Whats your opinion on the “Founding Fathers?”

38 comments

1. Personally i believe they were evil with some great ideas.

   Also after reading alot of their letters and various books about the era its pretty clear that america pre and post the civil war arent even remotely the same place.

2. I personally like Alexander Hamilton… he’s the only founding father to credit the Saint-Domingue Revolution warding off French military influence in the Mississippi (enabling the Louisiana purchase). George Washington has many quotes that entail America is a “nation of Immigrants”… which I find pretty radical for his time.

   I wonder how Franklin would react… if he found out that the most common ethnic group in America is German lmfao.

3. They weren’t Prophets and shouldn’t be regarded as such. They transceded their time to a degree, but in the end, they were of their time.

4. They were people of their time.

   Slaveowners, rapists, killers, tax evasionists, revolutionaries.

5. They are just dudes. They had faults, problems and limited knowledge.

   They are romanticized as great humans that couldn’t be wrong or incomplete in their documents.

6. More right than wrong, but

   – failed to foresee that their safeguards against populist outrage were not sufficient to the task

   – failed to foresee how Congress would constantly ignore Constitutional protections of civil liberties because it didn’t explicitly say they couldn’t do that specific thing, and how the Supreme Court would just rubber stamp it despite clearly being violative

   – were very naive in thinking the state governments could be trusted to be less oppressive than the federal government

7. Great men for their time.

8. Most of them were terrible people.

9. Don’t care for em

10. They were born into a world where slavery still existed, and had existed since antiquity. Condemning them for being born into such a world is ignorant. They recognized the evil of slavery and were willing to openly debate it, which is more than can be said for the next generation that followed. We can lament the fact that they didn’t take more concrete steps to do anything about it, but given the political situation in post-Revolution America it’s unclear what exactly they could have even done, given that the nascent Federal government was barely holding together under the pressures trying to drag it into the perpetual European wars.

11. Some of the greatest political minds ever.

    By modern standards, not good people, but that’s a non-starter of a point.

12. Generally positive.

13. They didn’t think about the future of America. Poverty, crime, drugs, guns, homelessness…

14. Great Men of their time who came together and founded a new nation.

15. The system of government they created is indefensibly terrible and for that I hate them. The Electoral College and Senate are absolute abominations, and individual states have about 10000× more power than they should.

16. They were a bunch of rich, white men that some people today obsess over

17. They were just dudes. We can respect what they did for our country and still acknowledge they weren’t perfect.

    John Adams, though… he was ok. Never had slaves, and served as a lawyer occasionally for slaves seeking freedom. Wasn’t the most popular amongst his peers. He’s utterly fascinating. My favorite fact about him is actually quite sweet – he and his wife weren’t just in love with each other. They actually LIKED each other. He addressed her in letters as “my dearest friend.” She was also anti-slavery.

18. That they should be studied and judged as individuals rather than a collective since they had different actions and opinions.

19. Bunch of guys that would shit themselves in terror if they ever saw a Prius.

20. I mean. You cannot really judge a group of people as a monolith. Especially as no one seems to agree who exactly fits in that group.

21. Very flawed, but a lot of great ideas, some of which, the country has yet to live up to.

22. I admire them in the sense that they stood up for what they believed in and made changes. If we could do that today the US government wouldn’t be forcing me to pay over 50 percent of my income in taxes because we would tear the government down and make a new one.

23. They were not infallible and products of their time, who did the best they could to have the foresight to prevent tyranny. Overall, I respect them while understanding that they made mistakes. The most we can do is applaud the good, and filter out the bad with hindsight.

24. They were very much limited by their time, there is no arguing that they held views and engaged in practices that would not be accepted today. Judging historical figures with modern value system and contemporary standard would frame the greatest humans throughout history into reprehensible monsters.

    Given the right context and appropriate reference points, the founding fathers’ legacy is most definitely more positive than negative. Most importantly, they did create the United States of America, so for anyone who at least acknowledge the existence and significance of the country, there is no reason to completely denounce the founding fathers. American exceptionalism is a controversial concept that often leads to unchecked nationalism, but in term of civics and national identity, the founding fathers started, and attempted something that was unprecedented at the time – Civic Nationalism. Although if someone were to look into American history, it is obvious that this country has an ugly past dealing with immigrants and non whites, but what is valuable is the existence of this idea that becoming an American is a possibility for people all over the world, regardless of place of origin, skin color, or culture background. Just like many aspects of this country, America’s exceptional inclusivity is not something that’s been optimized to pat ourselves on the back, but it is a drive and a consistent national value envisioned by the founding fathers each generation of Americans needs to perfect.

    In term of politics, the fact that the founding fathers founded a federal republic and a civic nation as opposed to monarchy, ethnostate, or theocracy is impressive and noteworthy; the country the founding fathers proposed wasn’t just “progressive” by 18th century standards, it’s also completely revolutionary. People are laughing at the American political system now, but even till this very day, the check and balances the founding fathers envisioned continue to prevent the country from birthing worst form of tyranny.

25. Mostly turds who didn’t want to pay taxes but wanted all the benefits from paying taxes

26. Generally positive.

    They may have overestimated our civic engagement, but that is on us, not them.

27. Honestly I think they were mostly just doing what they felt like needed to be done. None of them were perfect, but it’s pretty hard to judge people from times before by our moral standards today completely. In a couple hundred years people will likely find so much of our normalized behavior horrific. Not justifying any of the bad stuff, just saying it’s morally complex.

28. Brilliant thinkers who thought ahead. The world wouldn’t be what it is today without them. Had it been some other system or ideas which secured the majority of North America, I believe the world would still be similar to the 1700s.

    Not all of their behaviors were perfect and I think deifying them is not the right idea but there are people today who wish to dismantle their system and remove their philosophies in favor of their own. You can see some of them in this thread.

29. They were dope as fuck

30. I would have to read more autobiographies and biographies on them from what I’ve learned in school they seemed like interesting men. I find how they were able to work together coming from different backgrounds fascinating. I don’t think other intellectuals in their place would have pulled it off at that time.

31. They were brilliant men to create a founding document like the U.S. Constitution.

32. Created a remarkably long lasting and stable political system that used many of the lessons of the “before times” as cautionary examples. Didn’t make themselves kings or emperors when they had every opportunity to do so. A group of men with such foresight, practicality and flexibility the world has never seen since.

    This is really the only example of revolutionaries creating a system in which the average person was more free than prior to the revolution with protections codified into law and with mechanisms to enforce.

33. By and large, they were interesting and thoughtful people. Much better than our current crop of politicians.

    In regards to the politics: they took too much of their model for the US federal government from classical Rome. Y’know, the society that collapsed into a dictatorship? And then degenerated to being ruled by the army with weak emperors as figureheads?

    In politics, the tripod is the most unstable structure. It takes five check-and-balance entities to maintain stability.

34. Old dudes signed some papers and now I get to blow shit up every July.

35. Despite its flaws, they created the greatest country on earth.

36. Some of the greatest people to ever live IMO, despite their flaws.

37. Too often ignored by modern Americans. They brilliantly laid the foundations of our country to be flexible enough to change with our modern world. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are genius lines that allows for the notion of universal human equality and freedom to exist in a document written in the age of white supremacy. It’s beautiful how well the Founders’ have aged like a fine wine, and I will not stand for anyone giving undue spite to those who built one of the world most successful governments.

38. I have an overwhelmingly high opinion of them