Is the USA today the same as established by the founding fathers?

There's my question for the day. Is there anyone here who thinks that the United States of America today is the same as established by the founding fathers or has it become so currupted that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance are only ruins of the government that once was.

Two more questions:

When to you think this transition occured?

and

What do you plan to do about it?

My short answer is that we are no longer the same


The Constitution was written for a rural, agrarian society without a high rate of innovation or industrialization. Wisely though, it was written to be a flexible document.

Things changed permanently to an empire in the Civil War. When a significant minority wanted to "dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them," and could invoke the Declaration of Independence itself, and the Federal government could IMPOSE ITS WILL upon the several states.

That is the date at which the republic ceased to exist in any effective way.

Originally posted by uniderth
Is there anyone here who thinks that the United States of America today is the same as established by the founding fathers or has it become so currupted that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance are only ruins of the government that once was.

It hasn't changed fundamentally. The golden and mythical age of the founding fathers is a myth.

This link dispels a lot of the myth, but it's a tough read for an American:The American Empire

Contrary to the fairy tales, George Washington was one of U.S. history’s most successful criminals, aptly described as the “father of our country.” In 1782 Washington presented a plan to the Continental Congress to defraud the Native Americans. It was a blueprint for theft and genocide.

Ben Franklin was a staunch advocate of using dogs on the Indians

Well yes I understand that the founding Fathers werent the best sort of people. I'm just talking about America as it was intended. For example the Revolutionary war was started because of taxes. Now look at America there are taxes everywhere! thats just an example.

Really, what did the founding fathers set out to do? From what I've read when Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence he was laying out the principles on which the American Nation(which already existed)would be founded. They sought to establish under the constitution a republican form of government(which IMO still exists).

But that is only part of the story for the founding of the United States of America. The idea of an American Nation had been becoming more and more popular over the century before independence as more and more differences(mainly economical)arose between England and her colonies.

The New Englanders hated the Laws of Navigation. The South chaffed under the same restrictions as did New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians. England enacted harsh laws to restrict the development various industries in the colonies(an attempt to stiffle competition). It was becoming more and more clear to the most prominent figures in the colonies that if the colonies were to prosper they would have to break permanently with England.

These men would become our founding fathers. Men whose fortunes that were being impacted by the fortunes of men half a world away. So economics the great mover of history once again forced men to the battlements under the cries of liberty and freedom(wasn't the first time and certainly won't be the last).

The issue of no taxation without representation was solved by breaking with England and creating our own government and thus establishing representation for ourselves.

Originally posted by danwild6
The issue of no taxation without representation was solved by breaking with England and creating our own government and thus establishing representation for ourselves.

'ourselves' being the key word here. 'ourselves' in this context really means the elite who set up the system. The ruling elite. In effect the american people exchanged the English upper classes as rulers for the american upper classes (who were no better than the english).

Compare it with the setting up of parliament in England. There was nearly a riot amongst the upper classes when they thought the new system might actually change something. Of course, they need not have worried. The two-party system is well designed to allow the connected minority to ensure nothing changes that don't suit them.

Originally posted by uniderth
Well yes I understand that the founding Fathers werent the best sort of people. I'm just talking about America as it was intended. For example the Revolutionary war was started because of taxes. Now look at America there are taxes everywhere! thats just an example.

Certainly there have been genuine men of fairness and wisdom amongst all the oppurtunists, but these men have been in the minority and frequently assasinated. You don't have to look all that far back to see them. After the war much effort was made on both sides of the atlantic to redistribute wealth--the introduction of the minimum wage, the government support of unions, the national health system. Reagan and Thatcher began the rollback of these new rights. It's a pendulum, it swings back and forth, and we currently are in the pits of the arc.

Originally posted by rizla
'ourselves' being the key word here. 'ourselves' in this context really means the elite who set up the system. The ruling elite. In effect the american people exchanged the English upper classes as rulers for the american upper classes (who were no better than the english).

Depends on your point of view(and largely were on the planet you are located). The ruling elite in England favored the local industries at the expense of the rest of the Empire. I think to say that we just exchange an English ruling class for an American counterpart is a little simplistic.

Originally posted by rizla
Compare it with the setting up of parliament in England. There was nearly a riot amongst the upper classes when they thought the new system might actually change something. Of course, they need not have worried. The two-party system is well designed to allow the connected minority to ensure nothing changes that don't suit them.

An upper class riot Sorry just tried to picture late-eighteenth century aristocrats rioting(though the Boston tea party does come to mind). I however don't believe the two party system is one of design. And the wealthy seem to do well regardless of what political system in which they currently reside. And I know George Washington was firmly against the development of political parties as a whole.

Originally posted by danwild6
Depends on your point of view(and largely were on the planet you are located). The ruling elite in England favored the local industries at the expense of the rest of the Empire. I think to say that we just exchange an English ruling class for an American counterpart is a little simplistic.

Simplistic but essentially correct. I don't see how geographic location effects this.

Originally posted by danwild6
I however don't believe the two party system is one of design.

I don't mean the two party system. I mean the first past the poll system. It might have been designed with external control in mind. It certainly lends itself to that (see last two US elections).

Originally posted by rizla
Simplistic but essentially correct. I don't see how geographic location effects this.

What I mean is that it did become in the interests of many(not all)Americans to break with England. The New Englanders wanted to get rid of the Laws of Navigation. The Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies wanted to expand westward. The British didn't want to have to defend an ever increasing frontier(nor did they want the colonies developing their own professional armed forces).

Originally posted by rizla
I don't mean the two party system. I mean the first past the poll system. It might have been designed with external control in mind. It certainly lends itself to that (see last two US elections).

The first past the post system was selected for its simplicity. That is the ease in which it can be carried out. And it also lends it self IMO to a stable transfer of power. The faisco in the 2000 election had to do with the recount of the Florida state returns which in turn would determine the vote of the electors sent to the electoral college and thus the election. As far as 2004 thats just sour grapes.

Originally posted by uniderth
Is there anyone here who thinks that the United States of America today is the same as established by the founding fathers or has it become so currupted that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance are only ruins of the government that once was.

This is an example of the Sole Alternative Fallacy: the presentation of two possibilities as if those were the only answers to the question, forcing a choice of one or the other. I don't think either of those is true. Certainly the USA isn't the same country as the founders established, but that doesn't mean it has become "corrupted."

The original republic was hardly a Platonic ideal. It was a compromise among competing selfish interests, brilliantly crafted I'll allow, but still . . .

It left a large proportion of the residents bound in chattel slavery, and in effect allowed their masters to vote on their behalf, giving amplified representation in Congress to states with many slaves. It denied the vote to women, non-whites, and in most states all but men of means. And it failed the most basic test of any government: less than one lifetime after President Washington took the oath of office, the country collapsed into civil war.

At that point, the Constitution had visibly failed. Naturally, it had to be replaced with a new one. The brilliance of the crafters may be seen in that so much of their creation could be preserved, and the effect of a completely new system could be accomplished with only three Amendments (13th-15th). Thus we have had, since 1865, the illusion of living under the original Constitution (more or less). But an illusion is what it is. The original conception had strong states and a weak central government. The new system reversed that relationship. We are under a new government, with many of the same features as the one the founders crafted, but with a wholly different soul.

Two more questions:

When to you think this transition occured?

It occurred in two stages, both of which involved huge national crises. The first was the Civil War, as mentioned already. The second was the period encompassed by the Great Depression and World War II.

Prior to the Depression, the Constitution was interpreted to deny the government much say in how the economy operated. The relevant clauses are ambiguous, however, and in the course of the economic crisis the Court reversed itself and permitted greater economic regulation by the federal and state governments. Afterwards, victory in the war brought the U.S. to world power status, and maintaining that status required a large standing military and a covert-operations capacity -- a shadow government, in effect -- that went against much of the purpose of the original republic.

and

What do you plan to do about it?

Depends on what you mean. If you mean, to try to return to the original republic that began in 1789, nothing; I don't want to live in that country and so I see no reason to try to get it back, even if that were possible, which I deny.

On the other hand, some more changes are in the offing. We move now into a new crisis, one compounded of the failure of Empire and a collision with natural limits. Some 20-odd years from now, we will be living in a country as different from what we have today, as America in 1950 was from America in 1930. Some of the changes coming out of the last big crisis I like; others I don't but I can see the necessity. The current one? We shall see. If we even have a country after it's over, we'll be doing well.

One thing that will help us do that, is if we can get away from this nonsense about the framers of the original Constitution crafting the civic equivalent of Holy Writ. There is nothing wrong with changing with the times, and something desperately wrong with failure to do so.

Wow I'm impressed I got a whole bunch of sensable people responding to this. My target audience was the conspiracy theorists. I was expecting answers like the shadow government took over when JFK was assasinated and stuff like that. You people have really impressed me. Good job!