Did the Founding Fathers make a mistake?

[thekimchikiller]

Run time: 05:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHISw81E3Ug   Posted on YouTube: August 07, 2010 By YouTube Member: thekimchikiller Views on YouTube: 14   Posted on DU: August 07, 2010 By DU Member: thekimchikiller Views on DU: 1693

 
I'm not sure if this video is appropriate for DU. If it's not, then please delete it. However, I'm feeling pretty frustrated right now and I just think that maybe the whole experiment with self-determination was a failure. We've gotten some victories like the election of Obama and two good Supreme Court nominations, but it seems like the teabaggers are about to score a big victory against us and I'm feeling disillusioned. Would have the world (and America) not been better off if we had just stayed a part of the commonwealth? And if this violates any TOS, then delete the video, but it's made in pure frustration.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Democracies requier a few components.

Education and accurate information systems, and just enforcement systems within a population.

When those things don't exist, you can't blame representative rule, because that is not what you have.


A democracy that is distorted by things like propaganda is not a democracy no more then one that uses vote stealing would be.


However such systems fail, and revert back to more democratic forms.


The real problems to watch for is hierarchical systems since it takes far fewer corruptions to control a society for bad reasons if many people just do what they are told, and do not think and feel, while learning.

[thekimchikiller]

2. The assumptions of democracy

The problem I see is that the whole concept of democracy is based on an informed electorate. But Joe Six pack is focused on monster trucks and pro-wrestling. They don't know shit, and you know that. Democracy is based on false assumptions and I honestly think it would be better to live under an enlightened king than under a guy who cares more about who is going to punch out who than they do the future of our nation.

[RandomThoughts]

16. I have made this argument why that is wrong already.

[gtar100]

3. Perfection has eluded humanity even with the Constitution of the US.

It was and still is a revolutionary framework for a nation, but does have its flaws. And some pretty nasty ones at that. Always a matter of opinion, but I'd say here are some real doozies:

• It's too weak on the essential need for strong business regulation.


• The need to keep fundamental human welfare issues within the bounds of government and not privatized for profiteers.


• Using an electoral college to elect presidents.


• Making the Senate so powerful with an equal number of senators from each state despite widely varying population densities.


• Allowing appointments of a very small group of judges to serve out their lifetimes in a very influential position.


• Not making it a crime of perjury to lie while acting in an official capacity.


• Not stating more clearly the meaning of the second amendment.

I'm sure others could add more.

Much of what's wrong I don't attribute to oversight or lack of foresight. That was the effect of the wealthy and powerful wanting to hold onto their power and advantage through a storm of idealism that swept through the world in those times. A new world - Europe given a new lease on life just as it was climbing out of the dark ages into the age of Enlightenment. There was land and opportunity just for the taking (never mind those 'savages').

[thekimchikiller]

4. I want to believe in democracy

As much as I want to believe in informed democracy, I think it is a failure. Democracy rests upon a FLAWED assumption, that the average voter is an informed citizen. And that is FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE! The average voter is an idiot who doesn't know Jack Shit about what's happening the world. That's why I say that an enlightened king might be better.

[sasquuatch55]

14. Real Democracy, see Venezuela.

nt

[gtar100]

17. With disappointment, I agree with you about the average voter.

Any system that is corrupted will not work, no matter the ideals behind it. An enlightened king is probably the fastest way to change but that sort of power also attracts despots. So as quickly as things can change for the good, they can change for the bad. What was that saying... vigilence is the price of freedom?

I hear you and would stand behind an enlightened leader who showed the fortitude and integrity to do what was right but those concepts can be interpreted in many different ways so there's no guarantee of unity among the masses. With such diversity of culture in the world and in particular the United States, I don't see how anything but a representative democracy could work. We need to be educated, we need to have strong regulations to protect us, its purpose needs to be the welfare of people and not businesses or organized religion, and it needs to have oversight built in on every level to protect its integrity. I think it can be done but it's definitely not what we have right now. The democracy we have is being strangled by big oil, bankers, and other enormous corporate interests who control all our basic necessities. Local control of our livelihood has been taken away to a very large extent.

Whatever system that is in place, people cannot just come along for a free ride. With so many people in this world, there is no room for the selfishness purported by republicans and liberterians. We all must contribute what we are able. The incentives and rewards need to be geared toward that which is sustainable and beneficial to all of us. Right now, people are rewarded for selfishness and greed and it is causing our evolution to breed a very sick, sick mentality in our society. It must stop.

[JDPriestly]

19. In order to judge the decisions and actions of others, we have

to picture ourselves (as well as we can) attempting to make the decisions they had to make in the reality in which they lived, based on the information that was available to them.

The reality in which the Founding Fathers lived.

People like Jefferson and Adams made the decisions they did because they believed that the British were exploiting America and giving little thought to the best interests of the citizens our continent who faced the difficult job of making of what was in great part a wilderness into a productive land.

In addition, at the time, the British government was still mostly a monarchy supported by an aristocracy. While your criticisms of democracy have some merit, the fact is that no one has thought of a better form of government. Democracy, in the end, is flexible. New ideas, challengers have a struggle but a better chance than they do in other forms of government. You are right about the electoral college. Out here in California, the electoral college feels like the dictatorship of the minority.

I'm wondering whether you have lived in Britain, kimchikiller. I lived there some years ago. Even then, two centuries after the Declaration of Independence, the class system was oppressive. Having the wrong accent (American was find, but a Scottish brogue was a problem) really ruined your chances. That can be true in our country to some extent. At least not so long ago, a person who sounded like a Yankee was immediately pegged as an outsider in the Deep South.

If you look at politics in the United Kingdom, you realize that the British are just as divided as we are. (In fact, I've lived in other European countries and, for example, the North Germans disparage the Bavarians and Austrians and vice versa. They too are divided by region and political temperament.) The British are more honest about the fact their country is divided by class and privilege or lack of privilege.

The information that was available to the Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers were looking westward and wanted the freedom to develop and form their country in a uniquely American way. In this age of airplanes, telephones and satellites, England seems not so far away. But in the 18th century, it was a long voyage away. News traveled slowly. Remaining a part of the United Kingdom was not a practical choice. Canada was able to make that choice but it is likely that the choice to remain a part of the United Kingdom slowed their development. Whether that was really a disadvantage, I don't know.

But I would venture to guess that Canada has developed as freely and independently as they have in part because England learned from its experience with the US that it could only bully its American colonies so much and then it had to let them enjoy their freedom. The British had different information about Americans (used to include Canadians) as Canada developed. And part of the new information they used in dealing with Canada was their loss of the US.

You have raised an interesting question and challenged the "conventional wisdom." Thanks. Welcome to DU.

[cooolandrew]

5. Deleted.

[aquart]

6. WHAT big victory?

You have really, really gotta stop watching FOX.

[thekimchikiller]

9. I want the Democrats to win

But the polls don't seem to be favoring us. If you've got some news to be hopeful, please share it because I want to see it.

[JDPriestly]

20. The Democrats will win because most Americans remember the Bush years.

And the Republicans are still trying to sell free markets and low taxes. We saw the damage those policies did: outsourcing jobs and importing junk. The Republican economic policies have not worked.

And then there is the Iraq War. We wasted our treasure and the futures of our children and grandchildren trying to destroy WMDs that did not exist. Bush's venture into Iraq was the greatest mistake that any leader of our country has made -- ever, ever. If Americans do forget that, they will get what they deserve and it will not be prosperity and peace.

So, while Obama has not achieved what he could have or should have, the Republicans offer an even bleaker alternative than the Democrats. In the end, Americans will consider that.

I expect the governor's race in California to go Democratic. We have had years and years of Republican governors (briefly interrupted by the very gray Gray Davis). Thanks to those governors, we are in a mess. The Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, is promising to keep taxes low by cutting fat. That was Schwarzenegger's promise oh how many years ago. He looked and looked but had no more luck finding chunks of fat to cut than did Bush when he searched for WMDS. "Not here, not here, not here."

So, I think Democrats will do better than many think come the fall elections. The marijuana measure will bring out Democrats in California some of whom have never bothered to register. I don't know what to think about that measure but it will bring out liberals. Meanwhile the foreclosures have cut into the enthusiasm of a lot of the formerly very Republican suburbs. Losing your job and your income tends to make you less conservative.

[aquart]

23. Thank you for your concern.

[SILVER__FOX52]

7. I'm not sure what the point of the exercise was...........

because if we had stayed united with England other alternative histories with very bad scenarios could be imagined. Not the least of which would be a Britain with unlimited resources during a time of global imperialism.

[thekimchikiller]

8. A reasonable point

Need I point out that "Sliders" was my favorite TV series ever created? Yes, adding power to imperial England may have caused more problems, but I imagine that it would have kept Germany in their place, which would have been a good thing.

[The Wielding Truth]

13. Hilter may have not even existed! You cannot conjecture to this extreme.

[JDPriestly]

21. But France was a bigger player than Germany back in the 18th century

when we won our independence. Distances were much greater then.

[The Wielding Truth]

12. Yea, this guy is just talking out of his a**. King George made life with England

impossible. We cannot even entertain the lunacy of returning to colonial life. This guy has a perspective that is at it's core is an unworkable accept in a misguided fictional paper back. Sorry

Dude, you are in a world which the question you have posed could have been pondered before conception - not after the birth.

We have current problems to worry about. This is a contemplation of a navel of a hatchling.It is senseless.

[Joanne98]

10. If the voters get any dumber we may have to scrap the whole idea.

We were supposed to have informed citizens. The Founders clearly didn't anticipate Fox News.

[activa8tr]

22. If the Founders were alive today, Sharon Angle and Sarah Pwould be in jail.

They certainly deserve it for what they have said on the record.

[Bitwit1234]

11. The mistake they made was first not expecting

members of congress making it their life's jobs. And second the constraining rules and regs they put on the Senate. While, at the time, they seemed appropriate, in this day and age, the way the republicans have abused them they need to go.

[elleng]

15. I seriously doubt a big teabaggers victory. jmo,

but I'm with Howard Dean on this; I expect a Nov 'surprise' FOR Dems.

[sulphurdunn]

18. The Founders were right

in trying to create a balance of power within the public sector. They were wrong not to have applied the same concept to the private sector. The consequences of that omission are that government has shilled for a tiny fraction of wealth accumulators at the expense of the majority since the founding of the republic. That was the fatal mistake, and the father of all our historical failings. To correct it, government needs to fear the majority more than it loves to suck off wealth and privilege.

[Crowman1979]

24. I think not abolishing that elephant in the room called slavery was the biggest mistake.

Along with mistreating native americans and only allowing male landowners to vote are some others.