Words of our Founders

[American]

However unimportant America may be considered at present, and however Britain may affect to despise her trade, there will assuredly come a day, when this country will have some weight in the scale of empires. - George Washington, As quoted in Maxims of Washington : Political, Social, Moral and Religious (1854)

I think they knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't know how galactically right they were.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...8365457075.7231.107705785934333&type=1&ref=nf

 

[Grim17]

I think they knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't know how galactically right they were.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...8365457075.7231.107705785934333&type=1&ref=nf

They understood the greatness of what they were creating. They knew that a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, a constitutional republic with a limited federal government, simply couldn't fail. It's too bad that there are so many Americans these days, that don't understand what made America so great and are working to change it.

 

[Neomalthusian]

I think they knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't know how galactically right they were.

Pfft. Really? LOL.

They understood the greatness of what they were creating.

Whatevs. The world is like, totally a different place now.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

Nevermind. You're both right. And so was that guy... 215 years ago.

 

[Redress]

They understood the greatness of what they were creating. They knew that a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, a constitutional republic with a limited federal government, simply couldn't fail. It's too bad that there are so many Americans these days, that don't understand what made America so great and are working to change it.

I know what you mean. Those damn conservatives have such messed up ideas about what this country was based on.

 

[TheDemSocialist]

I feel a Founding Fathers orgasm coming up!!!!

Only conservatives invited.

 

[Geo Patric]

I know what you mean. Those damn conservatives have such messed up ideas about what this country was based on.

beat me to it.

still... WHAT he said was good and right... he just doesn't get that Liberalism is what MADE this country great, not power, not money - Liberty.

geo.

 

[Neomalthusian]

I feel a Founding Fathers orgasm coming up!!!!

Only conservatives invited.

No comment, troll?

 

[Ikari]

beat me to it.

still... WHAT he said was good and right... he just doesn't get that Liberalism is what MADE this country great, not power, not money - Liberty.

geo.

Classical liberalism, not what is currently known as liberalism. The closest modern day political philosophy which is best analogous with classical liberalism is libertarianism.

 

[tessaesque]

beat me to it.

still... WHAT he said was good and right... he just doesn't get that Liberalism is what MADE this country great, not power, not money - Liberty.

geo.

I'm sorry, but modern day liberalism does not equate to liberty.

 

[Geo Patric]

Classical liberalism . . . .

yeah... i have heard that crap a lot. there is no such thing as 'Classical liberalism' - classical does not mean 'back in the olden days'. Liberalism is Liberalism.

NO Libertarian so far has been able to demonstrate that my understanding of Liberalism is not accurate or that THEIRS is.

THere is at least ONE self declared Libertarian on this board who really does seem to understand the ideology as it was first instantiated (a 'left' Libertarian). all the rest sound like bleating sheep in the laissez-faire pen.

of course, YOU may be different.

geo.

 

[soccerboy22]

yeah... i have heard that crap a lot. there is no such thing as 'Classical liberalism' - classical does not mean 'back in the olden days'.

NO Libertarian so far has been able to demonstrate that my understanding of Liberalism is not accrurate.

And actually there is. If you go back and read Locke and Say and Malthus you will see what they describe is not what we have now. There is nothing today that is directly relatable to classical liberalism, but as Ikari stated what comes closest is libertarianism.

 

[Geo Patric]

I'm sorry, but modern day liberalism does not equate to liberty.

you are welcome to demonstrate that. of course, you can qualify anyone or any expression you do not like as an example of liberalism... but... hell, i can that myself.

i feel pretty secure that MY thinking aligns pretty well with those 'classical olden day liberals' - Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mill, Bentham... in fact, it seems that i spend an inordinate amount of time here doing exactly that... it is necessary, as most folks here seem to get their idea of what 'liberalism really is' from rightwing websites that either do not know any better themselves or are willing to deliberately distort the thinking of great men to suit their own ends.

again, i am prepared to defend my view.

geo.

 

[tessaesque]

you are welcome to demonstrate that. of course, you can qualify anyone or any expression you do not like as an example of liberalism... but... hell, i can that myself.

i feel pretty secure that MY thinking aligns pretty well with those 'classical olden day liberals' - Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mill, Bentham... in fact, it seems that i spend an inordinate amount of time here doing exactly that... it is necessary, as most folks here seem to get their idea of what 'liberalism really is' from rightwing websites that either do not know any better themselves or are willing to deliberately distort the thinking of great men to suit their own ends.

again, i am prepared to defend my view.

geo.

I'm not saying whether or not your views align with anybody. I'm saying "liberalism" is not a synonym for "liberty", particular as far as modern day liberalism is concerned.

 

[Geo Patric]

I'm not saying whether or not your views align with anybody. I'm saying "liberalism" is not a synonym for "liberty", particular as far as modern day liberalism is concerned.

well, you will note that i spell the word with a capital "L" when i refer to the ideology based on Liberty and a lowercase 'l' in the more common usage of 'anyone less conservative than me'.. and really THAT is all it really means, most of the time.

in its most common usage, the word can mean "generous" ("he is liberal with his time"), or 'broadminded' ("he maintains liberal views of race relations") or a variety of like meanings and so might be thought to be pretty complimentary.. except that since the Reagan era, conservatives have said it with acid dripping from their lips... they have learned to use it as a perjorative, which is why so many now prefer the term 'progressive'.

I do not. I am a Liberal. I hope that my Liberalism properly reflects its philosophical antecedents. I hope too, that my liberalism demonstrates generosity and broadmindedness.

but i refuse to be made to feel ashamed of an honoralble political heritage. and i refuse to accept the distortions of it by those who would usurp that heritage.

geo.

 

[Geo Patric]

And actually there is.

actually, there is not, not in any lexically meaningful way. You can create any political philosophy you like and call it whatever you like but does not mean the the words you use and the generally accepted meaning of the words you use have any relationship. Hitler pretended to "socialism"... a joke of course, but it sucked in a lotta gullible dopes who had been given to think 'socialism" a good thing.

most of us would agree that Liberty is a good thing, so it makes sense that a lot of folks who want to empower those already wielding the most power and weaken our protections against those powerful would want to appropriate the term.

makes sense, too, that some of us would resist such a theft.

If you go back and read Locke...

oh, i dip into his writings from time to time.

. There is nothing today . . ..

ya think? do you really think that the thinking of a late 17th century moral philosopher who could not anticipate such things as an industrial revolution, the rise of capitalism or... electricity - fails to properly reflect the political world more than 200 years afterward?

surprising. i mean to say, christians today are EXACTLY what one would expect having read the New Testament.

but, again, if you find me going astray in my arguments as a Liberal, please, feel free to point it out. I assure you (and others here can attest to it), I DO challenge libertarians all the time.

geo.

 

[Ikari]

actually, there is not, not in any lexically meaningful way. You can create any political philosophy you like and call it whatever you like but does not mean the the words you use and the generally accepted meaning of the words you use have any relationship. Hitler pretended to "socialism"... a joke of course, but it sucked in a lotta gullible dopes who had been given to think 'socialism" a good thing.

most of us would agree that Liberty is a good thing, so it makes sense that a lot of folks who want to empower those already wielding the most power and weaken our protections against those powerful would want to appropriate the term.

makes sense, too, that some of us would resist such a theft.

oh, i dip into his writings from time to time.


ya think? do you really think that the thinking of a late 17th century moral philosopher who could not anticipate such things as an industrial revolution, the rise of capitalism or... electricity - fails to properly reflect the political world more than 200 years afterward?

surprising. i mean to say, christians today are EXACTLY what one would expect having read the New Testament.

but, again, if you find me going astray in my arguments as a Liberal, please, feel free to point it out. I assure you (and others here can attest to it), I DO challenge libertarians all the time.

geo.

Things do change, today we have a list of different concerns and needs than when Locke, Kant, Hobbes, etc. created their philosophy of liberalism. What is liberalism today is not what was liberalism before; the system evolved. But the classic version of liberalism was focused on the maximization of liberty and the minimization of State influence over the individual. It's essentially a minarchist philosophy. What we call liberal, referring more or less to the democrats and their current political philosophy, is not one of minarchy but rather one of designed government intervention. I'm not saying that "liberalism" as we know it now is necessarily bad. It's just different than what it was in the 17th century.

 

[Grim17]

I'm not saying that "liberalism" as we know it now is necessarily bad. It's just different than what it was in the 17th century.

And the country they envision bares little resemblance to America's founding principals, and their beliefs have almost nothing in common with what the founders intended.

 

[Geo Patric]

Things do change, today we have a list of different concerns and needs than when Locke, Kant, Hobbes, etc. created their philosophy of liberalism. What is liberalism today is not what was liberalism before; the system evolved.

no, Liberalism as it was formulated by those great thinkers was the philosophy of personal liberty, personal freedom. it still is.

But the classic version of liberalism was focused on the maximization of liberty and the minimization of State influence over the individual.

"influence"? no, Power. and government as a thing in itself, separate from the governed. but that is not true here... or at least, it is not supposed to be.

too, he lived in a world that was 80% agrarian - The sea change in science and technology that would sweep the west and change forever how MOST people lived, the industrial revolution, was still generations away. Newton was still playing around with alchemy. The parallel change in economics, Capitalism, was also generations away - Adam Smith would not be born for a quarter of a century after Locke's death. Locke was looking at fostering individual freedom in a world where the sovereign monarch was the de facto nation's banker.

this does not negate his premises - those were abstract in nature. what it means is that an 'expression' of Liberalism in that environment would needs be different than an expression of that same philosophy in our environment.

It's essentially a minarchist philosophy.

yeah, i hear that a lot - "Locke wanted small gummint". Now, kindly point me to where he actually says so? What Locke wanted was "LIMITED" government - limited is scope, limited in power and if we conclude that such a government would be small that is not unreasonable. but, again, the 'government' he was looking at and OUR government are fundamentally different animals.

Government should be limited - 'delimited' - its powers expressed and agreed upon and here, it is. But, like a grocery store, a police department or a college faculty, a government should be as big as it needs to be in order to perform its functions as defined by the governed and as small as it can be to avoid becoming a 'thing in itself'. OUR government can easily be seen as too big IF we can say that THAT is what is happening - that the government is no longer a literal expression of the will of the people. I would think that there are other threats to our government - it IS becoming less a voice of the people and becoming increasing the voice of a monied elite - exactly what m. Locke was attempting to end in HIS time.

What we call liberal, referring more or less to the democrats and their current political philosophy, is not one of minarchy but rather one of designed government intervention. I'm not saying that "liberalism" as we know it now is necessarily bad. It's just different than what it was in the 17th century.

the change in the expression of Liberty that came about over time was democracy - the will of the people. "intervention"? how do you intervene on yourself?

geo.

 

[Wiseone]

They understood the greatness of what they were creating. They knew that a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, a constitutional republic with a limited federal government, simply couldn't fail. It's too bad that there are so many Americans these days, that don't understand what made America so great and are working to change it.

Now that's a very dangerous viewpoint to have. How can you have such faith in something like that?

 

[Quinticello]

Perhaps it would serve everyone to be less concerned with defining a catch word or phrase and attempting to discern an entire political philosophy from it. And more with the individual ideas we are attempting to group. If something works I would not want to associate a negative connotation to it on account of politics. Now as to whether an idea is good or not we should look towards history to find examples, not look at history and try to label someone as this party ideology or another, as the phasing we use can change with time. Plus every popular movement likes to associate itself with popular and historic people as a way to advance.

 

[Geo Patric]

Perhaps it would serve everyone to be less concerned with defining a catch word or phrase and attempting to discern an entire political philosophy from it. And more with the individual ideas we are attempting to group. If something works I would not want to associate a negative connotation to it on account of politics. Now as to whether an idea is good or not we should look towards history to find examples, not look at history and try to label someone as this party ideology or another, as the phasing we use can change with time. Plus every popular movement likes to associate itself with popular and historic people as a way to advance.

excellent.

geo.

 

[Paschendale]

Classical liberalism, not what is currently known as liberalism. The closest modern day political philosophy which is best analogous with classical liberalism is libertarianism.

Modern libertarianism concerns itself too much with market freedom, though. Far too much of it is keeping government away from business, and allowing the unelected wealthy to hold more and more power. I applaud many libertarian efforts to promote personal and social freedom, however.

 

[Geo Patric]

Modern libertarianism concerns itself too much with market freedom, though. Far too much of it is keeping government away from business, and allowing the unelected wealthy to hold more and more power. I applaud many libertarian efforts to promote personal and social freedom, however.

exactly my complaint. Libertarians seek to increase power to the unelected and weaken the institutions that are actually answerable to us..

geo.

 

[American]

Pfft. Really? LOL.



Whatevs. The world is like, totally a different place now.



Nevermind. You're both right. And so was that guy... 215 years ago.

Whatevs....Pfftt.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

My favorite Washington quote:

Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Here he warns about the dangers of partisanship and how revenge and the importance of party over country leads to despotism and ruins liberty. We see this with both liberals and conservatives every day... both in Washington and on this message board.