave this reply at.
Had you been paying attention in U.S.History, you’d know that the signers of the Declaration of Independence through the Bill of Rights lived in a very different time:
- Many from The South — even the author of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson — owned slaves.
- The Bill of Rights was ratified before the Industrial Revolution had much effect on the USA (the South’s clinging to slavery slowed the changes).
Never mind what Jefferson would have made of same sex marriage, ask him first what he thinks of the operation of a U.S. Navy ship baring his name, the university which he founded or discussions (sic) of civic affairs on any cable news channel. I’d wonder if Jefferson would react any better to Barack Obama being President than some of your right wing cohorts; never mind that Jefferson produced issues as African and as European as President Obama. You’d find one flabbergasted man, I’d wager that he’d not have any idea what to tell you about much of anything, Mr. Holzbach.
You can talk about the Good Old Days when women didn’t have a vote, let alone standing as a citizen, but I’m not going to buy that foolish rhetoric. The United States is not a nation that any of the men at the other end of your hallowed hotline had in mind, be that good or bad. We’re on our own to make our way; in the case of many, I am not worried because we are learned and capable enough to handle that. My concern are the unapologetically ignorant and inept who seek to lead this nation’s way in to the future and then over a cliff.
The core problem with originalism is that it overlooks what the historian Gordon Wood has observed about the Founders’ work: that it is exceedingly difficult to discern the “true meaning” of the Constitution since it is the product “not of closet philosophizing but of contentious political polemics.
