Burn baby burn! Texas on fire. 🔥

[JaySecrets]

The founding fathers were intelligent men, but their thinking was tainted by their dependence on slavery. They knew that treating people like animals was wrong, but they couldn’t give it up because their genteel lifestyle was made possible by the unpaid labor of African slaves. It’s easy to spend your days learning Greek and Latin when you have army of prisoners cooking, cleaning, and working in the fields for you.

It’s taken America centuries to live up to the founder’s lofty ideals and give black Americans their proper place at the big table of democracy. We’re not there yet, but if we work together we can truly achieve liberty and justice for all.

And you think you are wiser and smarter and better than them? If you think that you are more of a fool than I thought.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

And you think you are wiser and smarter and better than them? If you think that you are more of a fool than I thought.

I know it’s wrong to own human beings.

 

[bijedi]

Nowhere in any founding document, will you find the term democracy describing America. You will always find the word Republic. America was never supposed to be a democracy, as the quotes by the founding fathers that I just posted clearly state. The idea of America as a democracy came from the liberal left. They wanted to be able to control things by mob rule. The founders on the other hand occasionally referred to democracy as mobocracy. You have a very different view of America than the founders did.

Some of the founding fathers of the United States had concerns about democracy:

• John Adams: In 1814, Adams wrote that democracy is short-lived and self-destructive.

Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy.

• James Madison: Madison believed that small democracies are vulnerable to majority faction because undesirable passions can quickly spread to a majority of the people.

The Constitution established a Federal democratic republic. It is the system of the Federal Government; it is democratic because the people govern themselves; and it is a republic because the Government's power is derived from its people.

While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States.

Are we going to do this again..

The alternative to a republic is not a democracy, it is a kingdom. It is correct to refer to the US a republic. It is incorrect to claim the US is not a democracy.

Whatever quotes you want to provide above have not a thing to do with whether the US is a democracy or not. Because the government they designed is a democracy in the current meaning and usage of the word.

Democracy

Merriam Webster:
a
: government by the people
especially : rule of the majority
b
: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

Cambridge Dictionary:
B2 [ U ]
the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves:

Republic
MW:
a
(1)
: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president
(2)
: a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government
b
(1)
: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law

Cambridge:
a country without a king or queen, usually governed by elected representatives of the people and a president:

The US is the literal dictionary definition of both a democracy and republic, and its democratic elements are at least as important as its republican elements.

If you don't agree with that statement, than I will just point out the following. China is a republic, but not a democracy. Canada and the United Kingdom are both democracies, but not republics.

Do you think the defining characteristics of the US government are more similar to China or to Canada/UK?

 

[JaySecrets]

I know it’s wrong to own human beings.

And in what morally questionable ways do you violate your own stated values and principles? Did you know that those founders at your criticizing, including the ones that own slaves like Jefferson and Washington, were not only educating their slaves that they inherited from their parents, in order to prepare them to be free, they were also taking them up north and then leaving them there to be able to live free away from the slave culture of the South. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson penned a law in Virginia to outlaw slave ships from bringing in new slaves. The founders were for the first time in the history of mankind involved in a time and place where slavery and the mentalities of conquering and the conquered were being called into question. This had never been challenged before. Up to that point, slavery and conquering and being conquered were simply parts of life. You don't understand that because you're trying to impose 20th century thinking and sensibilities onto a world where that was not the world they lived in. And even in the world they lived in, they were actively doing what they could to figure out how to end slavery without creating chaos. Study history, from a people's history of the United States, one of the most horribly inaccurate history books ever written, and not from the perspective of these liberal America hating professors coming out of your so-called elite universities. Learn to study actual history. I would recommend Thomas Sowell as a great start point, particularly his books dealing with history and with education.

But if the only thing you can spout is, they owned slaves... Then you really really need to reevaluate how you're viewing history. You are not wiser than the founders. You are not better than the founders. You are not more intelligent than the founders. You do not have a better grasp of principles of Truth than the founders did. You are not more grounded in the absolutes of Truth... and yes, Truth is founded on absolutes... than the founders were. Please stop spouting your one-sided twisted biased revisionist version of American history. And please learn to respect the wisdom of men and women who were very much wiser and more educated and more principled than you apparently will ever be.

 

[JaySecrets]

Are we going to do this again..

The alternative to a republic is not a democracy, it is a kingdom. It is correct to refer to the US a republic. It is incorrect to claim the US is not a democracy.

Whatever quotes you want to provide above have not a thing to do with whether the US is a democracy or not. Because the government they designed is a democracy in the current meaning and usage of the word.

Democracy

Merriam Webster:
a
: government by the people
especially : rule of the majority
b
: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

Cambridge Dictionary:
B2 [ U ]
the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves:

Republic
MW:
a
(1)
: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president
(2)
: a political unit (such as a nation) having such a form of government
b
(1)
: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law

Cambridge:
a country without a king or queen, usually governed by elected representatives of the people and a president:

The US is the literal dictionary definition of both a democracy and republic, and its democratic elements are at least as important as its republican elements.

If you don't agree with that statement, than I will just point out the following. China is a republic, but not a democracy. Canada and the United Kingdom are both democracies, but not republics.

Do you think the defining characteristics of the US government are more similar to China or to Canada/UK?

And the Constitution is a living breathing document that is subject to the whims and beliefs of today's society and can change based on precedent laid out by whatever sensibilities the court currently has... Right? I'll take the old definitions of words. The definitions that were not reshaped by modern idiocy. I'll take the old words. Thank you.

 

[bijedi]

And the Constitution is a living breathing document that is subject to the whims and beliefs of today's society and can change based on precedent laid out by whatever sensibilities the court currently has... Right?

Actually yes. That is how it works. As an example, for most of history of the United States the second amendment was widely, although not exclusively, held by the courts to be a collective right. But after the Civil War, a small group of Union generals who were dismayed by Union soldiers handling of firearms and marksmanship, started popularizing education in the owning and handling of firearms. This lead to an increasing interest in private gun ownership, and eventually social and political pressure to reinterpret the second amendment as an individual right. No amendments or textual changes were made to the second amendment, but due to a change in society and the sensibilities of the court its application has decidedly changed.

You can dislike it, but thems the facts.

I'll take the old definitions of words. The definitions that were not reshaped by modern idiocy. I'll take the old words. Thank you.

Well, you do you. It isn't going to change or stop the evolution of the English language.

 

[JaySecrets]

Actually yes. That is how it works. As an example, for most of history of the United States the second amendment was widely, although not exclusively, held by the courts to be a collective right. But after the Civil War, a small group of Union generals who were dismayed by Union soldiers handling of firearms and marksmanship, started popularizing education in the owning and handling of firearms. This lead to an increasing interest in private gun ownership, and eventually social and political pressure to reinterpret the second amendment as an individual right. No amendments or textual changes were made to the second amendment, but due to a change in society and the sensibilities of the court its application has decidedly changed.

You can dislike it, but thems the facts.

Well, you do you. It isn't going to change or stop the evolution of the English language.

Those of you that refuse to hold an originalist view on the Constitution, literally the rule book of the country, are driving me nuts. The founders laid out specifically, particularly in the Federalist papers, what they intended when they wrote it. The language of the Constitution is, at least used to be until we got stupid, written on about a third grade level. That was on purpose. They wanted the rules to be clear. They wanted the language to be clear. They wanted the meaning to be clear. They did not give us a living breathing document that evolves. They gave us a set in stone document of principles that can be applied accurately across issues. That's what the Constitution is. Anybody that does not understand that is part of the problem.

 

[Lady2020]

Meanwhile, the panhandle is an inferno.

 

[bijedi]

And in what morally questionable ways do you violate your own stated values and principles? Did you know that those founders at your criticizing, including the ones that own slaves like Jefferson and Washington, were not only educating their slaves that they inherited from their parents, in order to prepare them to be free, they were also taking them up north and then leaving them there to be able to live free away from the slave culture of the South. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson penned a law in Virginia to outlaw slave ships from bringing in new slaves. The founders were for the first time in the history of mankind involved in a time and place where slavery and the mentalities of conquering and the conquered were being called into question. This had never been challenged before. Up to that point, slavery and conquering and being conquered were simply parts of life. You don't understand that because you're trying to impose 20th century thinking and sensibilities onto a world where that was not the world they lived in. And even in the world they lived in, they were actively doing what they could to figure out how to end slavery without creating chaos. Study history, from a people's history of the United States, one of the most horribly inaccurate history books ever written, and not from the perspective of these liberal America hating professors coming out of your so-called elite universities. Learn to study actual history. I would recommend Thomas Sowell as a great start point, particularly his books dealing with history and with education.

But if the only thing you can spout is, they owned slaves... Then you really really need to reevaluate how you're viewing history. You are not wiser than the founders. You are not better than the founders. You are not more intelligent than the founders. You do not have a better grasp of principles of Truth than the founders did. You are not more grounded in the absolutes of Truth... and yes, Truth is founded on absolutes... than the founders were. Please stop spouting your one-sided twisted biased revisionist version of American history. And please learn to respect the wisdom of men and women who were very much wiser and more educated and more principled than you apparently will ever be.

There is a lot I could respond to in this post, but I will just say this. If you really believe George Washington was a benevolent slaveowner, you know almost nothing about the history of slavery at Mount Vernon.

 

[JaySecrets]

There is a lot I could respond to in this post, but I will just say this. If you really believe George Washington was a benevolent slaveowner, you know almost nothing about the history of slavery at Mount Vernon.

Again, I would suggest that you read. Thomas Sowell's book Black Rednecks, White Liberals. Once you've actually bothered to do some research beyond your own biased short-sighted revisionist liberal historians, then talk to me.

 

[bijedi]

Again, I would suggest that you read. Thomas Sowell's book Black Rednecks, White Liberals. Once you've actually bothered to do some research beyond your own biased short-sighted revisionist liberal historians, then talk to me.

What makes you think I haven't read Thomas Sowell's books? You know, one can read his books and not agree with his conclusions. I think you need to read more than just Thomas Sowell. It is generally a good idea to not only read books and authors that comport with your own biases and positions, but to read books that challenge your biases and positions. Just judging by your posts here, it doesn't appear that you have done much of that.

When you have grown up a little bit, and learned a little bit more about the world outside of your comfortable little bubble, then talk to me.

Your anti-intellectual, anti-knowledge, anti-expertise biases indicate a preference for studied and willful ignorance. Just regurgitating other people's arguments isn't exactly the win you imagine it to be.

 

[Pad_Foot]

Yo! Start a new thread to go off?
@JaySecrets You want to debate the Constitution? Do it elsewhere !

Why is Texas burning worse than ever before??

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

And in what morally questionable ways do you violate your own stated values and principles? Did you know that those founders at your criticizing, including the ones that own slaves like Jefferson and Washington, were not only educating their slaves that they inherited from their parents, in order to prepare them to be free, they were also taking them up north and then leaving them there to be able to live free away from the slave culture of the South. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson penned a law in Virginia to outlaw slave ships from bringing in new slaves. The founders were for the first time in the history of mankind involved in a time and place where slavery and the mentalities of conquering and the conquered were being called into question. This had never been challenged before. Up to that point, slavery and conquering and being conquered were simply parts of life. You don't understand that because you're trying to impose 20th century thinking and sensibilities onto a world where that was not the world they lived in. And even in the world they lived in, they were actively doing what they could to figure out how to end slavery without creating chaos. Study history, from a people's history of the United States, one of the most horribly inaccurate history books ever written, and not from the perspective of these liberal America hating professors coming out of your so-called elite universities. Learn to study actual history. I would recommend Thomas Sowell as a great start point, particularly his books dealing with history and with education.

But if the only thing you can spout is, they owned slaves... Then you really really need to reevaluate how you're viewing history. You are not wiser than the founders. You are not better than the founders. You are not more intelligent than the founders. You do not have a better grasp of principles of Truth than the founders did. You are not more grounded in the absolutes of Truth... and yes, Truth is founded on absolutes... than the founders were. Please stop spouting your one-sided twisted biased revisionist version of American history. And please learn to respect the wisdom of men and women who were very much wiser and more educated and more principled than you apparently will ever be.

Many of the bad things in America today are rooted in the the founder’s bad attitudes about slavery. They were great men with a profound vision of the potential of the young nation if the people were allowed to rule themselves, but they were weak human beings, not infallible gods. We the people should always be striving to rise above their limitations and form a more perfect union.

 

[JaySecrets]

Many of the bad things in America today are rooted in the the founder’s bad attitudes about slavery. They were great men with a profound vision of the potential of the young nation if the people were allowed to rule themselves, but they were weak human beings, not infallible gods. We the people should always be striving to rise above their limitations and form a more perfect union.

Yes, rise above their limitations, but you're not going to rise above their document. That Constitution put down on paper the highest ideals, a government and a government could ever strive to meet. You are not going to be wiser than that document. You are not going to be smarter than that document. You don't have the wisdom to alter that document in a way that will do less than destroy it. That document should be honored and respected and followed in its original intent. It should not be treated as some living evolving document. Founders didn't write it that way. They did not intend it that way. We are not smart enough to treat it that way.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Yes, rise above their limitations, but you're not going to rise above their document. That Constitution put down on paper the highest ideals, a government and a government could ever strive to meet. You are not going to be wiser than that document. You are not going to be smarter than that document. You don't have the wisdom to alter that document in a way that will do less than destroy it. That document should be honored and respected and followed in its original intent. It should not be treated as some living evolving document. Founders didn't write it that way. They did not intend it that way. We are not smart enough to treat it that way.

The founders did not intend that I have the right to vote.

 

[Pad_Foot]

So? Change the name of the THREAD

Happy to chat about the Constitution elsewhere

 

[JaySecrets]

The founders did not intend that I have the right to vote.

Neither I nor you nor public today in general are wise enough or smart enough to alter the meaning or the purpose of the words in that document or to add to or take away from those words without seriously doing some damage to it and to the country in the process... And by the way, that is in large part, why we are the mess we're in to begin with.

 

[Pad_Foot]

Yup!
We let a president get Emolumented up the ying yang!!
And we let someone turn “Abuse of Power” into maladministration

 

[bijedi]

Those of you that refuse to hold an originalist view on the Constitution, literally the rule book of the country, are driving me nuts. The founders laid out specifically, particularly in the Federalist papers, what they intended when they wrote it. The language of the Constitution is, at least used to be until we got stupid, written on about a third grade level. That was on purpose. They wanted the rules to be clear. They wanted the language to be clear. They wanted the meaning to be clear. They did not give us a living breathing document that evolves. They gave us a set in stone document of principles that can be applied accurately across issues. That's what the Constitution is. Anybody that does not understand that is part of the problem.

The first problem here is that you are assuming the founders all wanted the same things and were in agreement about all things. But they clearly weren't. There were actually very few areas where they were in complete agreement. As a result, the constitution is mostly a series of compromises. Compromises need to accommodate multiple viewpoints and desires results in often vague and unclear language. The constitution is not immune from this, and often leaves room for vastly different interpretations.

But regardless of what the founders intentions were, once the Marshall court established judicial review in Marbury vs. Madison, the meaning of the constitution became subject to court decisions. And those court decisions will be influenced by the prevalent opinions of the people, and have and will change over time. That is the legacy of judicial review. It really doesn't have anything to do with originalism or textualism or any other interpretation. It's just reality.

 

[JaySecrets]

The first problem here is that you are assuming the founders all wanted the same things and were in agreement about all things. But they clearly weren't. There were actually very few areas where they were in complete agreement. As a result, the constitution is mostly a series of compromises. Compromises need to accommodate multiple viewpoints and desires results in often vague and unclear language. The constitution is not immune from this, and often leaves room for vastly different interpretations.

But regardless of what the founders intentions were, once the Marshall court established judicial review in Marbury vs. Madison, the meaning of the constitution became subject to court decisions. And those court decisions will be influenced by the prevalent opinions of the people, and have and will change over time. That is the legacy of judicial review. It really doesn't have anything to do with originalism or textualism or any other interpretation. It's just reality.

Marshall was one of the worst mistakes in judicial history. That man single-handedly corrupted with the founders intended with the courts. He came into the courts with a concept of judicial evolution, and a concept of an evolving constitution. Up to that point that concept had been rejected by the courts for good reason. It was just a bad idea in liberal thinking in liberal universities. Marshall came along and applied his theory to the courts. What happened to the courts from there is almost irreparable.

The concept that because some judge somewhere or some series of Judges somewhere ruled a certain way on a certain case, now it should untouchable precedent, that is a fallacy on its face. You can always find a judge somewhere who ruled in some way the way you wanted them to rule.

Citing Marshall that way only tells me that far from being a constitutionalist, You are one who supports philosophies that corrupt the clear intention of the Constitution.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Neither I nor you nor public today in general are wise enough or smart enough to alter the meaning or the purpose of the words in that document or to add to or take away from those words without seriously doing some damage to it and to the country in the process... And by the way, that is in large part, why we are the mess we're in to begin with.

Was the 19th Amendment a bad idea?

 

[Sean Renaud]

So let me make 100% certain I understand what's going on. The Constitution is what gives us rights? Paper and parchment by dead men?

 

[JaySecrets]

Was the 19th Amendment a bad idea?

Absolutely not... However, the Constitution did not prohibit women from voting to begin with. It simply didn't say specifically, women you can vote too. The language of the 19th amendment is very much in line with the principles laid out in the Constitution in the declaration of Independence and in the original amendments to the Constitution. That was not adding to the document in the sense of what those who think the Constitution is a living breathing evolving document mean. It was simply stating and setting in stone what already was in the principal of the Constitution? Put another way it was making what was already a rule according to the principles already in the Constitution clearer.

 

[lovecraft68]

The man who spends all his time calling people deplorable and squealing about how the other side is full of hate, is happy a state is on fire. But of course it isn't funny when Cali is always on fire, now is it?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the true hatemonger on this board who represents the side that lives to hate and promote violence and death.

Rory waited his entire life for Trump to make him feel rigteous and more importantly to be popular with likeminded hyenas. So he could justify being the pathetic ball of hate he is. The racist, sexist, homophobe who hates everyone-including himself-to the point he doesn't even know he's all those things because he's too ignorant to understand that he is.

Karma dictates when you die, people will cheer burn baby burn while you're cremated. But that won't happen, because no one will care enough to even do that.

Deplorable would be an upgrade for you.

 

[JaySecrets]

So let me make 100% certain I understand what's going on. The Constitution is what gives us rights? Paper and parchment by dead men?

Oh you are going to hate my answer to this. The answer to that question is found in the declaration of Independence. All men are created equal and endowed by CREATOR with certain unalenable rights.

The whole point of the declaration and the Constitution was that our rights don't come from government or the paper or the parchment or whatever else you are saying there... Our basic human rights come from God Almighty himself. He created us with a natural innate desire to live with that freedom. That is why there's a major problem with this philosophy on the left that says government's job is to guarantee living wages and health insurance and take care of all the social welfare stuff and to regulate what churches can say and on and on and on and on. That starts with a philosophy that says rights come from a government. And if rights come from the government, the government can remove those rights.

The founders held and I believe that our rights come from God. And therefore, any government that imposes their mandates on those rights is moving in opposition to the one source that has the right to give and take.

And yes I will make it very clear what I mean. The founders philosophy began with theology. That's the strength of the document.