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founder October 30, 2007

Posted by ocmpoma in : society , trackback

founder:
verb (used without object)
(of a ship, boat, etc.) to fill with water and sink.

That’s the second definition of founder, from dictionary.com.

Anyway, this post is prompted specifically by a post over at EvolutionBlog; specifically, this part:

“Michael Medved chimes in with his argument for the proposition that the American Founders wanted to establish a Christian nation, as opposed to a secular nation. Here is an example of his logic:
‘THE FOUNDERS NEVER WANTED TO ESTABLISH A SECULAR NATION. In fact, they repeatedly and insistently averred that the survival of liberty and the prosperity of the United States required a deeply religious society and a populace passionately committed to organized faith.’”

Now, unlike a lot of secularists and, shall I say, left-leaning folks I’ve read on the ol’ blogowebs, I don’t really think that the notion paraded here is incorrect. In fact, I’ll come out and say it:

I don’t think the founders wanted a country where religion was in any way marginilized or played ’second fiddle’ to a secular society — even where the sphere of government is concerned. I certainly think that they wanted to restrict the role religion played in government; the founders were fully aware of the destruction, civil and political as well as personal, caused by religious warfare. I certainly think that the founders wanted to avoid any formal endorsement of any religion by the government. But I have to agree with the statement that the founders were not seeking to establish a purely secular society. A secular-minded government, yes, but not a secular society.

But.

I also must insist on this fine point: I don’t give a fuck what the founders wanted.

The founders didn’t want a secular country? Big deal. The founders didn’t want a direct, popular election of the president. The founders didn’t want judicial oversight of the legislative or executive branch. (Judicial review is not in the Constitution, it came a bit later). The founders didn’t want women to vote. The founders thought that a black person who was owned by someone not only could legally be owned, but was quantified as worth 1/3 of a person, at least politically.

News flash for those who love to trot out the “founders’ intent” in an attempt to justify anything: the founders lived over two hundred years ago. The founders were mired, as are we all, in their place and time and culture. The founders had their share of short-sightedness; the founders had their share of bad ideas.

The founders were men, not demi-gods, and just because they thought something was a good idea, doesn’t mean that it was. The founders lived in a country that was radically different from the one we live in. The vast majority of people living in the United States when it was founded were white Christians. The second-largest group of people were slaves. The number of people who were non-Christian, or non-European, was a very small percentage.

To think that we should guide current policy based on what some people who lived over two centuries ago, in what is in effect no only a foreign country, but in another world, is nothing short of ludicrous. The one real stroke of creativity, the one real spark of pure genius which the founders had was to create a written constitution and form of government with a built in ability to change.

I repeat: I don’t give a fuck what the founders wanted the USA to be. This is our country, not theirs.

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