Yes, racist Voltaire, you did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism#Voltaire

Most of the Founding Fathers were one percenters and they thought the common people were idiots that couldn't be trusted beyond electing local politicians and the House of Representatives. Direct election of senators and the president wasn't in the original constitution, but added years later.

They knew about propaganda because they used it regularly themselves. It was just no one had limitless money to spend as in the modern era. So they spent money more carefully to buy votes and used liquor to persuade voters.

What nonsense, Randomizer.

I don't mind the idea of a Second Constitutional Convention, in concept. But I have no doubt I'll be deeply dissatisfied with whoever would be sent to the Convention and be given power to "update" the Constitution. As a practical matter I think it's pretty problematic and wouldn't change anything. The oligarchs running the show in this country would almost certainly have a much stronger presence in writing this Constitution than the original one. I don't see it ending well at all.

Randomizer, how dare you besmirch the holy name of our Founding Fathers. Peace be upon them.

lol.

There are a lot of bad things you can say about the founders, Thucy. But that doesn't mean making up nonsense is helpful.

To take just the most obvious example of Randomizer's ignorance of Constitutional history, he says, "Direct election of senators and the president wasn't in the original constitution, but added years later." Actually, direct election of the President was NEVER added to the Constitution. We still have the electoral college, where the state governments decide -- by ordinary statute -- whether to hold popular elections for President or not. By 1804, a few years after the Constitution was written and well within the period of the Founders, a large majority of them did (11/17).

The Founding Fathers were many things. Many of those things were bad. But failing to trust the government to the hands of the common man was a fault of very few of them.

I guess that, among all your high ideals, basing criticisms of historical figures on actual historical knowledge and not threadbare 20th century cliche has no place, huh?

"common people were idiots that couldn't be trusted beyond electing local politicians and the House of Representatives"

But this is true! Well, I'll qualify the statement with '[most] common people' or '[some] common people.' There is at least one person that you know (and probably many) who simply cannot make an educated decision about whom shall run our dear country. They can't be trusted! But they are entrusted!

You must remember that the US government was based upon a complex system of checks and balances. But with this modifications (e.g. the election of Senators and traditional election of President) who checks or balances the biased and uninformed masses? Although the Judicial branch remains somewhat untainted in this regard, the chief executive and the entire legislative branch are subject to the whim of the people. Checks and balances, people! But where has the balance gone?

Think about it.

The racism hasn't gone anywhere. lol.

"the chief executive and the entire legislative branch are subject to the whim of the people."

Forgive me, but this is kinda what democracy is supposed to be all about, isn't it? The only entities I trust less than the common man is everybody else.

bump

Why...

Some people just want to see the world burn.

@Slyguy the fact that air quality in China is terrible does not excuse USA from doing its part to clean up the air.

How come this thread is not locked but the other identical thread is locked?

I think they want me to confine my contempt and justifiable ridicule to this thread.

I dunno, maybe they forgot about it because it was a few pages back before I bumped it.

WHAT? SO SOON?

AAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

godddddddddddd blesssssss aaaaaaamerrrrrrrrrikkkaaaaaaa.

BLAM BLAM BLAM.....

Oh, how absolutely DELICIOUS.

What, the brain matter, or the guns? Or both?

No, the FREEDOM.

I get all goose-pimply just thinking about that awesome FREEDOM. lol.

But they don't have ENOUGH freedom. The freedom would only be truly delicious if we could fly stealth bombers and drive our tanks to work. Why can't I have my own personal nuclear missiles to defend my house with?

Well, my youngest son graduates high school this year. NOT ONE DAY did I ever worry about any of my children getting shot at school. Then again, I'm not a Yankee doodle blow job artist......

^Wait, you have children?...............................

(I agree, OutsideSmoker, mapleleaf certainly exudes the imbecilic persona of a small child. I hope that he realizes how little we respect him for this.)

Obama TRIED to address this, but the morons kiboshed it.

John LaDue.....COME ON DOWN!

Oops.....NOT.
But, here's the thing. It's important to nota bene LaDue's competitiveness with regard to the NUMBER of victims compared with other school shooters. Americans will now COMPETE in these shootings and, I suspect, it's started already.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA stupid americans AAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

"But failing to trust the government to the hands of the common man was a fault of very few of them. "

This statement is anti-historical. The whole reason the constitution replaced the articles was to diminish popular influence over the government. There were popular uprisings that were causing states to favor debtors over creditors. Typically conservatives celebrate this aspect of the founders' philosophy. They always insist on the cliche of "it's a republic, not a democracy". An incoherent phrase, but what they mean is that the founders wanted to limit the influence of popular will on the government.

Nonsense, putin. The Constitution replaced the articles because they wanted a national government with real power. I actually have no clue where you're coming from with that statement, and would be interested in a source or argument.

In any event, things like tying the House voting requirements to state legislature voting requirements were pretty pro-democracy (especially since suffrage laws were already liberalizing in the states). Were I at home, I could quote respect modern scholarship for you that rejects the idea that the founders weren't highly pro-democratic (irrespective of what Republicans may believe). I'll try to remember to grab it for you later.

Now, it is true -- and maybe this is what you meant -- that the founders were pretty OK with a government that wasn't *quickly* responsive, and which couldn't easily be grabbed by a faction or even majority and taken off headlong in a bad direction. They were, in some senses, anti-majoritarian (although none of this has anything to do with the Articles, which were far less democratic and far more anti-majoritarian than the Constitution). But that instinct was aimed more at making it hard for anybody to do something; if something was going to be done, it should be by the common people.

If you look at the structural innovations of the Constitution over the Articles, most were in a democratic direction. Senators were elected by statehouse, it's true -- but that's the only kind of congressman there was, under the articles. The innovation was having a popular house. The President, yes, was chosen by electors determined as the states chose. But the articles had no such thing, and the states quickly converged on popular election as the most common means of choice. This possibility did not escape the framers, who considered and rejected such plans as having the Senate choose the President.

Shays rebellion was an uprising of indebted farmers against their creditors. This greatly alarmed the American political class. Numerous historians have written about the direct connection between this event and the calling forth of the convention.

Leonard Richards, Shays Rebellion, the America Revolution's Final Battle (this book makes the best case)
Andrew McLaughlin, the Confederation and the Constitution, p 166.
Charles & Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization, p 307-308.
A Little Rebellion, Marion Lena Starkey
Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in the 19th century (discusses elite attitudes towards the ascendancy of the common man in the period before the Constitutional Convention).

Boston merchant Stanley Higginson told Henry Knox, who drafted a proposal that reflected much of what later became the constitution, "You will no doubt endeavor to draw strong arguments from the insurrection in the state in favor of an efficient general government of the union."

And as Charles Beard examined the class division between those who favored the Constitution and those who did not, he found that " all of the merchants, money lenders, security holders, manufacturers, shippers, capitalists, and financiers and their professional associates are to be found on one side in support of the Constitution and that substantially all or the major portion of the opposition came from the non-slaveholding farmers and the debtors."

He goes on to say that "The movement for the Constitution of the United states was originated and carried through principally by four groups of personalty interests which had been adversely affected under the Articles of Confederation: money, public securities, manufactures, and trade and shipping:

The first firm steps toward the formation of the Constitution were taken by a small and active group of men immediately interested through their personal possessions in the outcome of their labors.

No popular vote was taken directly or indirectly on the proposition to call the Convention which drafted the Constitution.

A large propertyless mass was, under the prevailing suffrage qualifications, excluded at the outset from participation (through representatives) in the work of framing the Constitution.

The members of the Philadelphia Convention which drafted the Constitution were, with a few exceptions, immediately, directly, and personally interested in, and derived economic advantages from, the establishment of the new system.

The Constitution was essentially an economic document based upon as recognizing the claim of property to a special and defensive position in the Constitution.

In the ratification of the Constitution, about three-fourths of the adult males failed to vote on the question, having abstained from the elections at which delegates to the state conventions were chosen, either on account of their indifference or their disfranchisement by property qualifications."

Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913).

Putin,

Yes, Shays' rebellion was a big impetus to wanting the Constitution. But as even your own quotation shows, that's because it demonstrated the urgent need for a vigorous national government. That's precisely what I said.

Yes, the Constitutional Convention was an unelected body. What of it? We're not arguing whether it was an example of democracy (it itself wasn't, although it set forth an exceptionally democratic process for ratification), but whether it set forth a democratically motivated system of government. It did.

It's incredibly typical of you to quote at length from a century-old, largely discredited work to establish your case. In any case, the quotations are a mix of truth, error, and misinterpretation. Certainly property interests drove part of the immediate alarm at the weakness of the central government, and it's true that some of the economic underclass were bitterly opposed to the economic policies that quickly flowed from the national government. Notwithstanding that, however, the record is crystal clear that *increasing* popular participation in national government was a major concern of the Philadelphia Convention, and a criterion of their decisions. The monied interests wanted a strong government, period; but there was never any question that it would not be in the control of the people.

See Chapter I of Akhil Amar's "America's Constitution: A Biography" for a more balanced treatment of the founders' approach to democracy. You'll learn, among other things, that eight of the states passed special election rules for the ratifying conventions that were *more* inclusive and had fewer property restrictions than their typical suffrage rules, and a further two let all taxpaying adult males vote. He also discusses some of the many provisions of the Constitution that were democracy-expanding. Because his discussion is long and the book widely available, I won't quote further. Suffice to say, even without it, you haven't made a case.