If Washington, Paine, Jefferson, Frankilin, Madison, et. al.were alive today...

[jazzimov]

A Thought Experiment I would like to propose:

We have many quotes and thoughts from those we call the Founding Fathers. But a person's opinion is formed as much as their environment as by their internal "truths". If any of them were born today and lived in today's environment, what would they say? Would they hold the same opinions or would their opinions be different?

I would speculate myself, but I am not the historian that many here are. I am not as familiar with the people, themselves.

I expect that I will get many replies that attempt to further the poster's personal agenda, but I am looking for one or two serious posts.

I would suggest only picking one of the Founding Fathers, and extrapolating what that person would say and what their opionons would be if they grew up and lived in today's environment. Preferably on a limited number of subjects - or perhaps just one.

Most of all - have fun, fellow DUer's!

[Tom Ripley]

1. Paine: "You people have become far more common, but with even less sense!"

[jazzimov]

2. LOL! Good one!

Not exactly what I was looking for, but pretty funny!

[jberryhill]

3. After spending a week playing with the toilets and lightswitches...

...strap them down before you turn on the TV.

And don't let them look outside.

But once you've acclimated them for a few weeks, my guess would be that, to a man, they'd agree on the proposition, "What the fuck do you expect us to have to say about how to govern this society?"

[treestar]

8. I think they'd be amazed that the Constitution is still officially working

Maybe rather proud of it.

I agree they'd be fascinated by scientific advances.

[jberryhill]

11. Shocked probably

There is a charter which I wrote for a somewhat significant organization about a decade ago, and I'm surprised that it has lasted at long as it has without everyone involved suing one another over it.

[Lurks Often]

4. I think they would be very disappointed in what the country has become

especially in Congress, something they never viewed as a life long career.

[struggle4progress]

5. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were slave-holders

with large land-holdings

The industrial revolution had scarcely begin in the US when Jefferson and Washington were alive. Dalton's atomic theory was first proposed around the time Volta built the first electrolytic battery, and the first locomotive appeared in England in the same era, some years after Washington's death and about twenty years before Jefferson's death in 1826. The first commercial electric telegraph appeared in England in 1837, the year after Madison died, and about a decade after the first photograph; no President was photographed before the 1840s. Snow's work on the Broad Street cholera outbreak, and Pasteur's work on anthrax and rabies vaccines, were still years away.

State of the art moving cartoons, around the time of Madison's death, were something like this:

[Aristus]

6. Jefferson died in 1826.

July 4th. Same day as John Adams.

[struggle4progress]

9. oops

Thanks. I'll correct my prior post. Don't know what I was thinking ...

[Aristus]

10. You were probably thinking he was President in 1804.

Which he was.

[treestar]

7. Jefferson would be an accountant somewhere

He would not have been able to make it in politics. Somewhere I read he did not have a good speaking voice.

I'm thinking their general types of personalities would not have led them to be the leaders of today. It was a different world.

[bluestate10]

12. The problem that Democrats have is that Democratic leaders have

allowed republicans to hijack the Founding Fathers. Republicans love to quote, often inaccurately, the Founding Fathers and Democrats don't make one fucking attempt to restate what republicans quoted then state the real quote from the Founding Father in question. A person always loses if a second person can lie and do so unchallenged.

[StevieM]

13. Yep. And that's how Reagan got lionized. (eom)