Once and for all, to fix the Federal Government. . . .

[Foxfyre]

Example. I wish with all my heart that Sky Dancer was able to communicate in any way other than ad hominem. But wishing does not give me the right to demand that she does. So however offensive such ad hominem is, and no matter how incorrect or offensive or dishonest, she has every right to say what she thinks or wishes to say short of what forces me to contribute or participate.

Is this a great country or what?

 

[candycorn]

Most of the founders strongly disapproved of slavery, but saw the unity of the nation as the first priority. Other issues could be dealt with after that unity was achieved.

The Founders saw the most equitable voting base as one vote per family unit with the head of household casting the vote. That was not prejudice against women but came out of their culture. The women were in full agreement with the concept. We seriously err when we hate or condemn another time and culture because they did not think as we think or saw things differently than we see them. To disallow others their thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, concepts most especially within their culture seems pretty intolerant to me.

The Founders would have laughed out loud at anybody who proposed an eight-hour day. In those days such did not exist nor would anybody have suggested that such should exist. Most especially they would have viewed with contempt anybody who proposed that the Federal government be concerned with so mundane a detail that was clearly within the rights of the people to choose for themselves.

Good to see the founders had priorities and that ALL women--according to you--were in full agreement that they not be given the vote, the right to own land etc...

Your version of history is quite fascinating.

I don't see that I wrote ALL women anywhere. However, there is nothing in anybody's version of history that there was any protest or objection from the female population any more than in all of the population who debated and eventually ratified the Constitution. I doubt the ratification was unanimous in any state that ratified it. Certainly not every concept that went into the debates or the final Constitution was embraced by every Founder but they found the common ground that they could and compromised where it was feasible to do so. They gave us an entirely unique and remarkable, highly successful, and enduring form of government. Nobody in a position to sign the original Constitution refused to sign it.

And to a man they all did embrace the principle of unalienable rights against which all of the Constitution was measured. And it is on that principle that I test all my opinions and preferences re government.

The Founders saw the most equitable voting base as one vote per family unit with the head of household casting the vote. That was not prejudice against women but came out of their culture. The women were in full agreement with the concept.

Full agreement?

It gets funnier all the time with you. Sorry but you're really painting a fascinating version of people you never met.

 

[candycorn]

Example. I wish with all my heart that Sky Dancer was able to communicate in any way other than ad hominem. But wishing does not give me the right to demand that she does. So however offensive such ad hominem is, and no matter how incorrect or offensive or dishonest, she has every right to say what she thinks or wishes to say short of what forces me to contribute or participate.

Is this a great country or what?

I'm sure you'll tell us what the founders said about Sky dancer, the Internet, space travel, riverboat gambling....etc...

Just kidding.

 

[Uncensored2008]

You'd have to ask them. I won't speak for them all agreeing.

But since no two agree on anything, a significant portion must disagree with the abolishing of slavery.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Full agreement?

It gets funnier all the time with you. Sorry but you're really painting a fascinating version of people you never met.

So then, you have evidence that the women at the time of the revolution were opposed to the system of elections and votes? Understanding of course that women land holders could and did vote.

 

[idb]

I don't see that I wrote ALL women anywhere. However, there is nothing in anybody's version of history that there was any protest or objection from the female population any more than in all of the population who debated and eventually ratified the Constitution. I doubt the ratification was unanimous in any state that ratified it. Certainly not every concept that went into the debates or the final Constitution was embraced by every Founder but they found the common ground that they could and compromised where it was feasible to do so. They gave us an entirely unique and remarkable, highly successful, and enduring form of government. Nobody in a position to sign the original Constitution refused to sign it.

And to a man they all did embrace the principle of unalienable rights against which all of the Constitution was measured. And it is on that principle that I test all my opinions and preferences re government.

I'm interested, are the only unalienable rights those that are set out explicitly in the Constitution?

Well life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness covers a lot of territory, but I believe I understand unalienable rights as the Founders understood them.

Unalienable rights are whatever we wish to do, think, own, or say that does not violate or infringe the rights of another and, most importantly, requires no contribution or participation from another other than his/her non interference. Whatever we want/need/hope or wish for that does require contribution or participation by any other, willingly or non willingly, knowingly or non knowingly, is not a right but a privilege.

The only exception is a moral obligation to provide basic necessities for our children that we bring into the world as they had no say in the matter.

OK, that sounds clear.
Didn't you say earlier that we shouldn't project our modern values and mores onto the 18th century drafters of the Constitution?

 

[candycorn]

You'd have to ask them. I won't speak for them all agreeing.

But since no two agree on anything, a significant portion must disagree with the abolishing of slavery.

Actually I never said that; and since slavery was abolished long ago...you don't have any point at all here except to show us your wit...or at least half of it.

 

[Foxfyre]

"ONCE AND FOR ALL"

The first FOUR WORDS, so telling.

Nothing is ever permanent. Nothing in human events is "once and for all"

I give this poster, on an IQ scale of 1-150, about a 75!

The intentions are good, but there's a total lack of understanding of the history of the natural world, human kind, and certainly less than 30 years of reading into the political climate of Americans today.

THAT, plus this......a little piece of paper called the United States Constitution..which is all we really should need, ONCE AND FOR ALL......it gives the people the ultimate power, nothing else needed, but the Original Poster ignores the details and intricacies of that document, instead wants some arbitrary rules to replace it. so telling. Can we all say "American Taliban"?

Once and for all, some literary license is allowed in thread titles and the OP only invited opinion as to how to fix the government. Now since you claim the ability and privilege of judging me, my education, what I have or have not read, and my understanding of history and humankind, I feel most confident you have this all figured out.

So please grace us with your wisdom.

Pray tell how you would go about beginning to fix the problems with the U.S. Government and prioritize the points you will attack first. Inquring minds want to know.

Or perhaps you think we don't have any problems and everything is just hunky dory. If so, good for you. That certainly puts you in a unique class.

 

[Foxfyre]

I'm interested, are the only unalienable rights those that are set out explicitly in the Constitution?

Well life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness covers a lot of territory, but I believe I understand unalienable rights as the Founders understood them.

Unalienable rights are whatever we wish to do, think, own, or say that does not violate or infringe the rights of another and, most importantly, requires no contribution or participation from another other than his/her non interference. Whatever we want/need/hope or wish for that does require contribution or participation by any other, willingly or non willingly, knowingly or non knowingly, is not a right but a privilege.

The only exception is a moral obligation to provide basic necessities for our children that we bring into the world as they had no say in the matter.

OK, that sounds clear.
Didn't you say earlier that we shouldn't project our modern values and mores onto the 18th century drafters of the Constitution?

I said they should not be judged by the values and mores of our modern culture which is slightly different.

I don't see how understanding what they meant by unalienable rights, however, is judging them or projecting anything on them. To fully understand the concept and language, I go back to a previous post commenting on the two books that would be found in almost all educated colonial homes: The Bible and Blackstone Commentaries. When this is understood along with the arguments they presented in letters, speeches, written commentaries of their own, there is little left to the imagination as to what they meant by absolute God given rights which Jefferson translated 'unalienable rights' in the Declaration of Independence.

Summarized by Doug Fiedor in 2003:

Sir William Blackstone defines our absolute rights as "those which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it." These rights have also been called natural rights by some.

Blackstone then breaks these rights down into three basic categories:

LIFE -- The Right of Personal Security: "This right consists of a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health and his reputation." wherein can also be found your right of self defense.

LIBERTY -- The Right of Personal Liberty: "This consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, of moving one's person to whatever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by course of law." We find this right protected, to a limited extent, within the body of our Constitution, and further guaranteed within the Bill of Rights.

PROPERTY -- The Right of Private Property: "This is the third absolute right, and consists in the free use, enjoyment and disposal by a man of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land."

Our Founding Fathers called these absolute rights "unalienable" -- incapable of being given up, taken away, or transferred to another. In Jefferson's first draft of The Declaration of Independence, the word was conventionally spelled inalienable.

 

[idb]

Well life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness covers a lot of territory, but I believe I understand unalienable rights as the Founders understood them.

Unalienable rights are whatever we wish to do, think, own, or say that does not violate or infringe the rights of another and, most importantly, requires no contribution or participation from another other than his/her non interference. Whatever we want/need/hope or wish for that does require contribution or participation by any other, willingly or non willingly, knowingly or non knowingly, is not a right but a privilege.

The only exception is a moral obligation to provide basic necessities for our children that we bring into the world as they had no say in the matter.

OK, that sounds clear.
Didn't you say earlier that we shouldn't project our modern values and mores onto the 18th century drafters of the Constitution?

I said they should not be judged by the values and mores of our modern culture which is slightly different.

I don't see how understanding what they meant by unalienable rights, however, is judging them or projecting anything on them. To fully understand the concept and language, I go back to a previous post commenting on the two books that would be found in almost all educated colonial homes: The Bible and Blackstone Commentaries. When this is understood along with the arguments they presented in letters, speeches, written commentaries of their own, there is little left to the imagination as to what they meant by absolute God given rights which Jefferson translated 'unalienable rights' in the Declaration of Independence.

Summarized by Doug Fiedor in 2003:

Sir William Blackstone defines our absolute rights as "those which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it." These rights have also been called natural rights by some.

Blackstone then breaks these rights down into three basic categories:

LIFE -- The Right of Personal Security: "This right consists of a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health and his reputation." wherein can also be found your right of self defense.

LIBERTY -- The Right of Personal Liberty: "This consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, of moving one's person to whatever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by course of law." We find this right protected, to a limited extent, within the body of our Constitution, and further guaranteed within the Bill of Rights.

PROPERTY -- The Right of Private Property: "This is the third absolute right, and consists in the free use, enjoyment and disposal by a man of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land."

Our Founding Fathers called these absolute rights "unalienable" -- incapable of being given up, taken away, or transferred to another. In Jefferson's first draft of The Declaration of Independence, the word was conventionally spelled inalienable.

Well, I suppose what I'm questioning is whether, on one hand, it's fair to say that we can't judge their attitudes to things like slavery and suffrage for women in a modern context yet we can take their written pronouncements (including the Constitution) as definitive rules to be lived by 340 years later.

 

[Foxfyre]

OK, that sounds clear.
Didn't you say earlier that we shouldn't project our modern values and mores onto the 18th century drafters of the Constitution?

I said they should not be judged by the values and mores of our modern culture which is slightly different.

I don't see how understanding what they meant by unalienable rights, however, is judging them or projecting anything on them. To fully understand the concept and language, I go back to a previous post commenting on the two books that would be found in almost all educated colonial homes: The Bible and Blackstone Commentaries. When this is understood along with the arguments they presented in letters, speeches, written commentaries of their own, there is little left to the imagination as to what they meant by absolute God given rights which Jefferson translated 'unalienable rights' in the Declaration of Independence.

Summarized by Doug Fiedor in 2003:

Sir William Blackstone defines our absolute rights as "those which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it." These rights have also been called natural rights by some.

Blackstone then breaks these rights down into three basic categories:

LIFE -- The Right of Personal Security: "This right consists of a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health and his reputation." wherein can also be found your right of self defense.

LIBERTY -- The Right of Personal Liberty: "This consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, of moving one's person to whatever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by course of law." We find this right protected, to a limited extent, within the body of our Constitution, and further guaranteed within the Bill of Rights.

PROPERTY -- The Right of Private Property: "This is the third absolute right, and consists in the free use, enjoyment and disposal by a man of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land."

Our Founding Fathers called these absolute rights "unalienable" -- incapable of being given up, taken away, or transferred to another. In Jefferson's first draft of The Declaration of Independence, the word was conventionally spelled inalienable.

Well, I suppose what I'm questioning is whether, on one hand, it's fair to say that we can't judge their attitudes to things like slavery and suffrage for women in a modern context yet we can take their written pronouncements (including the Constitution) as definitive rules to be lived by 340 years later.

We don't have to be dictated to by anybody as to what we should think or believe about anything. They did give us that in the Constitution they gave us however much would like to set aside that concept and punish or condemn people for what they think, believe, and say. You see some of that right here on this thread.

There has been discussion of the slavery issue already. Most of the Founders opposed it on moral and ethical grounds. Some didn't. And they sidestepped that issue in order to form a union of all the states and dealt with that issue later. As far as women's suffrage was concerned, again they saw the issue as being a head of household issue and not one of men or women's rights per se. Again it was an issue that would be visited at a later time and amended. If you insist on condemning them because they didn't get that right at first blush, then you condemn the whole thing, throw out the Constitution and move to whatever else may be out there.

Or if you understand they were putting forth a principle of government and accept it on that basis, then we have a basis from which to begin reform.

It is useful to understand original intent in the Constitution so that we will know whether we want to defend that or whether we wish to amend it. If you don't understand what unalienable rights are as the Founding Fathers understood what they are, you don't have that critical core concept on which everything else hangs.

 

[idb]

Fair enough, so you have absolute, natural rights to do as you please and to receive complete unfettered freedoms and consideration from all others within the rules of the land.

 

[Foxfyre]

Fair enough, so you have absolute, natural rights to do as you please and to receive complete unfettered freedoms and consideration from all others within the rules of the land.

If I am understanding you accurately, yes, so long as the 'rules of the land' at the federal level are focused on securing the unalienable rights of each citizen. Each person's rights end where they would infringe on the rights of any other. Such other regulations and laws to effect an orderly society should originate only at the state or more local levels.