What significance does "What our Founding Fathers Intended" have?

Question

Did they intend for the US to be a living country with the ability to change for the better? Did they intend the US to be tied to the beliefs of people 200 years dead, no matter how genius they were?

anon- that's lovely and all, but please answer the question.

I know about the freedoms in the constitution, I'm more asking about when people try to discredit ideas with the excuse "it's not what the founding fathers intended" line.

Nothingusefullearned…- thinking murder/rape is right in not liberalism. and what is right or wrong has changed in 200 years. remember slavery was right for almost half of our country's life.

skip742- i never said the constitution was just paper. I agree there are principles that should be upheld.

I'm asking though, what do they know about OUR society and how to better it. is federalism proper given the size of our country. are state's rights better so on and so on. I'm not suggesting throwing out the constitution, I'm suggesting that things have changed enough, that some of the appropriate things THEN may not be appropriate NOW. I'm sure they wouldn't have advocated a healthcare system back then, but becasue there was no healthcare back then, NOW there is.

Jeremy R- please stop answering my questions like I've never heard of god, jesus or the bible. i won't block you, but please try to answer with YOUR words and not the church's. thanks.

Answer 1

If you're not sure what a law means, then who better to ask than the people who wrote it? The founding father's intentions and interpretation of the constitution is a pretty big clue to how we should interpret the constitution.

Sometimes the constitution does need to be updated, but that's why we have the amendment process. If the Supreme Court has the right to just arbitrarily change what the constitution allegedly means, then the justices are essentially dictators, and there's no point of even having a constitution.

Answer 2

I have serious doubts that our Founding Fathers ever envisioned the U.S. to be what it has become today. 200 years ago people didn't own cars, planes didn't exist, and for the most part, we were still a wilderness. 30 years ago, I didn't think the day would come in my lifetime that we'd be able to converse with people all over the world through usage of the Internet.

We have always been a nation that has allowed industrious people the opportunity to make something of themselves and still do to this day. We provide free schooling and a host of other government aids to help people along. It's a matter of taking advantage of whats available and using it.

I see two things that will damage this country. One would be allowing large corporations to monopolize and take away the ability for others to develop a business that is capable of competing and the other would be government dependency.

I was always under the impression that our Federal government was created to protect me from you, you from me and us from the rest of the world.

Give the individual states a lot of the responsibility of controlling themselves thus allowing the voters the chance to decide what's right or wrong, good or bad and take away about 80% of the responsibility that the Federal government has taken over.

The larger the government, the less control.

Answer 3

Yeah, they're a bunch of old fogeys. Forget everything they advocated. After all, freedom is easy. There are no principles that could help to preserve a free nation, right?

Dude, you scare me. Yes, of course we can change things from time to time as we discover better ways, but it's foolish to think that those changes don't come with some risk. We have a nation established on principles. If you throw those away, then we don't really stand for freedom anymore. I know, you must be one of those neo-con idiots, right? You sound like Alberto Gonzalez: "The Constitution is just a piece of paper". Spare me.

Answer 4

I believe the former was their intent. Part of the Declaration states that we have a responsibility to change our government when tryanny is upon us. We all have the ability to do just that - on election day. It saddens me that more people don't participate, because with the "it doesn't matter" attitude, soon it won't. Peace.

Answer 5

The Constitution is a document for all ages- they were smart enough to know that they did not want a king, that the branches of government should be separate and that we should have an electorlal college,etc, etc. We have already messed with it too much.

Answer 6

I think the basic concept that we all have certain inalienable rights is a great foundation. Freedom, privacy, right to pursue happiness, are at the core.
These are things that we must protect. I think the big thing with founding fathers is they were agains tyranny.

Answer 7

I am no US citizen, but I guess it means keeping up the values and achievements of the War of Independence, independence of other states, freedom of their citizens, and other human rights, etc. In short, remaining a Democracy

Answer 8

Usually those words preceed some vague and biased interpretation of what America was supposed to become; white dominated, gun ridden, ghettos everywhere, out of control capitalism, classism and racism.

Well, you get the idea.

I think those founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they knew how people have perverted their vision for the country.

Answer 9

Discrediting the Constitution is one of the 45 Communist Goals so they try to portray it as outdated. It may seem out of date because it is no longer being followed; we are getting Supreme Court decisions based on International Law.

Answer 10

different than for the final reference interior the preamble, Article I, section 8 of the form mentions "the final Welfare" in greater effective element and factors a far greater appropriate clarification of what replaced into meant. The word "supply" is used interior of here; The Congress shall have ability to place and assemble taxes, obligations, imposts and excises, to pay the bills and supply for the uncomplicated protection and common welfare of usa; yet all obligations, imposts and excises would be uniform throughout the time of usa; to offer for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and modern-day coin of usa; to offer and shelter a army; to offer for calling forth the militia to execute the guidelines of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; to offer for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such section of them as could properly be employed interior the provider of usa, booking to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of teaching the militia in accordance to the self-discipline prescribed via Congress; The word "sell" is used interior of here; to sell the form of technology and useful arts, via securing for constrained circumstances to authors and inventors the unique perfect to their respective writings and discoveries; For the main section "the final Welfare" incorporates economic and protection stress concerns.