Founding Fathers
The “Founding Fathers” have pretty much gained “rock star” popularity these days. One might believe them to be the patron saints of the Republican party and authors of the conservative movement considering the frequency with which they’re invoked at their events. Misrepresented and misquoted it’s no wonder they’re deified. We’ve lost all perspective on whom they really were.
Perhaps a bit of a refresher is in order?
Thomas Jefferson – He was the only president who could read and understand Newton’s “Principia.”
Benjamin Franklin – He is credited with developing the science of electricity.
John Adams – He had the finest education that this new country could provide. Including “Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks.”
James Madison – Chief Architect of the Constitution, peppered his “Federalist Papers” with references to physics, chemistry and the life sciences.
Most of these men spoke multiple languages. They were learned men who valued education and philosophy. They were well read and well traveled. They were not religious although they were comfortable with there being an architect to the Universe.
They were human beings who suffered from all the foibles humans do. Some owned slaves, some had extra-marital affairs. They drank, smoked marijuana – hemp – committed fornication and adultery and in their spare time, forged a nation that had the foundation to become truly great.
They valued education. Not just institutionalized education, but an education that comes from research and experimentation. An education that came from travel and experience. They were the experts in mathematics, science and philosophy of their times. They were not only literate, they were effective orators and communicators.
As I look around at the Republican field, I simply cannot imagine the “Founding Fathers” giving any of these yahoos the time of day! Can you even name a Republican who could sit at the table with the Founding Fathers and hold an intelligent conversation? I cannot. Our President could.
Truth be told, if I were to get on an ocean liner and discover that any one of the current field of Republican candidates was the captain of the ship, I’d have to disembark immediately! I distinctly recall what happened to the Titanic. It had a good captain. However, the business interests involved, designer of the ship, head of the White Star Lines, overruled the advice of the captain and insisted on recklessly going for a record breaking Atlantic transit. We know how that turned out.
What’s good for business, isn’t necessarily good for the customers/passengers trapped on the ship. A record breaking transit would have been great for business. If you have the fastest ship, you can command higher rates. If you have the fastest ship, you’re going to corner the shipping market. There was nothing wrong with their goals and objectives from a business perspective. Their greed for profits caused them to lose sight of risks, what was best for the passengers and ignore the advice of an experienced captain. We all paid dearly for their greed.
Today we are all like passengers on a ship. Who’s running the ship matters. Who is at the helm, matters! When my life is on the line – and all our lives are – I want the people in charge to be experts. I want them to be well read. I want them to be masters of navigation. I want them to know the waters. I want them to be able to chart a course through treacherous waters.
Invoking the “Founding Fathers” is nice. However, if you’re not even close to being in the same class with them, it’s only a rhetorical flourish. The Founding Fathers were not just about the right to bear arms or make a profit or protecting business’ right to rape the resources of this nation. They were PROGRESSIVES. They were not conservatives. They were about building infrastructure. They were about education. They were not against taxes. they were against taxation *without* representation! They were not about suppressing the vote. They were about expanding the vote.
If the Founding Fathers were here today, they’d be insulted every time they were invoked by the current Republican party. When the Republican party takes steps to suppress a certain demographic from voting, note, they are not trying to stop that same demographic from paying taxes. They want them to pay their taxes. Vote? Not so much. This is the very definition of taxation without representation.
Where the Founding Fathers were trying to build up a nation and make it stronger, the Republican party is in bed with and having a jolly good time with corporations that are moving jobs out of this country. Where the Founding Fathers were men who valued education, the Republican party is doing everything they can to cut funding for education.
Let me take a look at your budget and I’ll tell you what you value. When I see you pouring money into our military industrial complex… even to the point of funding projects the Pentagon says it neither needs nor wants, it is clear you value war. When you cut the programs that support and care for our troops, it is clear that you do not value them or their service and view them as disposable, replaceable slaves who’s only purpose is to generate a profit.
It is a fact that a person with a college education makes significantly more money over the course of their lifetime and career. This means they pay more in taxes. The quickest way to generate revenue would be to make it as easy as possible for everybody to obtain a college degree.
The Founding Fathers knew that the true resources and wealth of this nation are the minds of it’s people. The Republicans have no concept of this. Where innovation is absent, stagnation occurs. Stagnation leads to death. It always has. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs created new technologies. They were able to do this because they were well educated. Steve Jobs is dead. Bill Gates has retired. Who is out there to fill their shoes? Who is out their to create the next new technology? As education is cut, that pool of potential recedes and dries up.
The corporations of today may not be the corporations of tomorrow. The industries of today were inconceivable two hundred years ago. It’s called “progress.” Sometimes the pursuit of progress is incompatible with profits. Where is the profit for an individual corporation in building a bridge across the Mississippi? Yet, once that bridge is built, trade can increase and profits follow. Somebody has to build that bridge. Where is the profit for a corporation in building a community? Yet, once that community is built, they have a ready workforce.
Moving jobs overseas may increase a corporations profitability in the short term, but who is going to buy their products in the long term? They have forgotten the philosophy of one of our first modern industrialists, Henry Ford. Henry Ford said, he wanted to keep the price of his Ford automobiles at a level where the people who manufactured them could afford to buy them. You can have your automobiles manufactured by someone in China who’s only making $2 an hour. However, try and sell your vehicle to those people. They will not be able to afford them. Once you’ve destroyed the economic market here, your corporation will fold.
The Founding Fathers were for what is best for this nation. Yes, they valued personal freedoms. However, they understood that personal freedoms were necessary to make this nation as strong as possible. The focus was always on nation building. It never was their intent that this nation become a series of waring enclaves where the haves and have-nots fought one another for survival. It was never their intent that this nation be controlled or run by religion. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. They wanted people to be free to practice their religion as they choose, but they never intended for people to force their religious beliefs onto others. This nation was founded by people fleeing religious tyranny.
With all their flaws, many of which had their basis in the times in which they lived, the philosophies of the Founding Fathers, those things which they valued, would be a breath of fresh air today. To my Republican friends, don’t invoke the Founding Fathers when you don’t know them.