Posted on 07/03/2002 8:45:32 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
I think the Founders would be amazed at our technology, but disgusted with how large and corrupt the government has become.
They would be disappointed that we have surrendered many of our Freedoms.
People shouldn't be free to do that?
...men not only being able to harness electrical power, but then selling it at a huge profit and brokering future power in such a way as to extract obscene profits from the promised power contracts, and in such a way as to unjustly elevate the cost of all electrical power at the expense of millions of ratepayers and for the profit of a politically connected hierarchy?
You mean like when government allows only ONE company to run power lines in any given area thereby creating a monopoly for power? How about when the state legislature makes it illegal for competing power companies in other states to sell power in their state thereby decreasing the supply and increasing the cost? How about government subsidies to companies to continue developing century-old sources of power (like the internal combustion engine) instead of relying on the free-market to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient power?
And how would John Hancock react if, while he was drafting an official document, his computer began flashing a dreaded "blue screen" and error message before his whole system froze up and wouldn't allow him to store or even work off-line?
He might react by installing Linux.
Personally, I think the arrogance of the Senate would give them fits.
I know it drives me nuts to turn on CSPAN. Especially their little witch hunts er, hearings..
I swear, I don't know how I lived through it.
The thing the founders would agree on, both in the radical years of the Revolution and the more conservative period of the early republic, is the importance of independence. Today many are dependent on the government for our income or upkeep. Such people don't have an independent stake in society and try to extort their money from others using the government machinery. Most of us work for someone else or are dependent on the course of the stock market. Self-reliance produced independence of mind and limited government. Dependence produces the opposite.
On the subject of taxes, the founding fathers could not have been clearer. The Constitution creates two classes of tax -- direct and indirect -- that are spelled out in the plainest possible language,
Article 1, Section 2: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union"
Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"
Article 1, Section 9: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."
Then, to ensure the central government didn't overstep its clearly enumerated limits, the fathers added the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, which protect us from unreasonable search and seizure and direct that noone cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself.
Today, however, Washington and the courts routinely obscure, ignore and -- when all else fails -- violate these clearly defined distinctions. They get away with it because 70-plus years of compulsory, government-run schooling has erased any collective memory or knowledge of the Constitution. When people don't know what rights they have under the supreme law of the land, they don't know when those rights are being trampled and destroyed.
The only crime that folks like Irwin Schiff of Freedom Books and Bob Schulz of We The People Foundation have committed is to remind everyone of these routine violations and attempt to hold our legislators' feet to the fire. For reminding Congress and the people of these simple truths, they are branded tax protestors, cranks or worse.
When Jefferson said "Let us bind up government in the chains of the Constitution", he knew how easy it was for a central government to morph into the overtaxed police state we live in today. If Jefferson, Henry, Madison or Mason saw how eagerly Americans submit themselves to this spectral power on the Potomac, they would probably just look at each other and ask, "Why did we bother writing a constitution in the first place?"
Perhaps they were more astute at grasping human nature than you give them credit for. Certainly the technological changes would give them pause for reflection, but once the initial shock wears off there are still people driving the technology and serving the same basic human needs. I think they would be most unforgiving of the moral-liberalism and perversions masquerading with impunity as 'freedom,' since they were aware that only a moral people can be a free people.
This one I'd say they planned it so. Happy Independence Day
"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]. But there is only one proper way and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority; and for this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." George Washington
May she outlive all of her enemies, foreign and domestic!
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