According to the Beck fundamentalists, “The Original intent of the Founding Fathers” trumps all arguments. But, who exactly are they quoting? So here’s a simple how-to on interpreting right wing statements on this. It’s the Original Intent of people who were A very small group of very wealthy White Men. Many of them Slaveholders, all of them property “owners.”
That would be “property taken away from the original owners, at gunpoint and at Public Expense.” And any of the Original Owners who objected slaughtered. Also any people who didn’t exactly voice an objection to this Corporate Welfare giveaway of their tribal lands would be slaughtered as well, just because it made the killers feel good to do it. Those would be the ones who were not yet able to speak because they were babies.
The Elite Group didn’t even agree with each other, not one single facet of the Revolution or the formation of the U.S. government and laws was unanimous. NOT ONE. Even the right to free speech, opposed by such “Freedom loving libertarians” as John Adams, who had people jailed for any criticism of his Regime. He threatened to jail his fellow Revolutionaries like Hamilton and Jefferson as well. Not that Hamilton and Jefferson agreed much on anything.
The Bill of Rights, in fact, voted down by the majority at the Constitutional Convention. The constitution sans a declaration of Rights was rejected by the People. That’s why they’re the first ten Amendments.
People who were not property owners, not white or not male, even if they had Fought In The Revolution, actually, unlike the Adams family or Revere or Jefferson, who didn’t go to the battles and take arms against the British soldiers, forbidden to vote.
There was a big ol’ stinky issue over Freedom of Religion, to be sure. The Original Intent crowd say that the Very Narrowly Defined Small Group of Rich White Non-Combatants “founding fathers” (Praise Founding Fathers from whom all wisdom flows, praise them all creatures here below, praise them above ye heav’nly host, Praise Washington, Adams and all their ghosts) had quite a lot of Deists in their midst. As in, Not Christian. That would raise the ire of many of Today’s Worshippers of the Founding Fathers Myth.
In fact it does. We hold these truths to be self evident, that All Men except for debtors, tenants, Indians, blacks, apprentices or bondservants, and of course excluding the WOmen Are created Equal but some are more Equal than others and endowed by their Creator who half of the signatories to this document wouldn’t say was Jehovah or that He had anything to do with Christ with certain inalienable rights unless the Founding Fathers held them as slaves, or had liens on outstanding debts owed, which pretty much worked out to be “slavery” and among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness unless, of course, the Almighty Founding Fathers or their anointed replacements over the century decided otherwise. In which case you can F.O.A.D.
For those not familiar with the phrase, that stands for “F off and die” and you can provide the first word yourself…
Praise Ye the Founding Fathers, for they are Wise and Mighty!
John Adams had a man arrested for saying his ASS looked funny. Yet his Worshippers today burn in effigy the President of the United States, because they say he’s a “Dictator” and his policies (which don’t include, obviously, rounding any of these Jackasses up and tossing them in jail for threatening the President and any of their Fellow Americans who happen to disagree with their T. Potty “patriotism”) are called “Tyranny!”
Meanwhile supporting the actions of the Former President who WAS a dictator and DID have people arrested, beaten, tazered, etc, for wearing tee-shirts criticizing his Baby-killing Wars-for-profit and his very real and very Tyrannical Police State.
All in the name of the “Original Intent”.
