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The Founding Fathers Were Libertarians

Do You Believe Our Founding Fathers Were Libertarians

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 34.1%
  • No

    Votes: 18 43.9%
  • Other

    Votes: 9 22.0%

  • Total voters
    41
  • Poll closed .

jr602az

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Ron Paul Believes that our Founding Fathers Were Libertarians. Awesome!!!:mrgreen:

Watch Video-> [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G00Sq3xaE1g"]YouTube- Ron Paul: The Founding Fathers Were Libertarians[/nomedia]
 
No.

Original, up until ~1789 (when William Belsham, a Whig, first used the term), Libertarianism was almost indiscernible from anarchists.

The Founding Fathers might have some similar ideals to modern Libertarians, but you're calling such in retrospection
 
A bunch of exclusively white males who owned slaves?

Sounds about right.
 
Ron Paul Believes that our Founding Fathers Were Libertarians. Awesome!!!:mrgreen:

Watch Video-> YouTube- Ron Paul: The Founding Fathers Were Libertarians

Well, I think it depends on which Founding Fathers you're talking about.

When we think "Founding Fathers," most of us conjure up the images of those who fought in the Revolutionary War and who argued and fought to separate the colonies from the British Empire in order to win our independence and freedom. I don't think those Founding Fathers can be looked at with a political philosophy since they were too busy fighting a war to really govern.

Just before the end of the war until a few years after, we were under the Articles of Confederation. This time showed how little power the the national government had, and was required to have more authority. This was granted in the Constitution, which was ratified in 1788.

Now, the American Revolutionary War started in 1775, so the time between then and the Constitution was 13 years. Many of the elder statesmen of the Continental Congress either died, were no longer interested in politics, or had no more influence over politics.

So I don't know if the Revolutionary Fathers can be considered the same as the Founding Fathers.

Then there's the early decades of our Constitution. During that time, there was argument over interpretations of the Constitution and how much power the federal government should have. This was personified in Alexander Hamilton as a staunch Federalist and his primary opposition in Thomas Jefferson, the most prominent Anti-Federalist. So our government was so busy determining customs and the powers of the federal government, along with defending our nation against European powers and native tribes, to focus on that kind of political philosophy.

It's not until the next generation of American statesmen in which we get the likes of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and John C. Calhoun of the Democratic Party and Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams of the Whig Party that we really see the federal government in action.

In that regard, neither side were libertarian, as the Democratic Party supported states rights free from federal influence but only so they could support slavery and the economic benefits it gave to the South. So while they were against federal authority and favored free trade, they were in favor of statism on a state level with regards to government institutionalized slavery.

The Whig Party, on the other hand, was very much in favor of government involvement of the economy. They instituted tariffs to protect the American economy now independent of support from the British Empire and used those taxes to pay for infrastructure, most notably roads and canals to help farmers take their crops to markets. So in this way the Whigs were not libertarian either.

So no, I'd have to disagree with Ron Paul that the Founding Fathers were libertarian.
 
A bunch of exclusively white males who owned slaves?

Sounds about right.

... States rights is something both the Founding slave owners and Libertarians all seem to be fond of.
 
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Well, I think that most of the them would be kind of PO'd at what's been going on for the last century or so.
 
Well, I think that most of the them would be kind of PO'd at what's been going on for the last century or so.

They probably would be, but I think that's independent and mutually exclusive to libertarianism.
 
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Jefferson would be considered a libertarian today. Hamilton, not so much. Too many people assume that the Founding Fathers agreed on things, when they rarely actually did.
 
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Do you think France should be able to determine what Germany does with it's laws?

The EU prohibits member states from violating certain human rights, just as the US does. So if you're talking specifically about a human rights violation like slavery as opposed to, say, German contract law, then yes France has a right to be involved as a member of the EU.
 
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The EU prohibits member states from violating certain human rights. The US does the same (i.e. slavery). So if you're talking specifically about a human rights violation as opposed to, say, German contract law, then yes France has a right to be involved as a member of the EU.

Yea but so many people misunderstand the issue of states rights.

Hatuey, like many others, goes out of his way to equate states rights with slavery every time.
As if one bad occurrence, of the use of states rights, means that the philosophy is totally invalid.
 
... States rights is something both the Founding slave owners and Libertarians all seem to be fond of.

And I believe everyone regardless of lean should feel this way. Consider this, instead of trying to change the entire nation to please a portion of the population while upsetting another portion. With more state powers and less Federal oversight and control, we can have 50 flavors to choose from. So for example CA wants to be extreamly left and the majority of its citizens agree, why should people in the rest of the nation need to live with the same laws/freedoms/ect if they do not wish to. It would be in the benefit for everyone (left/right/center). Instead of each side fighting the entire nation over things that would affect them (and by doing so achieving little) they would only need to worry about there own state for the most part.
 
This wild man surely was:

2438935995_885622beb2.jpg
 
Yea but so many people misunderstand the issue of states rights.

Hatuey, like many others, goes out of his way to equate states rights with slavery every time.
As if one bad occurrence, of the use of states rights, means that the philosophy is totally invalid.

But it points a major flaw in states' rights. States' rights advocates say that their philosophy protects against oppression from the national government. However, the national government can protect from oppression by state governments.

Personally, I prefer for the national government and the state governments to compete with each other for the popularity of their voters.
 
And I believe everyone regardless of lean should feel this way. Consider this, instead of trying to change the entire nation to please a portion of the population while upsetting another portion. With more state powers and less Federal oversight and control, we can have 50 flavors to choose from. So for example CA wants to be extreamly left and the majority of its citizens agree, why should people in the rest of the nation need to live with the same laws/freedoms/ect if they do not wish to. It would be in the benefit for everyone (left/right/center). Instead of each side fighting the entire nation over things that would affect them (and by doing so achieving little) they would only need to worry about there own state for the most part.

Because some rights should be protected nationally, equality being one of them.
 
Yea but so many people misunderstand the issue of states rights.

Hatuey, like many others, goes out of his way to equate states rights with slavery every time.
As if one bad occurrence, of the use of states rights, means that the philosophy is totally invalid.

I guess Hatuey supports the suspension of Habeas Corpus then or the collectivization of the Soviet Farms.

we all can play that game. States rights were an inherent assumption of the founders. Its called the tenth amendment
 
But it points a major flaw in states' rights. States' rights advocates say that their philosophy protects against oppression from the national government. However, the national government can protect from oppression by state governments.

Personally, I prefer for the national government and the state governments to compete with each other for the popularity of their voters.

that competition took a serious blow with the idiotic 17th Amendment
 
But it points a major flaw in states' rights. States' rights advocates say that their philosophy protects against oppression from the national government. However, the national government can protect from oppression by state governments.

Personally, I prefer for the national government and the state governments to compete with each other for the popularity of their voters.

National governments have done the exact same thing though.

I could bring up the Nazi's and Stalinist Soviets every time someone wants to use centralized governance as a platform.

It doesn't add to the debate, unless you approach it like how you did.
Instead of, how others use hyperbole to insult another persons philosophy.
 
I guess Hatuey supports the suspension of Habeas Corpus then or the collectivization of the Soviet Farms.

we all can play that game. States rights were an inherent assumption of the founders. Its called the tenth amendment

He just likes to try to give libertarians a bloody nose.
It's annoying but that's about it.
 
National governments have done the exact same thing though.

I could bring up the Nazi's and Stalinist Soviets every time someone wants to use centralized governance as a platform.

It doesn't add to the debate, unless you approach it like how you did.
Instead of, how others use hyperbole to insult another persons philosophy.

Hyperbole comes from both sides, though. And I could point out that the reason why we have a more powerful centralized government is because the weak centralized government we had during the Articles of Confederation was a failure. That's why we ratified the Constitution to form a more powerful centralized government, specifically with more powers to tax.
 
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