The chief failure of the founders was not (officially) recognizing some people are more responsible than others and the lesser should be barred from voting and governing. They did not build the fail-safe into the American creed. They allowed to much flex in the constitution.
It's likey they could not have unified against the Brits if they installed the fail-safe in the Declaration or early days of the Articles, but that's discussion for another day.
An interesting article arguing the virus corroding Western Civilization is inherent in America's Founding and therefore DNA
I disagree with its core conclusion - "The task, then, is not to reform the system but to outlive it." The purpose of The Re-Founding Fathers is to re-found the United States, which a more optimistic project than outlasting its collapse. And it aims to maintain the good and excise the bad.
A couple of questions aimed at the article, nowhere near a refutation, but problems with its interpretation:
1. If America's founding was so leftist, why is it that it's typically the right that appeals to it, while the left condemns it? Is the author so smart that only he interprets America's founding correctly, not actual leftists? Can he, indeed, point to a SINGLE leftist who shares his interpretation?
2. My guess is he cannot. Or perhaps only those who give the Founding a much more milquetoast gloss than the author. Because you have to sweep aside other competing principles that were present. Slavery obviously, which is hierarchical. But you also have to argue the Founders didn't understand their principles, and so things like the Senate, the electoral college, States, no women's suffrage, etc. were simply because the Founders "did not understand", and essentially that there exist no other principled positions other than the one advocated in the article. That's not a very tenable position.
3. The disease of the West is clearly broader than just America - it's present across the West, even in countries that did not have revolutions, e.g. Great Britain. Arguably it's much worse in Britain, and this is not just because of American influence.
4. Liberty and equality can mean different things, and be in confluence or opposed to each other. The author does not deal with this.
5. Liberty and equality are good in certain ways and not in others. Also not dealt with.
6. Nothing is dealt with in here with the Federalists vs. the anti-Federalists. Nothing distinguishing the French vs. American revolutions. Nothing distinguishing between Democracy and Republics, as in Aristotle. Nothing distinguishing when a revolution might be permissible. Nothing discussing the conservative nature of the revolt due to salutary neglect. Nothing of the virtue of the Founders or their aristocratic nature and the aristocratic government they arguably established. Nothing of the Southern aristocracy.
7. None of these are necessarily to say the article does not make good points or paint an interesting gloss that needs to be dealt with. But all of these would need to be dealt with in a fuller historical and philosophical picture for me, at least, to be convinced that America's Founding was corrupt from the beginning. More persuasive perhaps than the trad caths who wave their hands and say "Free-masons" as if that magic word explained everything.
But if Europe can get by with the hand wave of "Europe, in its traditions, had found ways to balance change with permanence" despite all of its arguably greater decay, I think we can find a way to save the good and excise the bad with America
That, at least, would be the ordered and hierarchically principled way to do it, seemingly according to the Author's own principles
Well-defined argument.
This is worth reviewing and discussing further.
The chief failure of the founders was not (officially) recognizing some people are more responsible than others and the lesser should be barred from voting and governing. They did not build the fail-safe into the American creed. They allowed to much flex in the constitution.
It's likey they could not have unified against the Brits if they installed the fail-safe in the Declaration or early days of the Articles, but that's discussion for another day.
An interesting article arguing the virus corroding Western Civilization is inherent in America's Founding and therefore DNA
I disagree with its core conclusion - "The task, then, is not to reform the system but to outlive it." The purpose of The Re-Founding Fathers is to re-found the United States, which a more optimistic project than outlasting its collapse. And it aims to maintain the good and excise the bad.
A couple of questions aimed at the article, nowhere near a refutation, but problems with its interpretation:
1. If America's founding was so leftist, why is it that it's typically the right that appeals to it, while the left condemns it? Is the author so smart that only he interprets America's founding correctly, not actual leftists? Can he, indeed, point to a SINGLE leftist who shares his interpretation?
2. My guess is he cannot. Or perhaps only those who give the Founding a much more milquetoast gloss than the author. Because you have to sweep aside other competing principles that were present. Slavery obviously, which is hierarchical. But you also have to argue the Founders didn't understand their principles, and so things like the Senate, the electoral college, States, no women's suffrage, etc. were simply because the Founders "did not understand", and essentially that there exist no other principled positions other than the one advocated in the article. That's not a very tenable position.
3. The disease of the West is clearly broader than just America - it's present across the West, even in countries that did not have revolutions, e.g. Great Britain. Arguably it's much worse in Britain, and this is not just because of American influence.
4. Liberty and equality can mean different things, and be in confluence or opposed to each other. The author does not deal with this.
5. Liberty and equality are good in certain ways and not in others. Also not dealt with.
6. Nothing is dealt with in here with the Federalists vs. the anti-Federalists. Nothing distinguishing the French vs. American revolutions. Nothing distinguishing between Democracy and Republics, as in Aristotle. Nothing distinguishing when a revolution might be permissible. Nothing discussing the conservative nature of the revolt due to salutary neglect. Nothing of the virtue of the Founders or their aristocratic nature and the aristocratic government they arguably established. Nothing of the Southern aristocracy.
7. None of these are necessarily to say the article does not make good points or paint an interesting gloss that needs to be dealt with. But all of these would need to be dealt with in a fuller historical and philosophical picture for me, at least, to be convinced that America's Founding was corrupt from the beginning. More persuasive perhaps than the trad caths who wave their hands and say "Free-masons" as if that magic word explained everything.
But if Europe can get by with the hand wave of "Europe, in its traditions, had found ways to balance change with permanence" despite all of its arguably greater decay, I think we can find a way to save the good and excise the bad with America
That, at least, would be the ordered and hierarchically principled way to do it, seemingly according to the Author's own principles