Please take the time to understand our founding documents. Part One of Judge Napolitano’s series on Fox.
BZ
The Constitution And Freedom: Part I
Bloviating Zeppelin
Right thinking from a Left brain.
Please take the time to understand our founding documents. Part One of Judge Napolitano’s series on Fox.
Wow, nice find BZ. I am going to use these as a basis for a teachable moment at greenmnts.blogspot.com/
I stop by at least once a day to enjoy you blog. Keep up the great work!
Toaster: thanking you kindly sir, I appreciate the patronage!
BZ
Excellent find!
Now, are our schools teaching this material so that the next generation knows the importance of our magnificent Constitution?
Concise, direct and to the point. The government of the founders is not the government we have today. Many natural rights have been taken by the growing central government—that thing that Jefferson and others feared the most. The states gave the central government on limited powers, but over the years the central government has grabbed more and more of those rights reserved to the states and to the people. I feel a rebirth of liberty, a rebirth of freedom growing in this country and a new wind of change is blowing>
BZ,
Judge Napolitano is one of the foremost minds on the constitution today. He has written two books you might like. I’ve put some of his stuff on my blog. I have no allegiance to either party, my allegiance is to the constitution. Good job.
His narrative is concise, understandable and entertaining. Other parts will be forthcoming.
BZ
Excellent! 🙂 thanks!
It’s ironic that Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal yet owned slaves and fathered children with one of those slaves, his own children were slaves. He considered them property to do with as he wished with no regard for their humanity.He certainly was no paragon of virtue in my opinion.
Tim,
You have committed the error of taking history out of its context. The founding fathers, especially those from the south, took the path of civic virtue in their writing of the constitution. They could have very easily retreated to their comfortable lives and went on about their business.
They didn’t and we have the constitution as a result. Stop reading Zinn and realize that we are the posterity of a great group of men who sacrificed to make this country.
Remember, men who rise above their circumstances are great, those who settle in, are forgotten.
LOT- I have never read Howard Zinn. The fact is the constitution was written to enshrine a government that did not consider blacks, native americans or women to be equal to white landowning rich men. Even white males could not vote if they did not own property. So rich white men were tired of paying tribute to other rich white men across the sea. There is little “new” in the US Constitution that was not borrowed from our Greco/Roman roots. I tire of the almost religious reverence given to “the Founders” as if they are Cristlike in some way.
Look, I am not calling for throwing out the constitution but please, give me a break.
The Founding Fathers were smack dab in the middle of a failure, we must remember that. The Confederal system from 1776 had brought multiple rebellions into being in the northern States, which were being suppressed by the militias. The inability of the US government to pay off its debt and depend on the States was putting the Nation into turmoil and there was no way to address the debt under the current system. In 1786 the Shaysites came very close to capturing an armory and putting open rebellion on the table because the Confederal government could not pay the promised back wages to those who fought in the Revolution, nor offer them severence pay, nor a stipend. All promised to those who fought. Washington wasn’t being high-minded heading to Phila: he was seeing the Revolution he had fought for and in many ways led crumbling before him. That cannot be glossed over and is one of the strengths of this Nation: we are not only built on success but on failure.
While Tim is correct in pointing out Greco-Roman systems, the Common Law comes from the Nordic system of The Thing of which even the King is but a subject to the law and not the writer of it. Without the local lawgivers creating and upholding law, the King can do little and many a Norse King found themselves at swordpoint when they forgot that. The entire 30 Years war was fought due to those differences in perception of government with the Protestants infused by the Vasa Swedish support seeking the liberty of freedom to read the Bible on their own against the Roman Catholic centralized doctrinal system. The Greco-Roman and Nordic did come into conflict and while England did not take part in that war, it was ready to adopt those attitudes due to the pre-existing Common Law system already in place from the 12th century.
Slavery was brought up by many and seen as a sticking point as the Norse system allowed a formulation of it, but it was not bondage in permanence. Greco-Roman State forms of slavery morphed into a personal holdings system and that would run into problems during the Enlightenment. As the US still had a form of this system it was based on a system instituted by the UK to get people to work on colonial estates. That had problems philosophically which Jefferson admitted to and that was brought up in 1776… and would have collapsed the Revolution if it went for universal freedom. Again in 1787-89 the problems of this were brought up, partially addressed by the Constitution ending the slave trade, but doing nothing about slaves already here. This was not a good situation and Madison was stuck writing the response to Brutus, amongst many, and could only put up the rather lame traditionalism of the South as defense. Like with the Revolution the Nation would break asunder if there was NO compromise: the North would break apart under open revolt and the South would retain State integrity and slavery. Not good choices facing Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, Washington, et. al. The can got kicked down the road yet again, hoping that societal changes would bring the South around… it didn’t and the South was a tinderbox starting in the early 1830’s and something was going to give between then and a conflict that would either be solved in civil fashion or military.
History is extremely complex and cannot be posited on singular belief sets as events are a confluence of multiple outlooks that come together: sometimes in agreement, sometimes at loggerheads. We were warned of the problems of the government being drafted in Phila. and after that we paid scant attention to the warnings. And not just on slavery, either.