Liberal or Progressive disdain for the Founding Fathers of
the United States as witnessed by reduced respect for the Constitution would
appear to be contradictory.
Our Constitution is
a living document and must change with the times, urge the Progressives.
Our Constitution is
the fundamental outline for the world’s first and longest lasting
democratic-republic that should be interpreted as a guide and changed with trepidation,
Conservatives counsel.
But the government
of the United States of America grounded on the Constitution after the failure
of the Articles of Confederation grew out of the Founding Founders reliance on
European writers’ ideas associated with the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason.
Historians of various persuasions apparently agree on that to a great extent.
Some of those
writer-philosophers were, in no particular order, Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau, John
Locke, Montesquieu. Hobbes said government should be patterned on the needs of
the governed. Rousseau held the people should influence government. Locke
agreed with both of those views. Montesquieu believed governmental powers
should be exercised separately.
At the time of the
founding of the United States, following revolution, the world was governed by
kings, emperors and tyrants. To make government authorized by the governed with
the consent of the governed was – and remains – bold, brave, intrepid, forward.
Today’s Conservatives,
you might say, wish to retain that then fresh approach to running society by
relying on the good sense of the people.
Modern Liberals, on
the other hand, believe that the educated elite – the enlightened ones – alone
are capable of discerning what is best for the people.
Are not those two
encapsulations of philosophies of government opposite of what occurred
historically?
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