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The Death of Conservatism, Part 2
What do you get when 55 rich white landowners gather to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility? A system that to this day protects the interests of the very rich! One of the main reasons George Washington was chosen as the first president was because he was in fact the richest man in the country (from hemp farming among other things) and was expected to protect the interests of the elite.
This entailed slavery, not empowering women, defining Native Americans as savages, blacks as barely human, and ensuring that only landowners could vote. Suppression of the poor and disenfranchised was endemic to the system. To this day (particularly) the so-called Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of corporate interests and against the individual in case after case. They've also ruled against affirmative action -- ignoring years of systemic racism that still exists to a disturbing degree. Several members of the current High Court are aggressively (and some would say heartlessly) determined to further empower the powerful and diminish -- and in some cases ridicule -- the rights of the people. We the People.
To be continued...
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To quote Mr. Wahl from his HBO special "Assume the Position with Mr. Wahl: "Who were are Founding Fathers? A bunch of rich white men who DIDN'T WANT TO PAY TAXES". MY HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED".
It was No taxation WITHOUT representation, you tilt-wing nut!
Would love to see you perform standup in NYC, but pronouncing the death of conservatism is, I'm afraid, a little premature. They're tenacious wingnuts. Readers might be interested in May's Failure of Conservatism Conference from Campaign for America's Future. Parts of that conference were recorded for YouTube and can be found on YouTube under the username AmericasFuture.
I'm afraid you're right. Um, correct, I mean. Not right as in conservative (j/k). Though, I don't know if they're tenacious as much as progressive, or at least mainstream Dems, have been frightened into running from the truth.
"To this day (particularly) the so-called Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of corporate interests and against the individual"
Be patient,we were able to get a small start diluting the lefts 40 year liberal rein on the supreme court. Kind of like how great Clinton became after he lost the house and senate to the Repubs.
I don't know what planet you have been on, but on earth the right has controlled the Supreme Court for over a decade. 40 year liberal rein (sic), my ass. Sandra OConnor was the swing vote and she swung hard right.
If liberals controlled the court, all the Florida votes would have been counted in 2000. And Dumbya Bush would be screwing up some small oil company instead of the USA.
Can you libs show an iota of consistency? When Sam Alito was nominated to replace O'Conner, the left's biggest gripe was that he wasn't replacing the "moderate" vote, whatever the hell that misnomer is supposed to mean. Now she was a "hard right" Justice?
O'Conner's overall record put her left-of-center, and Kennedy is to the left of that, but not as far as overt socialist Ginsberg and the rest of the goon squad.
If your basing your obviously ignorant opinion based on which party nominated the justices as something resembling anecdotal evidence that the SCOTUS is "hard right", you're engaging in overly simplified analysis. Stevens, nominated by Gerald Ford, votes just a tad to the right of Josef Stalin. Bush Sr nominated Souter, who may as well change his name to Mao; it suit his voting record and opinion papers. And then you have the two Clinton nominees, Ginsburg, who is notorious for citing foreign laws and unratified treaties, and Breyer, who I know very little about except he's a very good lackey for voting in favor of Democrat positions. Kennedy votes more with the "left" than the "right", particularly in recent years.
Before Bush's nominees, the "right" side of the court included Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist; the "left" side was comprised of Stevens, Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg. Kennedy and O'Conner were considered the "swing" or "moderate" votes. Right off the bat, there's a 4-3 bias in favor of the left. The only thing that's changed now is O'Conner has been replaced by Alito, a strict Constitutionalist, and Rehnquist was replaced by Roberts, who has been ruling on par with his predecessor. So now its 4-4 if we're keeping such a shallow score, with Kennedy the "swing" vote, which he tends to vote with the left more often than the right.
In short, your unsubstantiated drivel of the right wingers controlling the SCOTUS has no merit. The last time the "right" controlled the SCOTUS was the 1920s, before FDR packed the federal court system with activist judges to force feed the New Deal down America's throat.
It's been conservative judges who rule in favor of corporate interest and liberal judges who rule in favor of the individual.
I don't know where you've gotten your information about the Supreme Court, but it's not accurate.
Unless you're a conservative and you think RoevWade was the worst mistake in Supreme Court history. In that case, I do know where you've gotten your information. But, it's not accurate.
"It's been conservative judges who rule in favor of corporate interest and liberal judges who rule in favor of the individual."
Just like Griswold v. Connecticut, the recent eminent domain case, where the lefties voted in favor of the economic developers (on the basis of increasing tax revenues) and the right voted with the individual private property owners?
Don't blame the founders for what we have done with what they gave us. Remember Madison's comment "We have given you a republic, if you can keep it." To dismiss the writers of our Constitution as "rich white men" is shabby history and muddled commentary.
Back then rich white men were arguing over principles. Hamilton argued with Jefferson about the need for a central bank and economy versus an agrarian economy. Hamilton was killed in a duel later because of his political activity.
The fact that we, Americans, have taken a gold mine and turned it into a lead balloon is our problem, not the founders. The approach suggested by what I read is that our fathers' sins rest on our heads. Nonsense. We are free, with the freedom they gave us, to learn from our mistakes.
Incidentally, you're not talking about real "conservatives." You're talking about "regressives," the folks who fear the future.
I think your right to a degree, if I may. Not all of their arguments had to do with principle. But, you're right that once applied to everyone, the Constitution and its Amendments leave us with the ability to create and recreate if necessary a country that our founders could not have even imagined!
The idea that the founders were all greedy old white men is based on the writings of Charles Beard.
Beard's thesis has been largely debunked by some (primarily historian Forrest McDonald) who point out, among other things, that originally it was going to be "life, liberty and property" but was changed to "life, liberty and happiness".
Also, the founders put forward laws (regarding debt and bankruptcy for example) that directly contradicted their own economic interests at the time (but that of course would benefit the masses).
Were *some* of these men "greedy land owners", etc? Sure. But the evidence suggests not all. Finally, keep in mind that the founders were not considered wealthy by European standards at the time.
Salient point, ihavanobias. Excellent.
Right, that's because Francis Hutcheson, the philosopher most-read by the Founders, argued that private property is defensible only insofar as it serves happiness - and that excess fails to serve happiness, so is not defensible. The phrase "pursuit of happiness" was generally understood then to mean that government had a proper interest in defending the right to property, but only up to a point. It was a very specific recognition that the right to property of the common person - of what we'd now call the working and middle class person - is stronger than that of the wealthy person, whose property might well be considered in excess of what their happiness could truly be served by.
This is why, among other things, taxation, to be fair, must be progressive (although they were not directly concerned with that then). As to whether Hutcheson's claim is true, psychological studies support it: people of extreme wealth are on average no happier than people of merely adequate (say, upper middle class) wealth.
Ok, let's see the founders didn't give us anything, they stole it land and all, they called Native's "savages", they gave them smallpox, liquor, and new homes where they had to live as farmers no longer free to be nomads as they had been prior to our founders. Let's see what else: Slavery from West Africa, America was not Given it was taken, we lie to our children about history, we are a nation of ethnocentric asses who think our way is best and might is right and if you can't speak "english" go back to where you came from. America was created on the backs of black africans, natives and immigrants. Now adays we have a need to kick all of them to the curb and back to where they came from. We have been lied to time and time again. The dictator in office now was put there by the supreme court (notice the word SUPREME, like ours is the only court system), he truely believes Sadam was in with Bin Laden, not true they did not like eachother at all and had no contact with each other. Thousands of inocent ppl have died for oil. This war has nothing to do with 9/11 and everything to do with what "daddy" didn't finish, well Sadam is dead there were never any wmd's and we are still there. Why can't someone be real and realize our country is not all that and a bag of chips. One more thing - does the dictator ever talk about anything other than the war?
Human populations are essentially tribal, and those tribes have always been in flux, with tribes overlapping and boundaries shifting between them. Native Americans recognized this, and considered it natural. They did not share the European custom of overlaying national boundaries on the shared landscape. If one tribe gained in capabilities and prospered, its territory would grow relative to other tribes. When white tribes came to America, the flux of populations continued. This was not, any more than it had ever been, an injustice in itself.
As for slavery, it was not invented by the English. When English traders arrived in Africa the Africans themselves proposed to trade them slaves for their goods. Slavery had been long-established in Africa, both between African tribes, and particularly to sell to the Arab market - the Arabs over history having been the biggest slave owners and traders, far overshadowing Europeans. Should England have accepted this trade - of course not. But it's important to recognize at least that it was not their invention. They simply accepted the institution as Africa proposed it to them.
Rich white men, back then, had a fundamental world view which was that they were the only people who were smart enough to understand and to run things. Nothing in their lives led them to understand that other people were exactly the same as they were. They were severely limited by the circumstances of their lives.
But how do you explain rich white Americans today, who essentially believe the same thing? Is their belief motivated more by hatred, greed, fear, racism, and a sociopathic lack of empathy than by simply ignorance? Bush and Cheney knew that their lies about Iraq, their shock and awe, would cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands - now reportedly a million. They understand these are children, babies, grandmas who are being murdered, and they don't care. And many Americans share that view.
Is it the legacy of slavery? Is it the legacy of the slaughter of native Americans? Is our history determinative of our present and future? Do we have a shared national world view in which the lives of others simply do not matter? Or is it a shared national world view that it is OK to murder others for profit? Are we simply a nation of mercenaries: show me the money, and I'll kill anyone you say. Is this an evolutionary trait in which the decent people are murdered or die off in poverty and despair and the brutal thrive?
Where is the public outrage? Why do we have people talking about how the Dems should do the "safe" thing and let this war wage on, regardless of how many die, because they can get more votes that way?
Do not confuse today with the days of our Founders. In many ways they as in all humans had their failings, but what they did and tried to do was monumental even though it wasn't equitably applied. Do you think the Europeans during that times had less prejudices? How about the African tribes that made war on their neighbors to gain captives to sell to Dutch slave merchants. Everyone had their hand in it.
Maybe all of you who wish to make your cynical critical remarks should actually read the thoughts and writings of those you criticise first. Try the University of Virginia web site.
Until then why don't all of you interlopers go home and leave MY land alone. You all played a part in the degredation of multiple Native American tribes
I'm going a bit off subject maybe, but I agree with George Carlin on the subject of the term "Native American". He points out that it is an insult since (I'm assuming from your remarks, Utopia, that your ancestors were here to greet the Europeans several hundred years ago, if not please pardon the pronoun) you are not Americans. The term "Indian" means "Those Who Blong Here", therefore "Indian" is a much more politically correct term. Americans are the interlopers you mentioned. Although I am neither an "Indian" nor an "American" I am married to an "Indian"... my wife doesn't consider herself to be American, native or otherwise, she's Hawaiian.
Why do we have people talking about how the Dems should do the "safe" thing and let this war wage on, regardless of how many die, because they can get more votes that way?
***********************************************
I don't know. At this point, I'm for holding up the money. We have better things to fund than a bloodletting war.
As for everything else, how poignant. I know that the truth of US history isn't taught so that youngsters will grow up to love their country. But at some point, those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.
How about the next time His Petulancy goes to Congress asking for more moolah, ask him for a financial breakdown of how it's going to be spent...any money going to MERCENARY PARAMILITARY corporations like Blackwater, Custer Battle, ad nauseum...CUT THOSE FUNDS!
Not only would that reduce war expenditures by half, all of Bush and Cheney's neocon friends who have literally 'making a killing' over there would be forced to leave.
No paycheck, no private army.
Well do you ever hang out with rich white Americans? I have, in several settings.
While it's no longer fashionable to state that blacks and natives etc. are animals, they are commonly spoken of in equivalent terms. Just replay the reasons the Neocons insist we must not negotiate with the Islamic world. It's basically all euphemisms for "they're dangerous wild animals."
My consistent experience with rich-and-white is that while the language and overt thinking is miles and miles ahead of where they were in Colonial times, beneath the veneer it's not all that much different.
They like their predecessors regard these great disparities of wealth and opportunity as natural, and they regard the use of government to interfere with them as both criminal and immoral.
I hear the same things we read from the Potato Famine, that handouts are corrupting and often worse than the conditions they're meant to cure.
Plus ca change.....
And another reason why the Inheritance tax (Death Tax, cute) must be tripled, not eliminated.
The “Founding Fathers” weren’t all of one mind. In fact, they hardly agreed about anything. The “rich, white, male” point of view shows up in the Constitution for one and only one reason – that was the only thing they COULD agree about. In fact, there wasn’t even much agreement on that and that’s why it’s so superficial.
The people who lived during the writing of the Constitution didn’t agree with each other any more than the people alive while we are writing this. One opinion written here gets a hundred, or hundreds, more in response. Even if there weren’t other evidence, the Federalist Papers would be enough to prove that there was, at least, as much debate about the Constitution then as there is today. It’s not what they agreed about that makes the Constitution special. It’s what they didn’t agree about.
The Constitution is a document that tries to allow people to disagree with one another without having to shoot each other. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect the individual who the powerful (i.e. the majority) disagrees with.
That’s what keeps the U. S. from looking like present day Iraq. It’s only when some people trying to make everyone agree that we get into trouble – like our civil war or one we have caused in Iraq.
NABNYC said,
"Nothing in their lives led them to understand that other people were exactly the same as they were. They were severely limited by the circumstances of their lives.
But how do you explain rich white Americans today, who essentially believe the same thing?"
Isn't it in their genes?
Oh GEEE!
And I thought it was all about an Enlightenment Movement?
John Locke.
LIFE,,, LIBERTY and,,, PROPERTY!
The prerequisites of self-reliance, sustainability and Independence.
Oh, and do recall that Old George and Martha nearly financed half the war.
But how radical a concept, to insure LAND as part of a national credo.
Wait!
Let’s compromise with some obscure sounding phrase instead, that feeds the ears of the masses.
Life liberty and freedom? Naaaa,,,,, to redundant.
Life, liberty and opportunity? Naaa,,,, then they will all want a piece of the pie.
Ummm?
Life liberty and happiness? ????,,, Uhhh?
Yeah, there we go, everyone wants to be happy! Even a caged bird is happy, when you thrown them a few crumbs of bread. That’s it!
All the best
Knute (Neo-LIB)
Wait,,,, sustainability, self-reliance, independence. WOW! Let’s make that our GREEN mantra!
Funny how wisdom never goes out of style.
At least the founders were bright enough to INTENTIONALLY leave Locke's "property" out of the founding documents. You of course don't seem to realize that.
Self reliance is a needed concept in a rural, agrarian society. Interdependence is a NECESSITY for a modern society.
Funny how cliches, like generalizations about self-reliance, don't yield much wisdom.
Well much of our system and all of conservatism is dependent on differential development. Pursuit of happiness must have the maximum freedom and modern advances, while government is fixed in its original frontier thinking.
A flat-out scam, basically.
Dearest BUBB,
Look, I do NOT always agree with Locke. Especially on issues of innate, incarnate, desires, such as FREEDOM.
Even a chained DOG desires freedom and mourns its absence with howling.
And please, never assume my urgings for civil contracts of property; be a gifted demand by persons upon any nation. Like many of our forefathers found the good fortune and timeliness to avail them selves.
But, I will make one observation of the Provincials; they too learned the value of a rational approach to belief, truth and knowledge, never the one to suffer at the seeking of their convergences, the parentage of wisdom.
Plan not, that by order of BIRTH grant any onus on a nation to provide a prescribed allotment of a given dimension of land.
But rather, that ALL property shall be sovereign, personal property or deeded land, borders of defense against state intrusions, internal or external. My comments about land ownership for as many as possible was an Ideal, but wise nonetheless.
Each man unto his castle, or woodshed or box by the roadside.
Breach these base requirements of inviolate human dignities and you have no freedom, but the rights of only an animal, swooshed away at the whim of any more powerful or in ear leaning of arbitrary, temporary authority.
You still feel “Property” has no merit of inclusion in our contracts or origin?
Please forward all your personal assets to me. I claim them in the name of the authority that I stand much more worthy than you. I know their true value and you do not.
My purpose for them ALL, is MUCH more rational, you would only squander them, needlessly, fruitlessly and to no greater civic or community value.
Thank you for the increase.
Remember, YOU were the one that declared their (forefathers) intelligent omission of these protections.
Wait,, Wait,,,!
Oh my stars,, I am vanquished.
Bill or Rights.
Article 3.
Article 4.
Article 5.
Article 7
I cannot demand your property.
Sorry.
You may go now,,,,,,,
All the best
Knute (Neo-LIB)
Actually, it reads, "...the PURSUIT of happiness.".
Yes, Podewuman. Thank you.
Sorry, I am old.
Sometimes I just get lazy.
All the best
Knute (Neo-LIB)
That's what the right-wingers mean when they want strict constructionists, of course. They want "judges" that will restore what those 55 guys intended.
Judicial Activism is wrong!
Unless you're talking about changing the constitution to ban gay marriage...
Then it's right!
Spousal infidelity is wrong!!
Unless you're Clarence Thomas... or Bob Livingston... or Newt Gingrich... Don Sherwood... Jim West... "Jeff Gannon"... Mark Foley... David Vitter... Larry Craig...
Noticing a pattern here?
Blackmail?
Wasn't it the intent of the Founding Fathers that there be a Constitutional Convention, from time to time?
Only such an event can save the great experiment that is America from its own success. The geniuses behind the original document never imagined that it would be treated as being set in stone, and the politicians of today need to understand that their careers are less important than the nation they claim to represent.
"Wasn't it the intent of the Founding Fathers that there be a Constitutional Convention, from time to time?"
I say yes to your question, whether rhetorical or not. Unfortunately a Constitutional Convention at the present time would end up with our country in a second civil war.
The neocon rulers in D.C. refuse to admit their mistakes, even though these mistakes are crucial, even criminal. Those of us who see the light are stubborn in stopping and reversing the destruction done by our formidable neopponents.
"I say yes to your question, whether rhetorical or not. Unfortunately a Constitutional Convention at the present time would end up with our country in a second civil war."
I'd like to know why you think that. I think the neo-con movement is in rapid decline and the nation is looking for ways to implement reforms that will promote participatory democracy.
Florida Congressman Harry Johnson 1996, "I landed on Omaha Beach so people like Newt would not be running things"
We did not invite George III to the constitutional convention in 1789, why invite the new King George to the constitutional convention in 2009.
Screw the neocons, the reason for a constitutional convention is so they will not run things. A second civil war? Bring it on!
The KKK and Bush will lose again.
The periodic addition of amendments has liberally modified the US Constitution which is a safer way to update the Constitution than holding a Second Constitutional Convention. Let us not forget that 2/3 of the State Legislatures can propose the addition of any amendment to the Constitution and 3/4 of the State Legislature can vote the proposed amendment into the Supreme Law on the Land; the USA. And since we can't depend on our self-serving Congressmen and Senators to vote for their own 'Term Limits' as an example, then the State Legislatures can do that important job to stop the imperious growth of our Central Government which Cheney/Bush have recently called for as, 'Unitary Executive Power'.
And in the process of reclaiming those States Rights guaranteed in the ARTICLE IV, of the Constitution, let's reclaim public education as a States' Right which our government has methodically dumbed down to the lowest denominator since President Wilson's Administration. Reclaiming States Rights is a safer way of modernizing the Constitution. Too much Central Power in the US Congress and in the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, is the root of our continuing political, economic, social, and environmental decay.
A Second Constitutional Convention would definitely be controlled by the Elite one way or another, and you could kiss our Bill of Rights goodbye as a first order of business of the Elite's Second Constitutional Convention.
We are already in a civil war. Only like the cold war, it hasn't been waged with guns, but with more insidious (and potentially destructive) weapons. One of the belligerents is trying to enslave the populace.
I disagree.
Opening up the Constitution for Admendments is a very dangerous thing!
Without very detailed and limiting ruling in place if the Constitution is opened to Admendments the whole document could be throw out.
It is never a good idea to open any State and Espically the U.S. Constitution up for Admendments.
Great insights. Some, like A Lincoln, took the language of the Declaration of Independence seriously enough to attempt the establishment of a true moral and ethical foundation for the experiment in democracy that is the USA. Unfortunately in the country's DNA, as you point out, is a grosser and more selfish motivation - self promoting, serving, and excusing that has become the disturbing hallmark of American behavior in recent history. By the way, they used the hemp for rope to lynch run away slaves and probably not for getting high.
Good point. The Declaration of Independence is the statement of American values and aspirations. The Constitution is the place where those values and aspirations become compromised and betrayed.
L. Neil Smith has called 1789 the unlucky year
13 A.L. In his novels a new calendar the years
After Liberation are numbered from 1776.
http://lneilsmith.org/tpb_tgn.html
Sorry Richard, but you're wrong ... the Consitution had embedded into it principles of the enlightenment. It may have had a narrow slice it applied to but that has been remedied over the years, until recently.
But the point is, it wasn't set up to protect the rich; it a blueprint for contraining the government and empowering people.
It was not unitl the post-civl war era that corproations got rights, by the way.
I think you're right, jbatch. The Constitution is set up to constrain government and yet leaves plenty of room to expand individual rights (and extend them to those not yet included, as we have done).
The founders opposed the kind of rights of corporations that we seem to have today. And the Supreme Court never granted them, either - that was an add-on in the headnote to a decision that said nothing of the kind.
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