The Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers “were not the common men of their day,” a claim Tea Party members have embraced in the past.  I my opinion I would like to point out that rather than being common men, the Founding Fathers were intellectual, liberal elites, something Tea Party members often claim to despise .

Today is the Fourth of July, a time when we as Americans celebrate our nations independence. Conservatives across the country are pretending to be patriotic. Liberals on the other hand are celebrating the biggest achievement that appears on their resume’: the founding of America and its government. You see, the Founding Fathers were, and always will be, liberals. And here are seven reasons why:

1. Although Thomas Jefferson didn’t know it at the time, when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, he created the document that would be used as the basis for universal human rights, which liberals wholeheartedly support.
2. Conservatives always claim that liberals are the supporters of big government. Well, the Founding Fathers also supported big government.   Small government had failed. So, the Founders had an idea. They met in secret in 1787 and wrote the Constitution which created a bigger, stronger central government. Conservatives would call that growing the government.
3. Within the Constitution, the Founders gave power to the Congress to levy taxes as necessary. The Founding Fathers never had an issue with taxes. On the contrary, the founding generation waged the American Revolution because they felt that they were not properly represented in the British Parliament. The legislative branch established in the Constitution, however, properly represents every American. We vote for who represents us. Therefore when Congress raises taxes, they are doing the job we voted for them to do.
4. The Founding Fathers made it possible for us to change the Constitution when necessary. That is the beauty of the document. But Republicans are only lobbying to change the Constitution so that only the original document applies. They would repeal most of the amendments and many of the rights. Liberals on the other hand are all about change for the better and seek to perfect the Constitution which is what the Founders intended.
5. Republicans have claimed time and time again that health care mandates and government run health care is unconstitutional. They have also consistently slammed liberals for being the ones that introduce such programs and laws. What they fail to recognize is that health care mandates and government run health care dates all the way back to the Founding Fathers. In 1798, John Adams signed the very first health care mandate into law. The law required sailors to pay a tax to the United States government which in turn would provide medical care to them. The next President, Thomas Jefferson, apparently approved of this program as well, since he never challenged it, nor did he ever try to repeal it. According to Republican logic, Adams and Jefferson are a couple big government liberals.
6. Republicans are currently owned by corporations. They have not only defended corporations but have worked tirelessly to push corporate sponsored legislation through Congress. The Founding Fathers feared this kind of relationship and viewed corporations with suspicion and largely kept them at arms length. In fact, one reason the founding generation went to war with Britain is because of the influence that the East India Trading Company had on the British Parliament. A corporation even once governed Massachusetts on behalf of England. The Revolutionary War ended this practice. After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today. Unlike today, however, corporations were only permitted to exist 20 or 30 years and could only deal in one commodity, could not hold stock in other companies, and their property holdings were limited to what they needed to accomplish their business goals. And perhaps the most important facet of all this is that most states in the early days of the nation had laws on the books that made any political contribution by corporations a criminal offense. When you think about it, the regulations imposed on corporations in the early days of America were far harsher than they are now. Still not convinced? Here is some advice from Thomas Jefferson that all Americans should take to heart.
7. Separation of church and state is not just a liberal concept, the Founding Fathers made it part of America’s sacred foundation. Freedom of Religion was not included in the Constitution just to protect Christianity. Freedom of Religion protects ALL religions, even if you do not practice any religion at all. The idea that a wall between church and state doesn’t exist is absurd and the idea that the Founders meant America to be a Christian state is equally absurd. Nowhere in the Constitution can you find God, Jesus, or any mention of a specific religion whatsoever. The only mention of religion is that we all have the freedom to practice whatever religion we want and that government cannot make any law that puts one religion over the other, even Christianity.

Each of these seven items represent precedents set by the Founders. Their vision has carried us forward and we owe it to them to not let that vision die.
The Founding Fathers were not conservatives as Republicans would have us believe. Not even Republicans began as conservatives. Early Republicans believed that they were doing what the Founders would have done. That is precisely why they fought against slavery and fought for women’s rights. In the ever continuing quest to perfect the American experiment, the liberal Republicans of the 1850′s and 1860′s took over the torch that the Founders lit and carried it forward to brighten the future.