Were the founding fathers actually dumb af?

[CloudWolf]

The deification of the Founding Fathers have always seemed weird to me. They were all very flawed human beings who made up a bunch of laws and regulations because they didn't want to pay their taxes. And those rules either only made sense in their time or didn't even make sense in their time ("All men are equal", except for the slaves we all happily own).

Like, I get it, they "created" the country, but you don't see other countries worshipping the dude/dudes who made up their constitution. Like, in the Netherlands nobody actually gives a fuck about William of Orange. We know who he is and what he's done, but it stops there.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

While many did see the Constitution as a constant evolution, they also made it extremely hard to add amendments which makes no sense to me.

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Not really, the real problem in that regard was the expansion of the country. The original 13 states even today are aligned pretty close politically. If you took the senators only from those states right now I bet you could get a bunch of amendments through. But when you expand to an absolutely massive geographic area which varies wildly you are going to run in to problems.

 

[greatgeek]

I'm sure I read Marbury v Madison

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Just because SCOTUS had to describe (and exercise) a power that the Constitution necessarily gives it does not mean that it "made it up."

 

[Booshka]

Seriously - lifetime Supreme Court appointments? So they are essentially the Kings and Queens they fought to escape. And what is even the point of the Senate. Did foresight not exist back then?

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It was all based on cis white male supremacy and property owners that leaned heavily on elite theory to determine the proper course for legislation.

The constitution has some good points, Madison also had some good some points, but generally, the US framers have led to a white male supremacist nation that hedges on feudalism and corporatism.

 

[Burt]

That can't be true. Maybe if you factor in infant mortality but if you lived to adulthood you lived long.

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Average life expectancy was fucked because of all the babies dying.

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Most of the forefathers were living to their 50s and 60s, some even higher. Its a bit of a misconception. Its not like the average age of politicians were 35 and below back then.

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Average age is a poor estimate of how long an adult lived. Tons of children died bringing it down. If you made it past being probably about ten or so, you could easily expect to live to fifty.

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Oh my god I know I don't think I've ever even seen a picture of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or James Madison in their 30s but if anyone else wants to well ackchually me feel free

Congrats, a whole one of the first justices got in spitting range of RBG

oh yeah, and he stepped away after like 5 years

 

[Necromanti]

Probably less so than the people who treat the Constitution like a religious text to be regarded as infallible and static.

 

[Deleted member 8257]

None of then expected the Republic to last 300 years later.

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I think they did expect to last it, but as a Christian dominionist state with endless slavery, where native Americans had no place and where only white men had rights. They put safeguards in place to ensure its survival, such as the court appointments and the appointment of two senators per state.

 

[UraMallas]

The thing is there are tons of writings by these guys that did foresee a lot of what ails us now but it gets conveniently swept under the rug to further agendas. Like, "the founding fathers' intentions" isn't some monolith thought. There was tons of ideas and disagreements among them at the time and a lot of what ails us today was actually brought up back then. Sometimes it was compromised into inept or impotent mechanisms or sometimes it was a minority opinion that never got traction. There's also plenty that said what seemed outlandish and turned out to be outlandish. It's hard to parse through all the bullshit in any given era to find out what truly does matter.

Looking back and saying "these dipshits could have easily seen this was going to happen" is probably oversimplifying the challenges faced in creating a new form of government from scratch but also there WAS a lot of people in those groups who understood what certain aspects of the government they were forming might lead to and said as much. It's hard to know exactly how to create something so complex.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

The problem is not the Supreme Court. The problem is the Senate. Because the Senate can't get anything done, it becomes easier to make sweeping changes by reinterpreting existing laws than to write new ones.

 

[Mezentine]

The problem is not the Supreme Court. The problem is the Senate. Because the Senate can't get anything done, it becomes easier to make sweeping changes by reinterpreting existing laws than to write new ones.

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This is correct

 

[UraMallas]

And, the thing about the Senate being so ineffectual has nothing to do with the founding fathers. It's a made up rule written nowhere in the constitution that they refuse to break.

 

[John Rabbit]

America was built for slave-owning white men by slave-owning white men. All they were doing is agreeing upon the system in which to debate and settle the particulars of being slave-owning white men. When you all agree upon "being a white man and owning slaves is pretty alright" you can make assumptions that governing bodies will generally get along.

 

[platypotamus]

One of these dudes got himself struck by lightning on purpose and famously wrote "Fart Proudly" in between prostitute fueled debauches.

...and he was the smartest one!

 

[Proxy-Pie]

People just didn't live that long. In modern times with modern medicine, lifetime appointments don't make sense. I remember even some republican candidates in 2016 bring it up, but I don't think you'll hear anything from their side for a while for obvious reasons.

 

[Soda]

The education of an adult in 1776 to 1800 was probably below that of an average, modern-day high school student.

 

[BossAttack]

I think they did expect to last it, but as a Christian dominionist state with endless slavery, where native Americans had no place and where only white men had rights. They put safeguards in place to ensure its survival, such as the court appointments and the appointment of two senators per state.

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They really didn't, shit Jefferson figured it'd all collapse within a lifetime. The hope was that continual revolution would fix any such issues.

 

[Tobor]

The Senate was designed as a compromise to the lower population Southern states who feared being ruled by the north.

What we know see as a huge flaw was sadly intentional.

 

[Noog]

They were regular people who lived in the 1700s. To treat them as infallible gods that could even comprehend how far the world, tech, and living would change is the future is one of the stupidest things I've seen.

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The correct take. They didn't have the benefit of seeing into the future. At the time of America's founding, the average life expectancy was like 35. The idea of "politically neutral" judges was possible then. The crazy thing is that we still take their word as gospel.

 

[Lausebub]

The problem is not the Supreme Court. The problem is the Senate. Because the Senate can't get anything done, it becomes easier to make sweeping changes by reinterpreting existing laws than to write new ones.

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This. The Senate won't pass any meaningful legislation any time soon. And a nonfunctional Senat is what enables the Supreme Court to have this much power.

 

[Cilidra]

America is basically running democracy on the pre-release 0.1.1 alpha version, and are refusing to upgrade.

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America gave a lot of new democraties examples of what NOT to do when they created their rules and constitutions.

I the defense of the founders, when they created their version of Democraty, there wasn't much to compared to.

 

[CitizenVectron]

IIRC, the Supreme Court wasn't as powerful back then. I know we teach that all 3 branches was some form of checks and balances with equal power, but I thought I read somewhere that the Court voted to increase what they had a right to interpret. Someone more knowledgeable than me will most definitely correct me.

Fake Edit: What Mr. President said above.

Also, people didn't normally live until their 80s/90s back then. And would actually WANT to retire and stop having to serve in public offices, unlike all the career politicians today.

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That can't be true. Maybe if you factor in infant mortality but if you lived to adulthood you lived long.

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Yeah if you lived past being a toddler then you were pretty likely to live into your 60s-70s. It's childhood mortality that brought the life expectancy down. People have been basically living into their 70s and 80s forever, we haven't actually appreciably improved how long we are able to live, we are mostly getting better at preventing earlier deaths (which raises the average age of death).

 

[Rhomega]

They just weren't thinking ahead, like lack of term limits for Congressmen and Presidents, as well as how Congressional districting is done.

 

[mbpm]

Charitable interpretation is they made do with what they could and their priority was protecting themselves/the elites I think

The Constitution was intended to be amended and such

Of course, that's if you want to be charitable

 

[Volimar]

I think they did expect to last it, but as a Christian dominionist state with endless slavery, where native Americans had no place and where only white men had rights. They put safeguards in place to ensure its survival, such as the court appointments and the appointment of two senators per state.

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They had very real expectations that they'd be reconquered, perhaps even in their lifetimes. And the War of 1812 probably felt like prophecy being fulfilled at the time.

 

[Mezentine]

This. The Senate won't pass any meaningful legislation any time soon. And a nonfunctional Senat is what enables the Supreme Court to have this much power.

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The American system is fucked up on a lot of levels, but really truly most of it hits a chokepoint around the idea that every state should have two Senators, regardless of population. You fix that, you create space in the system for a lot of other things to also get fixed

 

[pants]

Maybe they knew something we didn't

 

[Deepwater]

the genocide of a 100 million indigineous americans is really something thats lost in the historical context of this country's founding

 

[Deleted member 43]

The US Constitution is the oldest such plan of government still in effect today.

It's far, far from perfect, but it's hard to call the founders "stupid" for creating something that has lasted, with so few changes, for so long, as well as it has (at least for the people it was designed to best protect and enrich).

They weren't soothsayers, they couldn't tell the future (though many of them did predict many of the problems the years and centuries following would bear out). They were just people making what they thought were the best decisions and compromises they could make at the time for the interests of themselves and their progeny.

 

[Deleted member 4461]

But it seems like a pretty big oversight. The entirely logic of the constitution ignores the possibility any branch can just become overly politicized and essentially go unchecked if there isn't majority in all 3 branches

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Correct, but the idea was that you could avoid things becoming political by giving each group power they wouldn't want to give up.

It's really not a terrible idea except in hindsight. The biggest issue is that no one wants to solve these issues. The Constitution was in theory designed to be updated.

But as time passed, it became dogma & no one wants to update it.

 

[Mortemis]

They were a bunch of rich, land owning (and some slave owning) white men who built their government to keep power for them. The makeup of the country might have changed, but their goal of keeping power is still working well. The Senate is a perfect example of it.

 

[Advance.Wars.Sgt.]

They weren't idiots, just racist and self-absorbed.

 

[ianpm31]

The problem is not the Supreme Court. The problem is the Senate. Because the Senate can't get anything done, it becomes easier to make sweeping changes by reinterpreting existing laws than to write new ones.

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Yup. I stated this before in another thread but the senate is the real problem and is not representative of our population. Two senators per state is not fair when one state has a population of 1 million and the other has 36 million. So Montana holds the same amount of power as New York or California when there's such a massive discrepancy in total population. It's a major problem among many other issues in the senate.

 

[kirby_fox]

The founders believed that the Constitution would be changed, not a document set in stone. Those in power have decided the opposite and idolized the founding fathers as these infallible gods who couldn't be wrong.

 

[Manmademan]

Yup. I stated this before in another thread but the senate is the real problem and is not representative of our population. Two senators per state is not fair when one state has a population of 1 million and the other has 36 million. So Montana holds the same amount of power as New York or California when there's such a massive discrepancy in total population. It's a major problem among many other issues in the senate.

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The cap on the house of representatives is just as bad. Causes the same problems with small states having disproportionate representation compared to larger ones.
The house was supposed to increase with population, but that number hasn't moved since 1929 basically because of rural farmers getting upset about losing influence.

That number is also directly linked to the amount of electoral votes a state has, which skews the ability of small states to elect the president vs. larger ones as well.

 

[RDreamer]

Yup. I stated this before in another thread but the senate is the real problem and is not representative of our population. Two senators per state is not fair when one state has a population of 1 million and the other has 36 million. So Montana holds the same amount of power as New York or California when there's such a massive discrepancy in total population. It's a major problem among many other issues in the senate.

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While less of a problem, the cap on House seats also means the part of Congress that was supposed to correlate to population also doesn't.

 

[Deleted member 43]

the genocide of a 100 million indigineous americans is really something thats lost in the historical context of this country's founding

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While the United States is absolutely built on the bones of its indigenous population, of which we absolutely practiced mass slaughter and genocide against (so not minimizing that, your overall point is very much valid), where did the number 100 million come from? My understanding is that, Pre-Colombian, there were maybe 7 million-ish indigenous people in all the territory that is now part of the United States, and by the founding of the US, under one million indigenous people were left in that same space.

Are you talking about the entire Western Hemisphere since 1492?

 

[kess]

The Senate should have been abolished instead of detaching it from the control of state legislatures. State legislatures are still corrupt but now nobody gives a shit about it. The concept of giving land two Senators based on some arbitrary land borders, most of which are based on irrelevant quasi-feudal claims was always going to be a disaster, but the House has been well and truly fucked too -- the Reapportionment Act of 1929 tilted the playing field even more towards vested interests, as it was part of a raft of conservative legislation that poured through the government in response to increasing suffrage in the Progressive Era.

Jefferson was aware what later became known as d'Hondt method, which would have been helpful in preventing many of the ills brought on by the simplistic FPTP method, which later became magnified by throwing a primary system on top of it.

Lifetime terms are dumb af.

The problem with a new Constitutional Convention is that it would almost certainly be voted against, as numerous attempts to change New York's constitution have crashed and burned.

 

[dyelawn91]

The Constitution was written in the absence of extreme partisan polarization. The system the founders designed breaks down under extreme levels of polarization, such us during the Civil War and what we're experiencing now. Really a lot of our current governmental systems are at odds with the Constitution. In a lot of ways the Constitution is a fundamentally anti democratic document that we have grafted genuinely democratic principles and systems onto.

 

[Doggg]

Many of them were very intelligent. Still, they were just fallible men and products of their time.

 

[Deepwater]

While the United States is absolutely built on the bones of its indigenous population, of which we absolutely practiced mass slaughter and genocide against (so not minimizing that, your overall point is very much valid), where did the number 100 million come from? My understanding is that, Pre-Colombian, there were maybe 7 million-ish indigenous people in all the territory that is now part of the United States, and by the founding of the US, under one million indigenous people were left in that same space.

Are you talking about the entire Western Hemisphere since 1492?

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You're right, I was thinking about the Western Hemisphere, in North America it was about 50 million give or take. Only half bad.

 

[IpKaiFung]

Rich white guys writing a document to justify more power and money for themselves, including the right to own people as property.

Very cool!

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I wonder who itt can describe what Leonard Leo is without googling.

I couldnt until 2017, so no cookie for me, note.

Brush up on history, OP.

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Its hard to find and fix flaws with reports of false positives flooding the zone.

 

[IHaveIce]

Seriously - lifetime Supreme Court appointments? So they are essentially the Kings and Queens they fought to escape. And what is even the point of the Senate. Did foresight not exist back then?

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It is more problematic that USA is refusing to alter its constitution and treats it like a religious book akin to the bible and also behaving like founding fathers were some biblical figures instead of just some white dudes who just had the infos of their time.

The US needs to get a reformation

 

[Dr. Mario]

They were actually very smart. They came up with a completely new form of government almost from scratch, and got it almost right.

The idiocy comes more from everyone that came after and deified the people who got it almost right without ironing out the parts they didn't get right.

 

[Yams]

While the United States is absolutely built on the bones of its indigenous population, of which we absolutely practiced mass slaughter and genocide against (so not minimizing that, your overall point is very much valid), where did the number 100 million come from? My understanding is that, Pre-Colombian, there were maybe 7 million-ish indigenous people in all the territory that is now part of the United States, and by the founding of the US, under one million indigenous people were left in that same space.

Are you talking about the entire Western Hemisphere since 1492?

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Yeah I'm the US it was around 12 million. Still awful

 

[Keldroc]

They really didn't, shit Jefferson figured it'd all collapse within a lifetime. The hope was that continual revolution would fix any such issues.

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Yup. A lot of the founding documents are written with the expectation that they'd be improved on after the next revolution, which many of them believed would be relatively soon. They didn't refer to the United States as "The Great Experiment" because they were confident in its longevity.

 

[Pluto]

according to google life expectancy was like 35-38 years old so that makes a little more sense

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High infant mortality is the reason the average life expectancy was low, it does not mean that the average person died at 35 or that being 35 was considered to be old.

 

[Bramblebutt]

The US was founded almost exclusively by wealthy landowners and politically dominated primarily by wealthy slave-owning Virginia landowners whose primary grievance towards Britain was the restrictions on westward expansion which endangered their spurious claims on indigenous land west of the Appalachians.

So I imagine it didn't much occur to them how things would shake out in 250 years considering all the mechanisms of government that were built then were designed (after the total failure of the Articles) with the fragile coalition of New England and the Virginia slave power in mind. Which it utterly failed at, leading to an unbelievably bloody civil war.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Average life expectancies are incredibly misleading in a population where child death was so common. If you made it into your adulthood, your life expectancy was not absurdly different than it is now.

 

[Deepwater]

its amazing how the political intellect of slave owners get valorized despite 250 years of oppression and slavery, historical context you think would be considered more in these discussions.

The framework is "mostly perfect' despite it abject failing everybody not rich and or white since the beginning and yet people think its perfect. Just goes to show how entrenched american nationalism and propaganda is.