Ponder The Meaning Of Our Founding Documents

Comment

Comment by Scott H. Kidwell on July 4, 2012 at 2:29pm

If, as progressives often claim, the founders, many of whom read the studied the great works of writing and literature and cultures through history, "could not have envisioned challenges that were not even conceivable 250 years ago", then why quote Dante to support the current progressive view?

FDR was a progressive, like Woodrow Wilson, who fought against the despotic economic corporations who were anything but true free market and individual liberty supporters.

However, Wilson stated and FDR supported this position. "‘State socialism’ is willing to act through state authority as it is at present organized. It proposes that all idea of a limitation of public authority by individual rights be put out of view, and that the State consider itself bound to stop only at what is unwise or futile in its universal superintendence alike of individual and of public interests. The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory."

It is, I believe, this theory that is moving forward today to replace our founders construct and claims that, for our own good, social justice, as defined by the current ruling authority, must be superior to individual interest, and if need be, individual liberty. Hence, the call that we need a new social order where a benevolent ruling class that appeals to the natural desire for fairness and equality where you don't have to choose and not one we will lose but simply surrender your agency and all will be well!

Comment by DEXTER LEVY on July 4, 2012 at 11:47am

Chris,

Again, you have a great perspective!

Comment by Scott H. Kidwell on July 4, 2012 at 10:34am

Our founders were not anti-Government. Indeed, to paraphrase our 1st President George Washington,

“We recognize that government cannot secure all rights of individual sovereignty and yet provide for basic common interest and safety. Individuals in a society must give up a small measure of the former to preserve the latter. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be reserved “. 

Nevertheless, they determined that in creating the Constitution, government power came from the sovereign people, and not the states as had been the case with the Articles of Confederation, and that the people would always be the sovereign of this nation. But even so there were limits placed that government can not do, even by a majority for that would be tyranny.  Just as in President Washington’s day, our ongoing task is no less difficult to preserve what was set in place. The founders did not believe in legal stasis otherwise they would not have provided a way to change the Constitution. The two views are indeed very different. For the founders, through study of ancient to modern societies, recognized that human nature does not change even with advances. The holding of power tends to corrupt. The aforementioned progressives believe differently if the leaders are educated and enlightened and properly trained. I seriously doubt that most citizens recognize importance and long range impact of either view. For one to claim another as backwards or destructive simply by affiliation would be ignorant indeed. But no one should doubt President Obama when he said he was going to fundamentally change America for that transformation is happening before our very eyes.

Citizens have the privilege and duty of electing office holders and influencing public policy. Participation in the political process affects our communities and nation today and in the future. Everyday people serving the public for a time or season has been the bulwark of our republican government for over 200 years.

Comment by Gina Garcia on July 4, 2012 at 10:32am

A July Fourth Thought:

 

The July 4th Celebration is a uniquely American event. It commemorates a key moment in our country's history.  But its other title -- Independence Day --  suggests this is an even more meaningful day here and beyond our borders.

 

Never in the history of mankind has a nation's "export" been simply a trust in freedom and the rights of all humankind.

 

When we are forced to send soldiers, planes and ships far from home, it has never been American dominance that drives us, but a belief that the inalienable rights we describe in our Constitution are not American rights, but are the rights of all mankind. It has never been clearer in U.S. history that the sacrifices made by the men and women who serve in our military are made toward a goal that transcends our own interests alone. In many ways they carry on their shoulders not only the defense of the Great American Story, but also the promise to the world that was first expressed 236 years ago when a nation was founded not on a shared ethnicity, but on an ideal.

 

Happy Independence Day -- everyone.

 

Gina Garcia, Publisher, LaMesaToday.com

Comment by La Mesa Today on July 4, 2012 at 9:03am

Comment originally posted by LaMesaToday.com member david schmidt

the founders rightly stated that the God given rights are permanent and not able to be altered or revoked by any man made government. This is what has made us the great nation we are, and will remain, as long as we stay close to God's mission and purpose for us.

Comment by La Mesa Today on July 4, 2012 at 8:59am

Scott,

You nicely lay out one of the themes that has coursed through the history of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Did the founding fathers intend the document to be a codification of a legal stasis or a guide to protect the rights of all, including the minority, as legislators across the land grappled with challenges that were not even conceivable 250 years ago? Clearly, there are two very different -- but perhaps countervailing -- forces that have tried to answer that question during our country's history.  A couple things FDR said while weighing these very issues in his time:

"We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.'' -- FDR

And later: "Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. . .Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.'' -- FDR, June 1936.

Obviously, FDR came down on the "living document'' side of the divide you describe. I suspect this tension will continue to drive our politics for another 200 years, one way or another. It's proven to be a pretty resilient dynamic.

Chris Lavin, Editor, LaMesaToday.com