Americans, if you put yourself in the shoes of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and their ilk at the founding of this country, what questions do you think they would have for the leaders of today?
Realistically Franklin: "So the women of today bathe regularly, are shaven, are disease free, and can decide to be incapable of pregnancy, and I can search for them easily in every city?!"
I stand by the assertion that Benjamin Franklin would have learned about trans women and promptly attempted to cause a syphilis epidemic in the trans community based on his description for why he prefers older women
Having read through accounts of Washington and Adams, it would seem that there was a very prevalent dislike of New York city in the colonies. They described NYC residents as lacking in decorum, which I still find fairly fitting today.
I can't speak on Washington and Adams in regards to their dislike of NYC, but relevantly, Jefferson had a unique understanding of freedom. To him, freedom wasn't a list of established rights protected by government. He was a major opponent of government and would likely agree to many anarchist ideals of today. Most founding fathers would likely agree that when they were discussing freedom, they meant freedom from England and monarchies. Jefferson was on another level though; he was extreme with the idea of freedom. Freedom was the ability for someone to live exactly how they pleased without any outside influence, both physically and mentally. It was a natural right for every single person to do whatever they pleased with their life as long as it didn't affect anyone else's ability to live their life as they pleased. Governments, churches, large companies, etc. were in strict opposition to this ideal of freedom. In practical terms, that means he had a vision of the USA as a land of self-sustaining farmers so that no one would be dependent on others to live or think. He was truly revolutionary in that sense. To him, urban areas were rife with corruption of not only politics and economy, but also ideas. He had a disdain for anything centralized: cities, government, churches, etc. He was the main advocate for the separation of church and state. Fun fact! Last I checked, when someone swears on a Bible in an American court, they swear on a Jeffersonian Bible which has all supernatural phenomenon omitted.
I think that the most influential American in the history of the USA is Jefferson, followed by Adams and then Washington. Jefferson was extreme in his vision of freedom, and those ideals are entrenched in the US Constitution. However, he was somewhat hypocritical with how he lived his life considering he became a president, owned slaves, and even let Louisiana continue slavery. In contrast, Adams was a principled person that truly held to his values and beliefs. He advocated for abolition of slavery and didn't own slaves. He even defended British troops that killed Americans because he was steadfast in his belief that valid legal trials not only protect citizens from government overreach, but that is the only way to achieve legal truth. Washington is famous and popular, but he didn't have the impact on foundational ideals that the other two had. Washington was more concrete and likeable. He was a practical leader. Shit...I'm digressing. Back to Tommy. If Jefferson wasn't involved in the foundation of the USA, I think the country would have turned out to be quite different from what it is today...maybe even unrecognizable. I'm not as confident that would have been the case for Adams and Washington.
Why the fuck are you still looking to us to give you answers? The whole point of this thing is to give you, the contemporaries of your time, the power to change the system to meet the demands of the day. And somehow you're hung up on what we did or did not write down?! Embarrassing.
I think they would be surprised either that we still adhere to the Constitution (I.e., we haven’t replaced or rewritten it), or that there are so few amendments.
The usual stuff, propaganda and outright lies, but the most effective way is through echo chambers...
Just make people able to pick and choose with what communities they want to engage with and soon plenty of people will form self-radicalizing communities.
My understanding is that many of them saw it as more of a necessary evil vaguely justified on racial grounds. We need to be willing to talk about and acknowledge America's racist history with the slave trade, but we also need to understand the era and the fact that it was never broadly accepted as the right way to do things.
This might make folks uncomfortable, but it's not all that dissimilar to folks buying cheap imported stuff today built primarily for the US consumer in sweatshop conditions, via outright slavery, and/or with various child labor schemes often at an extreme cost to the health of the environment. We've made things better but we've also recreated some of the problems that we'd destroyed in the WW II era with the justification of indirection ("well I didn't do it, the big company I bought from did it") instead of racism.
I fully expect a future generation to hold us to the pitchforks for buying cheap junk on Amazon or at Walmart and not ever asking "what behavior am I supporting? How did they make this at this price?"
That’s not the question they would ask. Slaves were considered property, not people. Well, until they became 3/5 of a person. And finally, much later on a full person.
3/5 compromise wasent even about considering them as "mostly" people. It was about how they should be counted as far as a census was concerned, in order to determine the amount of congressional representation for that state. They still had no rights and were fully considered property.
Even during the 3/5th era, they were 0/5ths a person and an extra 3/5th a person to the slave owners who could actually vote. Spoiler alert: the slave owners did not vote with their slave's best interests in mind.
I think they would say, "what's this I hear about women voting? and, uh, who was that in the White House from 2012-2020?? was that one of Thomas Jefferson's grandchildren?"
Personal power, leadership abilities, integrity and morals were much stronger with these people, and in their times in general.
There's just no reason at all to think this. Most obviously, people who signed their names to the idea 'all men were created equal' while themselves owning slaves quite obviously did not possess a high degree of moral integrity.
There's just no reason at all to think this. Most obviously, people who signed their names to the idea 'all men were created equal' while themselves owning slaves quite obviously did not possess a high degree of moral integrity.
could this have been a tree they planted knowing they would not live to see fruit?