"I'm Not Magic, Lead Yourselves."
--Cory Doctorow
"As a woman I have no country. As a woman, I want no country."
---Virgina Woolfe
A few days ago I was having a debate with a friend(Ben, who used to contribute occasionally to this blog back in our LR days) about a variety of things mainly focusing on our differing political philosophies. I am a socialist and he is a democrat who......reads Ayn Rand. Anyway, eventually we got onto the Constitution and I made the point that, frankly, I don't care what the Second Amendment means, guns need to be limited and controlled otherwise we'd have havoc in the streets.
Now, I've said that before and will almost certainly say it again, however you will never hear a politician say that. Never ever ever. Because we, as a nation, hold the Constitution and The Founding Fathers in such, such high esteem that if you say one word against them you will never be elected to so much as a school board.
Why? Because we, as a people, look for idols, for leaders and the 'Founders Of Our Nation' are the best candidates around. So, just like people do with their religious texts, all we care about is what the Founding Fathers would have done and we lose our common sense.
Honestly is Thomas Jefferson appeared to me tomorrow and told me to support Sarah Palin for President I would still support Obama, because I don't care. I just don't care. I don't believe that the Founding Fathers had more wisdom than any other political philosophers. They did a big, important hard thing in founding our country but I don't believe that they are infallible. They were men.
Perhaps it's just my own arrogance but I don't believe that the Founding Fathers were that much wiser than I am or anyone else is. They were just the first and that's cool and awesome and important but just because you're the first doesn't mean your the best. The Constitution is the Beta and we're treating it like it's perfect.
The title of this post, Leave Me Alone, is a reference to Monty Python's The Life of Brian in which the populace has become convinced that the character of Brian is the messiah and they follow him around. He yells at them to leave him along and thus....THE TITLE!
I think, I believe that once we realize that the Founding Fathers were operating on 18th Century information and thought then, I think, we can begin to talk and think more logically about issues, like gun control.
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2 comments:
As another democrat who has read a little Ayn Rand...I would like to point out that if I remember correctly, you have read Sarah Palin.
But anyways, I'm pretty sure the Founding Fathers were fairly brilliant men- just no more brilliant than some of the people around today. They seem more impressive because most people back then were so uneducated.
Any time that written text (the constitution, Bible, Torah, Quran, etc) are believed to be written in stone we lose our ability to be logial and rational. These documents were written by men(please note; no women!) and even if you believe any of them were inspired by a deity, it is only logical to believe that as the human race/society changes, so too must these written texts.
Elfarmy17 is correct, these men were among the most well educated for their time, but they were not infallible. Just as we must look at the Bible in historic perspective (multiple wives, eat no pork or shell fish, etc.) we should look at the Constitution w/ historic perspective ( no AK47s or "cop killer" bullets were available at the time it was written). To do less, insults rational thought.
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