Speak Out: Advice of our Fathers

Replies (9)

• Even our fore fathers were not perfect. But they laid out for us a form of government which would allow us to govern ourselves and live with more freedom than any other people on the face of the earth.

  When asked what form of government the Constitution was bringing into existence, Benjamin Franklin supposedly stated, "a republic, if you can keep it!"

  Nil, you are correct in demonstrating that we have not always lived up to our principles and the advice of the founding fathers. But you are not perfect either. And we have the advantage of looking back 250 years later. Hindsight is always 20/20.

  Would either of you like to be judged in the way that you judged these people?

  -- Posted by Robert* on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 3:50 PM

• As for "live with more freedom than any other people on the face of the earth." I take it you haven't traveled much have you? There are a number of nations that are just as free if not more so than the US.

  -- Posted by Nil on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 6:54 PM

  We do live a higher standard as a whole as any other nation on the earth. There is no other country that someone can succeed as easily. The only downfall of this country is we babysit the lazy and give them largess for their vote.

  -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 7:36 PM

• Regret, CBS had a story about Atlanta schools changing student grades to insure the federal money keeps flowing. It's not only the ones without jobs addicted to the government largess.

  I think the founders did a remarkable job in context of their time.

  Now is not the time for America bashing but rather the time for optimism and unity in seeking to be the best we can be as a guiding light of opportunity and prosperity.

  -- Posted by Old John on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 7:54 PM

• When I see some of the inner city schools costing $80K per student I is easy to understand since it is a government school. They can't do anything within a reasonable budget. We should hide our assets to keep the grubby hands of the liberals from ruining our retirement. They will take ours to pay theirs.

  -- Posted by We Regret To Inform U on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 8:21 PM

• My great, great, grandfathers came to this nation seeking the freedom and opportunity available here. They wanted the freedom to live their lives without government control and the opportunity to make use of their God-given talents to prosper themselves and their descendants.

  They would roll over in their graves if they could see how the citizens of this great country are willing to follow the European example and give up their freedom in exchange for the promise of a government nanny state!

  -- Posted by Robert* on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 10:42 PM

• Rick,

  If we had lived in the time of the writing of the Constitution our opinions would have been different than they are today. We are a product of our culture just as our fore fathers were a product of their culture.

  Our founding fathers struggled with the issue of slavery and realized that resolving it at that time would probably doom the fledgling republic to failure. Therefore, they left the issue to the individual states. Less than a century later it was resolved (to some extent) by the Civil War. Women's rights took a bit longer to work out. However, it was the framework of a revolutionary form of government established by these men that allowed us to work out these differences.

  They established a government based on the concept that "all men are created equal". We are still in the process of refining that statement.

  And Nil is correct; it is much easier to state a concept than to actually live up to it. My point (apparently I did not make it well) was that if in the past 250 years we had actually lived up to these principles how much better off we would be today. Even today, people confuse a representative republic with a democracy. As Benjamin Franklin stated, a republic is a form of republic which is difficult to sustain. It requires an active and educated citizenry.

  -- Posted by Robert* on Wed, Jul 6, 2011, at 10:36 AM

• Perhaps the Founders were wrong for a reason. The Revolution and its aftermath provided less freedom for most of the colonists. See Gary North's "Tricked on the Fourth of July" at http://lewrockwell.com/north/north1002.h...

  -- Posted by BCStoned on Tue, Jul 5, 2011, at 7:10 PM

  That is a interesting article and is very factual paper. However, the writer left out the fact that most colonists objected chiefly on the grounds not that the taxes were high but that they had no representation in the Parliament. Parliament insisted it had the right to levy any tax without colonial approval, to demonstrate that it had authority over the colonies.

  There was also the problems with regular British troops stationed in the colonies after the French/Indian war. With French threats out of the picture, colonist wanted to go back to staffing their own militias, approved by their own colonial legislatures as been done in years past. The British prefered to keep the regulars in the colonies mainly because large sums of money were paid to the crown and other brithish politicians for officers commisions something colonial militias did not do.

  As part of the British Empire merchants could not trade legally with non empire governments limiting the market value of their goods.

  There was many reasons for the founders to prefer self rule over the empire, and your average citizen may have been better off before the war than after, as is usualy the case in wars. Many of the founders chose revolution out of greed, many out of desire to rule themselves insteead of a King thousands of miles away.

  -- Posted by Joe Dirte on Wed, Jul 6, 2011, at 10:50 AM

• Rick,

  Your ancestory is something to be proud of. There was a time when people would hide the fact that they were native American, but that has all changed. I have sat in rooms digging through history with people who were trying to prove their ancestory so they could qualify to belong to a tribe. I think that is great. My closest claim would be a lady my Great Uncle married who was 1/4 Cherokee. No blood relation.

  I don't have these exciting ancestors, as I come from a long line of poor Europeans who came over in the bowels of ships with passage labeled as "Steerage"

  -- Posted by Have_Wheels_Will_Travel on Wed, Jul 6, 2011, at 11:01 AM

• Wow, what an interesting conversation!

  Am I correct to conclude that the Gary North essay initially highlights research showing that the colonies initially had a much lower tax burden per capita than the residents of Britain, to infer that the colonists "had it really good" and must have been greedy to want taxes to be even lower?

  Here is my idea. Unless you want to borrow everything to start an enterprise--and this seems to be the current model--you must accrue capital. Perhaps these colonists wanted a chance to accrue capital in order to support the founding of their own enterprises on the American continent. Starting "from scratch" takes a lot of capital. Perhaps they wanted to follow the maxim of being neither a borrower nor a lender. You cannot accrue capital if it is taken from you in taxes.

  I am sick to death of the emphasis on "credit markets" and their "being frozen", and of the siren song of the big banks wanting to turn everyone and their cousin into debtors. The credit score has become what the personal reputation for honesty and integrity used to be. Government, being the biggest borrower in the history of the universe, and being addicted to borrowing, of course wants company in the gutter of profligate spending it occupies...everyone else must know the joy of insolvency!

  stnmsn8, I agree. Our forebears would roll over in their graves to see how much government control we have allowed into our lives in exchange for goods and services, at the price of freedom.

  -- Posted by Givemeliberty on Wed, Jul 6, 2011, at 5:47 PM