"The power of all corporations ought to be limited...The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses." - Founding Father James Madison
The idea of the founders was to not align business or religion with the Government. Our country was never meant to be controlled by government and certainly not federally but perhaps on a state level, if at all. The idea for Government according to the founding fathers was never to let it grow so large, so controlling, so expansive, so powerful, and inevitably, so corrupt.
@@blakejameson1114 _"The idea of the founders was to not align business or religion with the Government"_ You are right, that has been 100% made-up by the Republicans who HATE the U.S.Constituion!
@@thunderbird3694 are you claiming that only Republicans are to blame for governmental corruption in America? Your statement is confusing. Please clarify.
The problem with saying "the founding fathers were ______" is that they were very different people. When people say they all owned slaves, I refer them to Paine and Franklin who spoke for abolition. When they say they're libertarian, I refer them to Hamilton and Adams who believed a strong centralized state was important. Simply put, the arguments today are echos of the arguments between the founding fathers.
"Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government." - Founding Father Thomas Jefferson
@@lambadaglover1011 Wow people hundreds of years ago were racist, big shocker. Literally anybody from that time is going to be considered a piece of shit by today's values, that's the nature of moral progress. We even consider people 70 years ago to be pieces of shit. And 50 years from now people today will be considered pieces of shit.
@@lambadaglover1011 Buddy things change with time, and you damn well know that but nice copy-paste job to show us all how oppressively intelligent you are and like that you have rocked the world! Why do we even follow the Constitution? Bet more than one of the founding fathers had slaves at one point or another so I hope you feel good basing your idea of freedom on the Constitution! Buddy, I don't really understand what you're trying to say here Lassie because I know it's not about Timmy so by your logic nothing our founding fathers have done should be praised because of all the things they had done. (Unless you had been trying to tell us about Timmy, and if that's the case send his parents my condolences for their dead son... Bad dog!) I would now mock you for all the time you wasted here but copy/paste does not take a whole lot of time at all. Further, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you read through the stuff you copy/paste, and if that's the case you at least get points for reading... No dude, I'm a little shocked you read that before you decided to paste it. I don't know though due to the fact that your little argument was about as thin as tissue paper, and worst still I feel like you may have wanted to pat yourself on the back for it... I'm not sure if you read a damn thing buddy. I'm not going to say that you suck more than you may ever understand.
@@joshbreidinger2616 Thomas Jefferson wasn't "a piece of a shit", lol. You're not worth 1/100th of what he was. Who fucking cared if he thought Black people were less intelligent? His recognition of that just shows that he cared more about *reality* vs dogma.
"All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it." - Founding Father Benjamin Franklin
Sounds like a Hillary supporter! This Benjamin Frankenfurt the fascist! Frank just seems like he is part of the radical left, and I think much like Hillary Clinton Texas should absolve the history books from him unless it cannot be overlooked BUT we need to take care of how the nation views Liberal Franklin. MAGA!
Galloe Hey numbskull, “This Franklin” is THE Benjamin Franklin. A Founding Father of the Country in which you reside! A Brilliant Statesman, Diplomat, Scholar, Experimental Scientist, Naturalist, Author, & Wit. If YOU’VE got a problem with him, maybe you should start wondering about the origins of YOUR thought processes, and why they are so totally opposite to his & most of the rest of our Founding Fathers’. Chew on that for awhile. 🤔😳🙄
The founders probably started the biggest revolution ever, they replaced monarchy with a republic. Radical, new type of change in society.... sounds progressive.
@@ZAGGNUT1 One may call it radical, or revolutionary but progressive? Progressing to what? Articles of Confederation didn't last; too weak of a federal gov't. Of all things Pakman holds constants, labels of Conservative, Progressive, he neglects the one that still exists: the Constitution. To claim any coherence between conservative (an ideology that is found in middle of 20th century) is pure sophistry.
@@ZAGGNUT1 you morons always re-define progressive as "any radical change in society." When in fact Progressive in the political sense is opposition to Capitalism with more of a focus on government power and the collective rather than the rights of the individual. Conservatism by nature is the opposite and embraces industry, limited government, and individual rights above all else, which is the ideology the founders wrote into the constitution. You lefties might want to revise history and political dichotomy, but you will never win. Conservatism/Libertarianism IS and always has been the ideology written into the constitution.
Of course they were progressive. They wanted change for the best. Sometimes things require change. The Loyalists, the people wanted to remain loyal to the king, were conservatives.
And I would mention that the founding fathers were so progressive that they created a new form of government. The US had the first modern secular representational democracy. In our Preamble : We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Notice that the goal is to make a "more perfect Union". What does that mean? It means that the founding fathers expected changes to the government so that government would serve the needs of the people. They (the founding fathers) never thought the constitution was written in stone like so many modern conservatives do. (Much like their ten commandments.) So when conservatives babble about preserving the US Constitution, they show a lack of understanding about what America is supposed to be and how our government is supposed to be.
@@IHeartZui The Federalist Party, referred to as the Pro-Administration party until the 3rd United States Congress as opposed to their opponents in the Anti-Administration party, was the first American political party. It existed from the early 1790s to the 1820s, with their last presidential candidate being fielded in 1816. They appealed to business and to conservatives who favored banks, national over state government, manufacturing, and (in world affairs) preferred Britain and opposed the French Revolution. The Democratic-Republican Party (formally called the Republican Party) was an American political party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison around 1792 to oppose the centralizing policies of the new Federalist Party run by Alexander Hamilton, who was Secretary of the Treasury and chief architect of George Washington's administration.[7] From 1801 to 1825, the new party controlled the presidency and Congress as well as most states during the First Party System. It began in 1791 as one faction in Congress and included many politicians who had been opposed to the new constitution. They called themselves Republicans after their political philosophy, republicanism. They distrusted the Federalist tendency to centralize and loosely interpret the Constitution, believing these policies were signs of monarchism and anti-republican values. I literally just googled this, it took 30 seconds...
In Rights of Man, Thomas Paine wrote to George Washington about how the law should change to reflect the times and that the dead have no right to dictate over the living.
Not just the founders. Great politicians since then have been progressive as well. I'm currently reading "Team of Rivals" by Goodwin, a biography/history of Abraham Lincoln and some of the prominent politicians of his time. The author points out repeatedly that these men were northern liberals and progressives. Here progressivism is defined not only as desiring to spend money on improving the nation as a whole (waterways, trains, roads, etc.) but also being fervently anti-slavery. The main characters in the book all fought long and hard to see the slavery laws thrown down. They fought to stop the spread of slavery into western areas such as Kansas and California. It was the conservatives, primarily southerners but also some in the north, who desired to keep slavery legal and extend it into new territories and states. (The conservatives were also against the spending of money on improvements, that hasn't changed in 150 years since.)
Wow great Vid , This is what i like too see when I watch left and right discourse not a Vilification Not a tribe Fight But a well thought out history lesson that Both Parties can learn from and enhance Communication & Perspective ...
The Conservatives at the time were British loyalists...... The Founding Fathers were reactionary Progressive warriors.....and many were barbaric during the Revolution
Here's the problem. The same congress that passed the sailor healthcare law also passed the alien and sedition acts which were unquestionably unconstitutional.
That's why the preamble to the US Constitution of 1788 has the words "...in Order to form a more perfect Union...", which was in reference and an allusion to the _Articles of Confederation_ 1783. It wasn't a grammatical error so much as poetic licence on a new Constitution.
My biggest problem with the Founding Fathers is that they weren't egalitarian enough. The Founding Fathers thought that wealthy white landowners were smarter than everybody else and should be the only people allowed to vote. Then they claimed all men are created equal which is a hypocritical claim to make in a society with a lot of inequality. "All men are created equal except you people are not allowed to vote and you black people who are slaves and all who are otherwise disenfranchised."
@monokhem Donald Trump is wealthy but not smart. Slumdog Millionaire and Chris Gardner's story proves that poor people are smarter than rich people. H.P. LoveCraft died poor and was the greatest cult horror writer of all time. Tesla died penniless. Many rich people suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect and no amount of evidence for intelligent middle class and poor people can cure their hubris or their just-world bias. Capitalism is just feudalism with doodads and endless distractions to keep the masses docile. I'm not a cynical person, it's just that optimists are annoying.
I was the 666th view 😂 But yea, I love this. As a person who I suppose would be called a non-believer, the religious fervor in politics these days makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable... Like the vast majority of the government itself considers me an enemy just because I tried to believe what they believe and failed to. The document our country was founded upon tried to prevent this. I wish it had succeeded.
Thank you for saying the obvious things that everyone else is afraid to say - that the Constitution (while an incredible achievement in many ways) is very incomplete and much of it is outdated.
They were progressive in the sense of the times. We have to be clear that the progressive nature of the day the Constitutional Congress was convened was also based off the time it was Progressive in the time frame was Classically Liberal. Progressive in the present context is not classically liberal. These are also the same people who tossed tea in to the Boston harbor over tax's on tea. So lets not mince words. Progressive tax's is fine. But within REASON. Appealing to the Constitution yet ignoring the rest of the Constitution with respect to the differences between state powers as given to the states under the 10th is muddying the waters on how people understand the Constitution and Bill of Rights, both on the left and the right in present day America. If any of this was true as far as what Mr. Pakman says is true then the entire basis of US Case Law would be thrown out entirely. This is cherry picking on Mr. Pakman's part. The total departure from the original message to discussing separation of church and state is proof of that cherry picking. This has nothing to do with the FF's being progressive for their day or not. The articles of confederation themselves were far more anarchistic then they were progressive in the modern context.
One of your best pieces and of course accurate. The framers also put in place a system whereby the founding document could be updated called an amendment. It's been done 27 times to date. In my view, it's high time we alter a few more. Jefferson had no idea what the future would bring but he knew there would be a future. He wasn't a fan of mere change for the sake of change, but he foresaw the necessity of the USCON changing with the times. If I may paraphrase TJ, he compared a rigid and unchangeable founding document to forcing a man to wear the same coat he wore as a child. Obviously an unworkable arrangement.
many were also anti-federalist and slavers. jefferson basically found libertarianism as a political thought. politics then was just as divisive by two sides but completely different problems. capitalism was really only just developed in the 1600s. but yes, as an example government healthcare was legislated by otto von bismarck in the 1880s in germany. also the government during the age of the founding fathers had a limited democratic republic for a reason, until andrew jackson changed it. i dont like how conservatives manipulate history to their own agenda views but i dont like it when liberals do it either. holding a bias to history is misleading.
Wow David. This was probably one of your best segments ever! I 100% agree. On top of that, about 2-3 months ago, I was debating with a guy about the founders and what-not, and I told him exactly what you said: What the founders thought, 200 years ago, have very little control on how we choose to govern today and how we handle problems in a 2019 America...an America in which they wouldn't even rocognize. 👏🏾👍🏾💯 Furthermore, I'd like to add that *THIS* is what I come to your channel for. Stop the Russia-gate nonsense. Stop the Ilhan is anti-semitic nonsense. Stop the BS Tulsi smears. Stick to educating people on true progressive ideals and history. You can be the new Thom Hartman 🙂
"No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished them, in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right." Thomas Jefferson
Founding Fathers weren't so progressive about slavery or the anti-democratic features of the Constitution designed to support it including the Senate and the Electoral College with both of which we are still burdened.
Great TV Show line of the day; "I only seem liberal because I believe hurricanes are caused by low barometric pressure and not gay marriage." (The Newsroom)
Interesting points, but you know why the stand your ground laws didn’t take into effect until 1870? Because the 2nd amendment didn’t apply to the states until the 14th amendment, Barron v Baltimore (1833) the Supreme Court ruled that the bill of rights only applies to the federal government, this was the law of the land tell the 14th amendment, so you can not really say if the founders would be for states regulating guns.
This is probably just a silly argument. They were a real range. But the conservatives were Royalists. Jefferson was probably progressive (for a slave owner). But Adams was likely more of a classic liberal.
"Things are bound to change, and when they do I shan't deny that change. It may be past by time, in the distant future, but this system must be built on change for this nation to survive." -Hamilton
I'm pretty sure that the founders wouldn't have the hubris to say that the Constitution was perfect and unchangeable. Why else were their mechanisms for amendments? They were enlightenment thinkers understanding government and the Constitution as an experiment in which, like science, empirical results would modify any future theory based on the facts at the time.
Thomas Paine was one of the most important authors of the Constitution, and he himself wrote that it would be ridiculous to claim that politicians from centuries ago could enact laws that would eternally dictate the lives of citizens in their respective country, regardless of the will of the people. This was the exact argument made by Edmund Burke against the French Revolution, and Paine used the first section of his _Rights of Man_ to refute it.
The one thing our founding fathers unquestionably did right was to create a self-correcting system. The laws of one era might have been useful and even completely functional for said era, but humanity changes. Culture changes. Knowledge changes. We've learned more about the world in the last decade than the entirety of human understanding of the Revolutionary Era of the US. To suggest that something should be obeyed FOREVER is absurd, and comes entirely from religious thinking and belief in an unchanging universe. Being able to remove vestigial parts of our constitution and\or replace broken parts is what has made our system so successful that the majority of the world adopted our standard, many of which improved upon it.
What blows my mind about any of these founding father videos is regardless of what they wrote, these laws were for white men only. None of these laws pertained to anything but a select group of people in the midst of a genocide and slavery. This dosent represent any progressive movement ideals in the least. To advance any society or PROGRESS then human rights are at the core of this movement. The gun laws they made were later thrown right out the window when it pertained to shooting native populations. These were not progressives in the least.
The things I have against the "Founding Fathers": -Tolerant of slavery. -Established the undemocratic Electoral College. -Made it much too difficult to remove an unfit president. ALL of which still have negative consequences now and in the future.
David, if you ever debated Trump, he may get mad and urinate on himself because he really has no clue regarding the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.
From U.K. Wow. This is excellent and fits with what I’ve even researching here on this side of the pond. Before moving to America Thomas Paine worked as an Engineer designing an Iron Bridge in my home town of Rotherham Yorkshire. He would have met our local radical politician and soldier Thomas Earl of Effingham. The Earl had what we would call today left wing views. He spent his spare time mixing with the working class iron workers in the town’s pubs. Still on a hill top overlooking Rotherham is a monument built to commemorate the Boston Tea Party. It’s often forgotten, just how much support the Founding Farthers had in England (but not In U.K. as a whole). The American Revolution came very close to spreading to England especially Yorkshire. Certainly the army struggled to get recruits to fight what they saw as fellow Englishmen demanding what they also wanted. But for France, Spain and Holland declaring war on us, there would have been a civil war on both sides of the Atlantic. But it has been puzzling me, how on the English side it’s now seen as left wing, whilst in America right wing. I can see now that over the years both have been misinterpreted.
Just one problem. If the founding fathers were so progressive, why did they establish electoral college as the nation's system for electing its presidents?
I wish a political leader would talk about these facts. "Conservative morality is always at the expense of someone else's humanity." Aida Rodriguez BTW, applies to corporate Dems too.
Thomas jefferson thought that every new generation would create a new constitution with the blood of sacrifice against tyranny that would almost certainly arise in any constitution. I think all of the founding fathers would be shocked to learn that we are still using theirs. That was probably not part of their"original intent"
What amazes me is that the Republicans now hate and disparage Progressives when 100 years ago, it was the Republicans who were Progressives. It was TR that was known as "The Trust Buster", he created the national park system, broke up monopolies and spoke about a fair deal for the people. He believed in business and was a wealthy man, but he saw the treatment of the working class as unacceptable and fought to help improve their lives. Taft was even more of a trust buster, but he was also friendlier to business which TR hated. TR also hated not being president which is why he ran for a third term in 1912. By the 1920's the Republicans were the closest friend to business interests and under Hoover, an early version of Supply Side Economics was instituted as the Great Depression hit and the economy went into a free fall. Republicans seem to be playing down some of their greatest presidents like TR in favor of bimbos like Reagan because it has become a cult of wealth worship.
@@onomatopoeia162003 the point is that many conservatives really don't know who the Founding Fathers were. They might namea few like Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin but for the most part they talk of the Founding Fathers as this meshed entity of barely identifiable individuals.
The constitution is important because it provides a basis for our freedoms. There’s been push and pull but it’s intended to insure people done go out of line, it’s not perfect. One of progressive founding fathers John Adams suppressed journalists and critics.
If only politicians today were so pragmatic and mature. Congress today is devoid of facts and history like this. Lets make congress attend constitutional study groups.
It’s important to say: yes the founding fathers were progressives on the whole; but like the Bible, they were so diverse in opinion that in many cases you can point to one that supported your claim while another can support your opponent’s.
I was telling my brother that more people on the left have to start holding up the founding fathers as being very progressive and how their progressive thinking and writing has stayed with us until this day. The type of stuff that made USA stronger as a country and democracy. Republicans try to use the founding fathers to justify fascism and religious tyranny, when the evidence doesn't support that. We should use the founding fathers to justify progressive actions.
Part of the issue is that our perceptions of the terms conservative, liberal and progressive have changed over the years. For instance one when arguing that putting in safety regulations or a healthcare system make one progressive, specifically if we’re maintaining the left-wing tinge the term holds then logic would dictate that Otto von Bismarck and Benjamin Disraeli were leftists when they put in moderate reform policy for the purpose of protecting civil odds by preventing the working class from being put into a position that might make then prone to violent radicalization. You had reactionary loyalists during the founding along with conservative reformers like George Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton who wanted to maintain more of the British system including limiting political power to property holders whilst ironing out problems like the hereditary monarchy as well as contemporary radicals like Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and Thomas Paine more keen on uprooting the system altogether in order to replace it with something more democratic such as enfranchising the common man. Nowadays we’ve got left-wingers claiming Hamilton and conservatives claiming Jefferson without understanding the historical context. The conversation has become stunted now that people on both sides of the aisle view the size of government as the sole metric to the political spectrum. The short of it is that there were both conservatives and radicals, though all some stripe of liberal according to its original definition, among the Framers but people have lost sight of what that meant at the time and by proxy to a certain extent what they mean today.
@@error5202 Don't know about that, but he definitely wanted wealth inequality in the United States. He wanted America to be what us progressives have coined: a corporate America. He wanted factories where the poor/middle class would work for little pay, and where the rich can benefit from that.
@@ZAGGNUT1 Debates of the Federal Convention (1787) (14 May 1787 - 17 September 1787) I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced, and such has been its progress in the minds of the many, that this truth gradually gains ground. This government has for its object public strength and individual security. It is said with us to be unattainable. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention, v. 1, p. 299. (June 19, 1787)
The Constitution is an important framework, but it was never designed to answer every single question about governance, and to pretend otherwise is a dangerous insult to our intelligence.
9:43-9:58 i wouldn't quite put "Luke's" nativity story (let's not focus on "Matthew" in this context) in the same category as the classical greek and roman myths in the same way i wouldn't put Genesis in the same category as the enuma elish and the epic of gilgamesh. "Luke's" nativity story is SUBVERSIVE myth meant to draw out the padeia elite from their cultural context. P.S.: Zacchaeus and Bartimaeus represent the target audience of "Luke" and "Mark." P.P.S: "Mark" is closer to the actual Jesus than "Luke." P.P.P.S: i like tacos.
You should also look up Gouverneur Morris. Called the Penman of the Constitution, he is a major founding father, appears to be partially buried in history, and he argued against the practice of slavery in his time. His speeches during the constitutional convention are illuminating and inspiring.
The new form of government was designed to be a limited one; the government of the Constitution was more powerful and not as limited as that of the Confederation but it was still limited. Limited government, checks and balances and having a Constitution that's hard to amend are pretty core ideas of conservatism and certainly of classical liberalism.
J Man Es Man; Other than pointing out that Jefferson, though he was a statesman he was not involved in the creation of the US constitution and therefore he is generally not considered to be a founder, I will point out that you have to consider the time the founders and the early US statesmen lived in when considering whether or not their political views were progressive or not. The founders lived in a time when many if not most people still believed in rule by divine Right .In short, the founders lived in what could be described as a very conservative era, but for men of that era , the founders and early US statesmen were progressive and certainly NOT conservative.
"The Founding Fathers Were Progressive" Really? Including those like Washington, Madison, Franklin, and Patrick Henry who owned slaves? Was slave ownership "prioritizing equality"? Was that characteristic compatible with progressive values even back then? (After all, not all the founding fathers were slaveowners. Hamilton, for example, was not.)
Progressive doesn't mean that they were perfect or that their lives met the standards of 20th century culture and beyond. Relative to their time, they were forward thinking on the vision of how this country could grow and mature. I do think we still romanticize the founding fathers way too much because of slavery, but I think the point of this video was to debunk conservative and libertarian talking points about what the founders believed regarding the role of government in American life and constitutional originalism.
Today we liberals eat meat from a killed cow. In 200 years when future liberal people have developed a way to grow meat and not kill and cage animals, they cant call todays liberals savages or conservative. Pushing the envelope is progressive, not doing everything doesnt make one not progressive.
@@rachelfishbein1478 I disagree you can't tell half history say the good and bad don't stand up for men who didn't respect women they were freemasons they control Democrats and Republicans you know as an adult what The Knights templar did to non Christians and We celebrate Christopher Columbus and act like native Americans are a mysterious creatures in the woods 😂 all politicians suck not your fault or mine not mad act you I wanted to tell that it is misleading saying 1 part of a person's story Bill Cosby was a comedian and a rapist 🙏
@Rachel Fishbein: "I think the point of this video was to debunk conservative and libertarian talking points about what the founders believed regarding the role of government in American life and constitutional originalism." Debunking "constitutional originalism" in the Age of Trump is probably not a very good idea. If we define "constitutional originalism" as interpreting the US Constitution in the way it was meant to be back when the Constitution was enacted (or, in the case of the amendments, those amendments were passed), then it appears to me that the last thing you would want to do is re-interpret (say) the First Amendment in an era when Trump and his cronies regard much of the press as "fake news" and thus freedom of the press as a liability to be devalued and diminished. On the other hand neither would you want to interpret (say) the Fourth Amendment in the era of Obama when it was under assault from (amongst others) the NSA. Nor would you want to interpret (say) the war power in the era of Bush 43, Obama, or Trump when they have more or less eviserated it. (And don't get me started on what has happened to the treaty clause or how the Supreme Court invented out of whole cloth a congressional power to exclude aliens, and thereby constitutionalise the racist Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 1880s.) Instead I'm guessing you would prefer to interpret all of these more as the founding fathers intended--as opposed to what later generations have reduced them to. Or to be fairer about, you want to interpret them in a modern progressive light rather than in the light of the slave-owner mores of the late 1700s. The trouble is progressives are not the only ones who can re-interpret the Constitution if they put their minds to it--including war hawks (hence the fate of the war power) and racial nativists (eg the Chinese Exclusion Acts). I could go on, for it isn't as if America has given any shortage of examples where later generations of Americans have re-interpreted constitutional provisions more to suit their own self-centred contemporary political aims, aspirations, and ambitions than anything resembling justice. If you want a particularly noxious example of this trend, go read the Supreme Court's (frankly racist) judgment in Downes v. Bidwell, the first of the so-called "Insular Cases", which took aim at (amongst other things) the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment in the early 1900s when as a consequence of the Spanish-American War the US acquired an overseas colonial empire all of its very own--complete with millions of brown people it did not particularly want. (Sound familiar?) So what the court did was to conveniently re-jig the interpretation of the Constitution, and the 14th Amendment in particular, and do it in such a way as to prevent those unwanted millions claiming American citizenship. The vile consequences of that re-interpretation are still in force today, affecting such places as American Samoa and Puerto Rico. (For example, want to know why Puerto Rico isn't eligible for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection? Blame Downes v. Bidwell and the other Insular Cases.)
Who cares if they owned slaves , the Barbary pirates enslaved more europeans than vice versa, the founding fathers wanted to send all blacks back to africa from the beginning
Our founding fathers had a healthy fear of corporations and allowed them to form only with strict limits! reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society. Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these: * Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws. * Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose. * Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose. * Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm. * Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job. * Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making. For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow. States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. Most of this vital history is unknown to citizens today, but it can provide critical understanding and tools for solving today's problems. Corporations are setting the agenda on issues in congress, courts and the media rather than "We the People" as our founding fathers intended. "We the People" can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money.
I am for the Constitution as a wonderful base from which to live and govern ourselves, but yes, they can’t have thought of everything. So we have amendments. On the other hand, David this was outstanding. You’ve outdone yourself. Hurray! Very good. 👏 Thank you!
There's going to be a lot of people that come in here and try and explain that "you can't be progressive because progressive=x,y,z and they did=a,b,c. Don't listen to these people. They clearly didn't take the time to google "progressive" before trying to form a baseless argument. It's amusing yes, but everyone has something to argue about, especially the things they clearly don't understand. I do love he point you made with this video, David. Very well done.
I dont get the point of this. They were libertarians, they were progressives, they were conservatives, they were different. This is why I'm a textualist, not an originalist
David this might be your best video yet. I wish all main stream media outlets would play this video three times a day for the next week so everyone in america is aware.
WHAT IS THE FREAKING THING WHERE I HAVE TO SKIP ADS now? late in the day 11 Apr 2019. Did you enable this, or did it simply swarm around your settings? It's more than annoying. It's off-putting. BE AWARE.
@@robertjenkins6132 - I had one, but this thing showed like new. And I got ANOTHER extension (sheesh) for skip ad trigger auto clicking. And it seems to have solved it. I also believe that it was a matter of a new version of Firefox on their beta program. Crazy stuff always pops up. And you know, it's unclear whether youtubers know it when it happens or not. Thanks, Robert!
Very good video and I particularly liked the way you talked about the religiosity ( *and lack thereof* ) of the Founders. As you stated, many called themselves "deists" and actually despised ALL organized christianity and their churches --- Thomas Paine specifically identified himself as deist on the very first page of his excellent book, *_The Age Of Reason._* Let's explore that concept and labels, "deism" [the ideology] and "deist" [the actual human being], shall we? Really, what IS "deism" and a "deist"? Deism is the societal acceptance of a "creator 'god' " that "did his _[sic]_ work" and just left it to chance immediately afterward [ _presumably to "fly" through space and "create" more planets like Earth --- _*_but didn't?_* ]. That alone is laughable --- a "god creates" an entire planet [ _setting aside the REAL birth of Earth as a flaming ball of fire and molten lava travelling through space for billions of years_ ] and then "'says, Hey, this is good so therefore I am finished' " and then .... what? *Makes another planet with life such as Earth's --- that never appears?* _Yeah, right --- 'he' also has a load of bridges to sell in the desert._ If you actually read *_The Age Of Reason_*_ critically,_ I think you can come to the same conclusion I did --- *he was actually an atheist,* but, of course, the prevailing society of the day wouldn't accept atheism/atheists and would consider it/them as the "work of the devil and/or witches." I think we all know by now what they did when they thought some of their own "were witches," right? Atheism was no different, so obviously, atheists had to be in their own "closets" with their realities. And what better way to "be in a societal closet" _yet openly say they don't believe in the bullshit of "god"?_ *Enter deism.* Thomas Paine wrote deliberately in this book about his detestation of christian churches and their hold on their own burgeoning American society --- from [generally] English colonialism through the beginning liberty of the USA. So it's quite easy to infer that he was, in reality, most probably an atheist, but because of the times, had to retreat to his own "closet" for fear of his life. [ _When he came back from France and its prison and what he had to endure after he published this book just after 1800 --- he was literally threatened with death {after closely brushing with it in the prison} by the same society he literally not just 'help' found, but was its _*_most founding_*_ father { remember the "pamphlet" _*_Common Sense?_* }. ]
Oh no, Thomas Paine was no atheist. In fact, he wrote during the French Revolution that he feared the French were sliding towards atheism. Also FYI Thomas Paine was shunned for The Age of Reason, so I would advise you to do some research before posting stupid shit.
@@programking655 *Actually, you're the one who's writing stupid shit. And it's YOU who needs to read his book more critically.* I never said *he was.* I said *I believe him to more likely be* an atheist *because of his writings.* And I acknowledged him being a deist in my first paragraph. I've done all the research I need to do about Thomas Paine. It's *YOU* who needs to do research as well as some *critical repeat reading* [generously assuming you actually read it in the first place]. Then *REREAD MY 4th PARAGRAPH ABOVE.* But, of course, I understand your intelligence dilemma: You recognize what I wrote that is not only common sense, but most probably accurate but are afraid to use what mind you might have left to confront your asinine and stupid "religious" beliefs. Yeah, *I also stated that as well in my 5th paragraph.* So, it seems, *you seriously need to learn how to read properly [that's commonly known as reading comprehension].*
James Madison wrote Memorials and Remonstrances that became our First Amendment, especially the Establishment Clause. Patrick Henry wanted state of Virginia to pay for church run schools. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson opposed it. That was when James Madison wrote Memorials. He wanted to show that importance of separation of church and state is important to our country.
@Bob Berger Not to level, but bring them to equal access. You have not read the James Madison book as I have. You taking cues from pseudo-historian Dave Barton.
Thank you for all the information! You presented a very logical and rational argument. Of course, all the information in the world will not change closed minds. 👍👍🌟
This is just as revisionist as the right-wing version lol Unless ya mean "progressive" only in the loose and mad relativist way. Cause in reality the vast majority were not. The few things we can cherry pick to say they were can be easily matched by the right to say they weren't. The real progressives of that era were abolishionists and closer to mutualist or socialist in their economics. There were many people alive at the time that were FAR more "progressive" in their ideas. By this logic, modern progressives are conservatives and socialists are the real progressives. I see it that way, but you've said multiple times ya don't. Either way, it's a bogus and incredibly incomplete take on history. Especially when ya look into the motivation for these things, it wasn't always great ideas and was rarely a pure heart.
I disagree though not entirely. We can learn a lot from those who came before. We can add new perspectives to their vision and correct their mistakes as they intended. In that sense we should care about what the founders thought.
@@johnwatters3431 Bonus! As British citizens they had the written right to own and bear arms for self defense. In their own constitution they retained the right to keep and bear arms for self defense and gained the right to form citizen militias. Winning!
@@johnwatters3431 That's your opinion and not that of the United States Supreme Court. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home
@@bobbyharper8710 I'm familiar with the case, but I would point out that Heller was actually an opinion, not what I said. What I said was a fact. Out of all the Amendments, the Second is (if I recall correctly), one of, if not the only one to explicitly include reasoning. That's not an opinion. That's a thing that just is. Heller is an opinion. Based on the facts I have noted.
"The power of all corporations ought to be limited...The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses." - Founding Father James Madison
Thunderbird Well said and thank you 🕊
Eh he also said the Senate was designed to protect the minority of the rich from the citizens
The idea of the founders was to not align business or religion with the Government. Our country was never meant to be controlled by government and certainly not federally but perhaps on a state level, if at all. The idea for Government according to the founding fathers was never to let it grow so large, so controlling, so expansive, so powerful, and inevitably, so corrupt.
@@blakejameson1114 _"The idea of the founders was to not align business or religion with the Government"_ You are right, that has been 100% made-up by the Republicans who HATE the U.S.Constituion!
@@thunderbird3694 are you claiming that only Republicans are to blame for governmental corruption in America? Your statement is confusing. Please clarify.
The problem with saying "the founding fathers were ______" is that they were very different people. When people say they all owned slaves, I refer them to Paine and Franklin who spoke for abolition. When they say they're libertarian, I refer them to Hamilton and Adams who believed a strong centralized state was important.
Simply put, the arguments today are echos of the arguments between the founding fathers.
Thank you for your beacon of nuance in a dark world sir. *I applaud*
Thank you for the insightful comment.
@Thomas Johnson That was Jefferson, not Franklin. Come on, man.
Franklin did own slaves, though.
@@benjaminnowack8433 he did. He also eventually freed them once he'd grown in his understanding of how wrong the practice really was.
"Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government." - Founding Father Thomas Jefferson
@@lambadaglover1011 Wow people hundreds of years ago were racist, big shocker. Literally anybody from that time is going to be considered a piece of shit by today's values, that's the nature of moral progress. We even consider people 70 years ago to be pieces of shit. And 50 years from now people today will be considered pieces of shit.
@@lambadaglover1011 Buddy things change with time, and you damn well know that but nice copy-paste job to show us all how oppressively intelligent you are and like that you have rocked the world!
Why do we even follow the Constitution? Bet more than one of the founding fathers had slaves at one point or another so I hope you feel good basing your idea of freedom on the Constitution!
Buddy, I don't really understand what you're trying to say here Lassie because I know it's not about Timmy so by your logic nothing our founding fathers have done should be praised because of all the things they had done. (Unless you had been trying to tell us about Timmy, and if that's the case send his parents my condolences for their dead son... Bad dog!)
I would now mock you for all the time you wasted here but copy/paste does not take a whole lot of time at all. Further, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you read through the stuff you copy/paste, and if that's the case you at least get points for reading... No dude, I'm a little shocked you read that before you decided to paste it.
I don't know though due to the fact that your little argument was about as thin as tissue paper, and worst still I feel like you may have wanted to pat yourself on the back for it... I'm not sure if you read a damn thing buddy.
I'm not going to say that you suck more than you may ever understand.
"Do not judge the heroes of yesterday by the standards of today."
-Rare Earth
@@joshbreidinger2616 Thomas Jefferson wasn't "a piece of a shit", lol. You're not worth 1/100th of what he was.
Who fucking cared if he thought Black people were less intelligent? His recognition of that just shows that he cared more about *reality* vs dogma.
@@aceflashheart What reality?
"All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it." - Founding Father Benjamin Franklin
Sounds like a commie /s
Sounds like a Hillary supporter! This Benjamin Frankenfurt the fascist! Frank just seems like he is part of the radical left, and I think much like Hillary Clinton Texas should absolve the history books from him unless it cannot be overlooked BUT we need to take care of how the nation views Liberal Franklin. MAGA!
Comrade Franklin
Galloe Hey numbskull, “This Franklin” is THE Benjamin Franklin. A Founding Father of the Country in which you reside!
A Brilliant Statesman, Diplomat, Scholar, Experimental Scientist, Naturalist, Author, & Wit. If YOU’VE got a problem with him, maybe you should start wondering about the origins of YOUR thought processes, and why they are so totally opposite to his & most of the rest of our Founding Fathers’. Chew on that for awhile. 🤔😳🙄
@@lisavolk8442 Old Fat Racist Money Man? Get out of here with that BS... Someone's not Woke!
Trying to explain this to a conservative is like talking to a brick.
The founders probably started the biggest revolution ever, they replaced monarchy with a republic.
Radical, new type of change in society.... sounds progressive.
@@ZAGGNUT1 One may call it radical, or revolutionary but progressive? Progressing to what? Articles of Confederation didn't last; too weak of a federal gov't. Of all things Pakman holds constants, labels of Conservative, Progressive, he neglects the one that still exists: the Constitution. To claim any coherence between conservative (an ideology that is found in middle of 20th century) is pure sophistry.
@@ZAGGNUT1 you morons always re-define progressive as "any radical change in society." When in fact Progressive in the political sense is opposition to Capitalism with more of a focus on government power and the collective rather than the rights of the individual. Conservatism by nature is the opposite and embraces industry, limited government, and individual rights above all else, which is the ideology the founders wrote into the constitution. You lefties might want to revise history and political dichotomy, but you will never win. Conservatism/Libertarianism IS and always has been the ideology written into the constitution.
sammy clark yeah because it is so fucking incorrect no one would take it serious at all
Telling some on the left that demonising their political opponents is neither effective or reasonable is like talking to a brick.
You forgot to mention that Thomas Paine was in favor of UBI.
I *think* he was in favor of a single payment - not a reoccurring payment.
Was UBI an established concept back then?
UBI in itself isn’t particularly left or right.
#PaineGang2020
@@volitionant9682 Which side is more likely to call it "entitlements for lazy people"?
Of course they were, back then conservatives would have argued for reinstating the monarchy
My first thought, too.
Reinstating the monarchy would've ended slavery immediately.
Is that so bad?
Of course they were progressive. They wanted change for the best. Sometimes things require change. The Loyalists, the people wanted to remain loyal to the king, were conservatives.
And I would mention that the founding fathers were so progressive that they created a new form of government. The US had the first modern secular representational democracy. In our Preamble :
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Notice that the goal is to make a "more perfect Union". What does that mean? It means that the founding fathers expected changes to the government so that government would serve the needs of the people. They (the founding fathers) never thought the constitution was written in stone like so many modern conservatives do. (Much like their ten commandments.) So when conservatives babble about preserving the US Constitution, they show a lack of understanding about what America is supposed to be and how our government is supposed to be.
Those loyalist are today’s liberals
@@makeamil7001 WRONG! They were the Tories and conservative.
The founding fathers we unified in almost nothing policy wise, they immediately split into two parties.
Most of them were in their graves before either current political party arose
@@IHeartZui The Federalist Party, referred to as the Pro-Administration party until the 3rd United States Congress as opposed to their opponents in the Anti-Administration party, was the first American political party. It existed from the early 1790s to the 1820s, with their last presidential candidate being fielded in 1816. They appealed to business and to conservatives who favored banks, national over state government, manufacturing, and (in world affairs) preferred Britain and opposed the French Revolution.
The Democratic-Republican Party (formally called the Republican Party) was an American political party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison around 1792 to oppose the centralizing policies of the new Federalist Party run by Alexander Hamilton, who was Secretary of the Treasury and chief architect of George Washington's administration.[7] From 1801 to 1825, the new party controlled the presidency and Congress as well as most states during the First Party System. It began in 1791 as one faction in Congress and included many politicians who had been opposed to the new constitution. They called themselves Republicans after their political philosophy, republicanism. They distrusted the Federalist tendency to centralize and loosely interpret the Constitution, believing these policies were signs of monarchism and anti-republican values.
I literally just googled this, it took 30 seconds...
@@error5202 The Democratic Republican Party became Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson. The Federalist Party became Whig Party.
They were united on being to the left of most other politicians across the world at that time.
In Rights of Man, Thomas Paine wrote to George Washington about how the law should change to reflect the times and that the dead have no right to dictate over the living.
I would be more convinced by that if you knew that the Rights of Man wasn’t a letter or message to Washington.
These kinds of videos are why David is the best progressive youtuber
Not just the founders. Great politicians since then have been progressive as well. I'm currently reading "Team of Rivals" by Goodwin, a biography/history of Abraham Lincoln and some of the prominent politicians of his time. The author points out repeatedly that these men were northern liberals and progressives. Here progressivism is defined not only as desiring to spend money on improving the nation as a whole (waterways, trains, roads, etc.) but also being fervently anti-slavery. The main characters in the book all fought long and hard to see the slavery laws thrown down. They fought to stop the spread of slavery into western areas such as Kansas and California. It was the conservatives, primarily southerners but also some in the north, who desired to keep slavery legal and extend it into new territories and states. (The conservatives were also against the spending of money on improvements, that hasn't changed in 150 years since.)
Pakman at his best. Love this type of content. This is why I'm a patreon.
Very enlightening. Thank you David
Wow great Vid , This is what i like too see when I watch left and right discourse not a Vilification Not a tribe Fight But a well thought out history lesson that Both Parties can learn from and enhance Communication & Perspective ...
Mark Benjamin - So it's really a shame that our alleged president is outrageously divisive. (Is mega-divisive a word?)
The Conservatives at the time were British loyalists...... The Founding Fathers were reactionary Progressive warriors.....and many were barbaric during the Revolution
Here's the problem. The same congress that passed the sailor healthcare law also passed the alien and sedition acts which were unquestionably unconstitutional.
Yeah and it was ruled so by the courts.
This video is full of the ONE thing conservatives don't like: FACTS!
That's why the preamble to the US Constitution of 1788 has the words "...in Order to form a more perfect Union...", which was in reference and an allusion to the _Articles of Confederation_ 1783. It wasn't a grammatical error so much as poetic licence on a new Constitution.
@@NSOcarth The founding fathers were all deists and thought the bible was bullshit.
thankyou David, very enlightening for us Aussies to understand the American way of life through your political system. cheers from Michael. Australia.
My biggest problem with the Founding Fathers is that they weren't egalitarian enough. The Founding Fathers thought that wealthy white landowners were smarter than everybody else and should be the only people allowed to vote. Then they claimed all men are created equal which is a hypocritical claim to make in a society with a lot of inequality.
"All men are created equal except you people are not allowed to vote and you black people who are slaves and all who are otherwise disenfranchised."
@monokhem Donald Trump is wealthy but not smart.
Slumdog Millionaire and Chris Gardner's story proves that poor people are smarter than rich people. H.P. LoveCraft died poor and was the greatest cult horror writer of all time. Tesla died penniless.
Many rich people suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect and no amount of evidence for intelligent middle class and poor people can cure their hubris or their just-world bias. Capitalism is just feudalism with doodads and endless distractions to keep the masses docile. I'm not a cynical person, it's just that optimists are annoying.
Well, historical accuracy isn't really a concern of the right... I mean, do you know who David Barton is?
Jonah Goldberg and Dinesh D'Souza have put out some pretty good revisionist history , too , lol ..
@Bob Berger Dunin Kruger effect.
I was the 666th view 😂
But yea, I love this. As a person who I suppose would be called a non-believer, the religious fervor in politics these days makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable... Like the vast majority of the government itself considers me an enemy just because I tried to believe what they believe and failed to.
The document our country was founded upon tried to prevent this. I wish it had succeeded.
Thank you for saying the obvious things that everyone else is afraid to say - that the Constitution (while an incredible achievement in many ways) is very incomplete and much of it is outdated.
They were progressive in the sense of the times. We have to be clear that the progressive nature of the day the Constitutional Congress was convened was also based off the time it was
Progressive in the time frame was Classically Liberal.
Progressive in the present context is not classically liberal.
These are also the same people who tossed tea in to the Boston harbor over tax's on tea. So lets not mince words. Progressive tax's is fine. But within REASON. Appealing to the Constitution yet ignoring the rest of the Constitution with respect to the differences between state powers as given to the states under the 10th is muddying the waters on how people understand the Constitution and Bill of Rights, both on the left and the right in present day America. If any of this was true as far as what Mr. Pakman says is true then the entire basis of US Case Law would be thrown out entirely. This is cherry picking on Mr. Pakman's part. The total departure from the original message to discussing separation of church and state is proof of that cherry picking. This has nothing to do with the FF's being progressive for their day or not. The articles of confederation themselves were far more anarchistic then they were progressive in the modern context.
One of your best pieces and of course accurate.
The framers also put in place a system whereby the founding document could be updated called an amendment. It's been done 27 times to date. In my view, it's high time we alter a few more.
Jefferson had no idea what the future would bring but he knew there would be a future. He wasn't a fan of mere change for the sake of change, but he foresaw the necessity of the USCON changing with the times. If I may paraphrase TJ, he compared a rigid and unchangeable founding document to forcing a man to wear the same coat he wore as a child.
Obviously an unworkable arrangement.
I find it ironic that some Americans think the Constitution is immutable but have issues with some Muslims thinking the same about the Koran
many were also anti-federalist and slavers. jefferson basically found libertarianism as a political thought. politics then was just as divisive by two sides but completely different problems. capitalism was really only just developed in the 1600s. but yes, as an example government healthcare was legislated by otto von bismarck in the 1880s in germany.
also the government during the age of the founding fathers had a limited democratic republic for a reason, until andrew jackson changed it. i dont like how conservatives manipulate history to their own agenda views but i dont like it when liberals do it either. holding a bias to history is misleading.
Very important video. Powerful. Great job David.
Wow David. This was probably one of your best segments ever! I 100% agree. On top of that, about 2-3 months ago, I was debating with a guy about the founders and what-not, and I told him exactly what you said: What the founders thought, 200 years ago, have very little control on how we choose to govern today and how we handle problems in a 2019 America...an America in which they wouldn't even rocognize. 👏🏾👍🏾💯
Furthermore, I'd like to add that *THIS* is what I come to your channel for. Stop the Russia-gate nonsense. Stop the Ilhan is anti-semitic nonsense. Stop the BS Tulsi smears.
Stick to educating people on true progressive ideals and history. You can be the new Thom Hartman 🙂
"No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished them, in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right." Thomas Jefferson
Founding Fathers weren't so progressive about slavery or the anti-democratic features of the Constitution designed to support it including the Senate and the Electoral College with both of which we are still burdened.
Great TV Show line of the day;
"I only seem liberal because I believe hurricanes are caused by low barometric pressure and not gay marriage." (The Newsroom)
This is why I don't compare the founders to today's politics.
Interesting points, but you know why the stand your ground laws didn’t take into effect until 1870? Because the 2nd amendment didn’t apply to the states until the 14th amendment, Barron v Baltimore (1833) the Supreme Court ruled that the bill of rights only applies to the federal government, this was the law of the land tell the 14th amendment, so you can not really say if the founders would be for states regulating guns.
This is probably just a silly argument. They were a real range. But the conservatives were Royalists. Jefferson was probably progressive (for a slave owner). But Adams was likely more of a classic liberal.
"Things are bound to change, and when they do I shan't deny that change. It may be past by time, in the distant future, but this system must be built on change for this nation to survive." -Hamilton
The conservatives were still drinking tea in 1776... that's all we need to say
I'm pretty sure that the founders wouldn't have the hubris to say that the Constitution was perfect and unchangeable. Why else were their mechanisms for amendments? They were enlightenment thinkers understanding government and the Constitution as an experiment in which, like science, empirical results would modify any future theory based on the facts at the time.
Very well said! Keep videos like this coming please.
The founding fathers never could have imagined the world we live in today.
Thomas Paine was one of the most important authors of the Constitution, and he himself wrote that it would be ridiculous to claim that politicians from centuries ago could enact laws that would eternally dictate the lives of citizens in their respective country, regardless of the will of the people. This was the exact argument made by Edmund Burke against the French Revolution, and Paine used the first section of his _Rights of Man_ to refute it.
The one thing our founding fathers unquestionably did right was to create a self-correcting system. The laws of one era might have been useful and even completely functional for said era, but humanity changes. Culture changes. Knowledge changes. We've learned more about the world in the last decade than the entirety of human understanding of the Revolutionary Era of the US. To suggest that something should be obeyed FOREVER is absurd, and comes entirely from religious thinking and belief in an unchanging universe. Being able to remove vestigial parts of our constitution and\or replace broken parts is what has made our system so successful that the majority of the world adopted our standard, many of which improved upon it.
"The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark." Thomas Paine
What blows my mind about any of these founding father videos is regardless of what they wrote, these laws were for white men only. None of these laws pertained to anything but a select group of people in the midst of a genocide and slavery. This dosent represent any progressive movement ideals in the least. To advance any society or PROGRESS then human rights are at the core of this movement. The gun laws they made were later thrown right out the window when it pertained to shooting native populations. These were not progressives in the least.
Strict originalist? Why stop at the U S constitution? The Code of Hammurabi, now that's strict originalism.
The things I have against the "Founding Fathers":
-Tolerant of slavery.
-Established the undemocratic Electoral College.
-Made it much too difficult to remove an unfit president.
ALL of which still have negative consequences now and in the future.
And yet, in the context of the times, it was the first ever system of self-rule by the people. Everywhere else was a monarchy. Chew on that
This is probably your best video you’ve ever put out.
David, if you ever debated Trump, he may get mad and urinate on himself because he really has no clue regarding the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.
From U.K. Wow. This is excellent and fits with what I’ve even researching here on this side of the pond. Before moving to America Thomas Paine worked as an Engineer designing an Iron Bridge in my home town of Rotherham Yorkshire. He would have met our local radical politician and soldier Thomas Earl of Effingham. The Earl had what we would call today left wing views. He spent his spare time mixing with the working class iron workers in the town’s pubs. Still on a hill top overlooking Rotherham is a monument built to commemorate the Boston Tea Party. It’s often forgotten, just how much support the Founding Farthers had in England (but not In U.K. as a whole). The American Revolution came very close to spreading to England especially Yorkshire. Certainly the army struggled to get recruits to fight what they saw as fellow Englishmen demanding what they also wanted. But for France, Spain and Holland declaring war on us, there would have been a civil war on both sides of the Atlantic. But it has been puzzling me, how on the English side it’s now seen as left wing, whilst in America right wing. I can see now that over the years both have been misinterpreted.
Just one problem. If the founding fathers were so progressive, why did they establish electoral college as the nation's system for electing its presidents?
The literacy rate was below 50% a majority of Americans were illiterate. You don't want people voring based on their favorite color do you ?
I wish a political leader would talk about these facts.
"Conservative morality is always at the expense of someone else's humanity."
Aida Rodriguez
BTW, applies to corporate Dems too.
How? Because conservatives don’t want to pay for other people’s stuff?
Thomas jefferson thought that every new generation would create a new constitution with the blood of sacrifice against tyranny that would almost certainly arise in any constitution. I think all of the founding fathers would be shocked to learn that we are still using theirs. That was probably not part of their"original intent"
What amazes me is that the Republicans now hate and disparage Progressives when 100 years ago, it was the Republicans who were Progressives. It was TR that was known as "The Trust Buster", he created the national park system, broke up monopolies and spoke about a fair deal for the people. He believed in business and was a wealthy man, but he saw the treatment of the working class as unacceptable and fought to help improve their lives. Taft was even more of a trust buster, but he was also friendlier to business which TR hated. TR also hated not being president which is why he ran for a third term in 1912. By the 1920's the Republicans were the closest friend to business interests and under Hoover, an early version of Supply Side Economics was instituted as the Great Depression hit and the economy went into a free fall. Republicans seem to be playing down some of their greatest presidents like TR in favor of bimbos like Reagan because it has become a cult of wealth worship.
@Bob Berger Thank you for the recommendation. I will look for it.
Saving this to help pwn trumpers at work, on Monday. 😂😂
just ask them to name the founding fathers and see if they say Lincoln
@@RoninDave wouldn't Lincoln in today's time be a liberal/progressive anyways?
@@onomatopoeia162003 the point is that many conservatives really don't know who the Founding Fathers were. They might namea few like Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin but for the most part they talk of the Founding Fathers as this meshed entity of barely identifiable individuals.
Hahaha I thought the same thing
The constitution is important because it provides a basis for our freedoms. There’s been push and pull but it’s intended to insure people done go out of line, it’s not perfect. One of progressive founding fathers John Adams suppressed journalists and critics.
Makes you think about progressives and hate speech laws
ContraPoints video about The West is all you need to know about this topic.
If only politicians today were so pragmatic and mature. Congress today is devoid of facts and history like this. Lets make congress attend constitutional study groups.
It’s important to say: yes the founding fathers were progressives on the whole; but like the Bible, they were so diverse in opinion that in many cases you can point to one that supported your claim while another can support your opponent’s.
Hey david can you make a video where conservatives could use a counter argument to the founding fathers not being progressive and challenge the idea.
I was telling my brother that more people on the left have to start holding up the founding fathers as being very progressive and how their progressive thinking and writing has stayed with us until this day. The type of stuff that made USA stronger as a country and democracy. Republicans try to use the founding fathers to justify fascism and religious tyranny, when the evidence doesn't support that. We should use the founding fathers to justify progressive actions.
@Bob Berger how does that statement prove me wrong?
this should be bernie's opening statement for the 2020 debate with trump.
Part of the issue is that our perceptions of the terms conservative, liberal and progressive have changed over the years. For instance one when arguing that putting in safety regulations or a healthcare system make one progressive, specifically if we’re maintaining the left-wing tinge the term holds then logic would dictate that Otto von Bismarck and Benjamin Disraeli were leftists when they put in moderate reform policy for the purpose of protecting civil odds by preventing the working class from being put into a position that might make then prone to violent radicalization. You had reactionary loyalists during the founding along with conservative reformers like George Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton who wanted to maintain more of the British system including limiting political power to property holders whilst ironing out problems like the hereditary monarchy as well as contemporary radicals like Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and Thomas Paine more keen on uprooting the system altogether in order to replace it with something more democratic such as enfranchising the common man. Nowadays we’ve got left-wingers claiming Hamilton and conservatives claiming Jefferson without understanding the historical context. The conversation has become stunted now that people on both sides of the aisle view the size of government as the sole metric to the political spectrum. The short of it is that there were both conservatives and radicals, though all some stripe of liberal according to its original definition, among the Framers but people have lost sight of what that meant at the time and by proxy to a certain extent what they mean today.
David Pakman" You need to read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. The founding fathers were not "Progressive" at all.
Lol Hamilton was soooooo far from being progressive if we're talking about the defintion of what a progressive is.
He literaly wanted a monarchy... ruled by the the British crown... *after the revolution!*
@@error5202 Don't know about that, but he definitely wanted wealth inequality in the United States. He wanted America to be what us progressives have coined: a corporate America. He wanted factories where the poor/middle class would work for little pay, and where the rich can benefit from that.
@@error5202 Sounds fair to me.
@@error5202 was this before or after he took up arms against the british crown?
@@ZAGGNUT1 Debates of the Federal Convention (1787)
(14 May 1787 - 17 September 1787)
I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced, and such has been its progress in the minds of the many, that this truth gradually gains ground. This government has for its object public strength and individual security. It is said with us to be unattainable. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?
Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention, v. 1, p. 299. (June 19, 1787)
The Constitution is an important framework, but it was never designed to answer every single question about governance, and to pretend otherwise is a dangerous insult to our intelligence.
Great video thank you. Maybe my favorite of yours so far..... and I watch all them.
have been enjoying your work for a minute, this is my mostest favoritest one of yours thus far!
No sources listed. I'm pretty sure this information is true, but I won't share until i research. Good job Mr. Pakman . Thank you
Well, he does name the various books and who wrote them throughout the video. Also letters from one to another.
9:43-9:58 i wouldn't quite put "Luke's" nativity story (let's not focus on "Matthew" in this context) in the same category as the classical greek and roman myths in the same way i wouldn't put Genesis in the same category as the enuma elish and the epic of gilgamesh. "Luke's" nativity story is SUBVERSIVE myth meant to draw out the padeia elite from their cultural context.
P.S.: Zacchaeus and Bartimaeus represent the target audience of "Luke" and "Mark."
P.P.S: "Mark" is closer to the actual Jesus than "Luke."
P.P.P.S: i like tacos.
You should also look up Gouverneur Morris. Called the Penman of the Constitution, he is a major founding father, appears to be partially buried in history, and he argued against the practice of slavery in his time. His speeches during the constitutional convention are illuminating and inspiring.
A country forming a revolution and putting in a brand new form of government being conservative is an oxymoron
The new form of government was designed to be a limited one; the government of the Constitution was more powerful and not as limited as that of the Confederation but it was still limited. Limited government, checks and balances and having a Constitution that's hard to amend are pretty core ideas of conservatism and certainly of classical liberalism.
Excellent video, David (and your producers, of course)!
I can see what David is saying but they were hypocritical. I.E, Jefferson believed in individual rights but not for everyone
J Man Es Man; Other than pointing out that Jefferson, though he was a statesman he was not involved in the creation of the US constitution and therefore he is generally not considered to be a founder, I will point out that you have to consider the time the founders and the early US statesmen lived in when considering whether or not their political views were progressive or not. The founders lived in a time when many if not most people still believed in rule by divine Right .In short, the founders lived in what could be described as a very conservative era, but for men of that era , the founders and early US statesmen were progressive and certainly NOT conservative.
That 1798 law for government health care was geared towards government employees, it was not forced onto private citizens.
Damn, that quote from Madison is brutal.
"The Founding Fathers Were Progressive"
Really? Including those like Washington, Madison, Franklin, and Patrick Henry who owned slaves?
Was slave ownership "prioritizing equality"? Was that characteristic compatible with progressive values even back then? (After all, not all the founding fathers were slaveowners. Hamilton, for example, was not.)
Progressive doesn't mean that they were perfect or that their lives met the standards of 20th century culture and beyond. Relative to their time, they were forward thinking on the vision of how this country could grow and mature. I do think we still romanticize the founding fathers way too much because of slavery, but I think the point of this video was to debunk conservative and libertarian talking points about what the founders believed regarding the role of government in American life and constitutional originalism.
Today we liberals eat meat from a killed cow.
In 200 years when future liberal people have developed a way to grow meat and not kill and cage animals, they cant call todays liberals savages or conservative.
Pushing the envelope is progressive, not doing everything doesnt make one not progressive.
@@rachelfishbein1478 I disagree you can't tell half history say the good and bad don't stand up for men who didn't respect women they were freemasons they control Democrats and Republicans you know as an adult what The Knights templar did to non Christians and We celebrate Christopher Columbus and act like native Americans are a mysterious creatures in the woods 😂 all politicians suck not your fault or mine not mad act you I wanted to tell that it is misleading saying 1 part of a person's story Bill Cosby was a comedian and a rapist 🙏
@Rachel Fishbein: "I think the point of this video was to debunk conservative and libertarian talking points about what the founders believed regarding the role of government in American life and constitutional originalism."
Debunking "constitutional originalism" in the Age of Trump is probably not a very good idea. If we define "constitutional originalism" as interpreting the US Constitution in the way it was meant to be back when the Constitution was enacted (or, in the case of the amendments, those amendments were passed), then it appears to me that the last thing you would want to do is re-interpret (say) the First Amendment in an era when Trump and his cronies regard much of the press as "fake news" and thus freedom of the press as a liability to be devalued and diminished.
On the other hand neither would you want to interpret (say) the Fourth Amendment in the era of Obama when it was under assault from (amongst others) the NSA.
Nor would you want to interpret (say) the war power in the era of Bush 43, Obama, or Trump when they have more or less eviserated it. (And don't get me started on what has happened to the treaty clause or how the Supreme Court invented out of whole cloth a congressional power to exclude aliens, and thereby constitutionalise the racist Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 1880s.)
Instead I'm guessing you would prefer to interpret all of these more as the founding fathers intended--as opposed to what later generations have reduced them to. Or to be fairer about, you want to interpret them in a modern progressive light rather than in the light of the slave-owner mores of the late 1700s. The trouble is progressives are not the only ones who can re-interpret the Constitution if they put their minds to it--including war hawks (hence the fate of the war power) and racial nativists (eg the Chinese Exclusion Acts).
I could go on, for it isn't as if America has given any shortage of examples where later generations of Americans have re-interpreted constitutional provisions more to suit their own self-centred contemporary political aims, aspirations, and ambitions than anything resembling justice. If you want a particularly noxious example of this trend, go read the Supreme Court's (frankly racist) judgment in Downes v. Bidwell, the first of the so-called "Insular Cases", which took aim at (amongst other things) the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment in the early 1900s when as a consequence of the Spanish-American War the US acquired an overseas colonial empire all of its very own--complete with millions of brown people it did not particularly want. (Sound familiar?) So what the court did was to conveniently re-jig the interpretation of the Constitution, and the 14th Amendment in particular, and do it in such a way as to prevent those unwanted millions claiming American citizenship.
The vile consequences of that re-interpretation are still in force today, affecting such places as American Samoa and Puerto Rico. (For example, want to know why Puerto Rico isn't eligible for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection? Blame Downes v. Bidwell and the other Insular Cases.)
Who cares if they owned slaves , the Barbary pirates enslaved more europeans than vice versa, the founding fathers wanted to send all blacks back to africa from the beginning
David, thank you for an excellent history lesson! :)
Our founding fathers had a healthy fear of corporations and allowed them to form only with strict limits! reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us
When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.
Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.
The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:
* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
* Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
* Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
* Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.
States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits.
Most of this vital history is unknown to citizens today, but it can provide critical understanding and tools for solving today's problems. Corporations are setting the agenda on issues in congress, courts and the media rather than "We the People" as our founding fathers intended. "We the People" can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money.
I am for the Constitution as a wonderful base from which to live and govern ourselves, but yes, they can’t have thought of everything. So we have amendments.
On the other hand, David this was outstanding. You’ve outdone yourself. Hurray! Very good. 👏 Thank you!
There's going to be a lot of people that come in here and try and explain that "you can't be progressive because progressive=x,y,z and they did=a,b,c. Don't listen to these people. They clearly didn't take the time to google "progressive" before trying to form a baseless argument. It's amusing yes, but everyone has something to argue about, especially the things they clearly don't understand. I do love he point you made with this video, David. Very well done.
I dont get the point of this. They were libertarians, they were progressives, they were conservatives, they were different. This is why I'm a textualist, not an originalist
David this might be your best video yet. I wish all main stream media outlets would play this video three times a day for the next week so everyone in america is aware.
WHAT IS THE FREAKING THING WHERE I HAVE TO SKIP ADS now?
late in the day 11 Apr 2019.
Did you enable this, or did it simply swarm around your settings?
It's more than annoying. It's off-putting.
BE AWARE.
I guess the goal is to drive people to ad-block extensions?
@@robertjenkins6132 -
I had one, but this thing showed like new. And I got ANOTHER extension (sheesh) for skip ad trigger auto clicking.
And it seems to have solved it.
I also believe that it was a matter of a new version of Firefox on their beta program.
Crazy stuff always pops up. And you know, it's unclear whether youtubers know it when it happens or not.
Thanks, Robert!
My mind was blown away by this. This is one of if not your most important videos David.
Very good video and I particularly liked the way you talked about the religiosity ( *and lack thereof* ) of the Founders. As you stated, many called themselves "deists" and actually despised ALL organized christianity and their churches --- Thomas Paine specifically identified himself as deist on the very first page of his excellent book, *_The Age Of Reason._*
Let's explore that concept and labels, "deism" [the ideology] and "deist" [the actual human being], shall we? Really, what IS "deism" and a "deist"? Deism is the societal acceptance of a "creator 'god' " that "did his _[sic]_ work" and just left it to chance immediately afterward [ _presumably to "fly" through space and "create" more planets like Earth --- _*_but didn't?_* ].
That alone is laughable --- a "god creates" an entire planet [ _setting aside the REAL birth of Earth as a flaming ball of fire and molten lava travelling through space for billions of years_ ] and then "'says, Hey, this is good so therefore I am finished' " and then .... what? *Makes another planet with life such as Earth's --- that never appears?* _Yeah, right --- 'he' also has a load of bridges to sell in the desert._
If you actually read *_The Age Of Reason_*_ critically,_ I think you can come to the same conclusion I did --- *he was actually an atheist,* but, of course, the prevailing society of the day wouldn't accept atheism/atheists and would consider it/them as the "work of the devil and/or witches." I think we all know by now what they did when they thought some of their own "were witches," right? Atheism was no different, so obviously, atheists had to be in their own "closets" with their realities. And what better way to "be in a societal closet" _yet openly say they don't believe in the bullshit of "god"?_ *Enter deism.*
Thomas Paine wrote deliberately in this book about his detestation of christian churches and their hold on their own burgeoning American society --- from [generally] English colonialism through the beginning liberty of the USA. So it's quite easy to infer that he was, in reality, most probably an atheist, but because of the times, had to retreat to his own "closet" for fear of his life. [ _When he came back from France and its prison and what he had to endure after he published this book just after 1800 --- he was literally threatened with death {after closely brushing with it in the prison} by the same society he literally not just 'help' found, but was its _*_most founding_*_ father { remember the "pamphlet" _*_Common Sense?_* }. ]
Oh no, Thomas Paine was no atheist. In fact, he wrote during the French Revolution that he feared the French were sliding towards atheism. Also FYI Thomas Paine was shunned for The Age of Reason, so I would advise you to do some research before posting stupid shit.
@@programking655 *Actually, you're the one who's writing stupid shit. And it's YOU who needs to read his book more critically.*
I never said *he was.* I said *I believe him to more likely be* an atheist *because of his writings.* And I acknowledged him being a deist in my first paragraph.
I've done all the research I need to do about Thomas Paine. It's *YOU* who needs to do research as well as some *critical repeat reading* [generously assuming you actually read it in the first place]. Then *REREAD MY 4th PARAGRAPH ABOVE.*
But, of course, I understand your intelligence dilemma: You recognize what I wrote that is not only common sense, but most probably accurate but are afraid to use what mind you might have left to confront your asinine and stupid "religious" beliefs.
Yeah, *I also stated that as well in my 5th paragraph.*
So, it seems, *you seriously need to learn how to read properly [that's commonly known as reading comprehension].*
This was a great video David, keep up the good work!
You know, David, you are making one of the key points Pete Buttigieg has been making.
James Madison wrote Memorials and Remonstrances that became our First Amendment, especially the Establishment Clause. Patrick Henry wanted state of Virginia to pay for church run schools. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson opposed it. That was when James Madison wrote Memorials. He wanted to show that importance of separation of church and state is important to our country.
@Bob Berger Not to level, but bring them to equal access. You have not read the James Madison book as I have. You taking cues from pseudo-historian Dave Barton.
The founding fathers owned slaves.
Not all of them did, tbf. Unfortunately slavery was an extremely politically charged issue...
I'm glad you eventually got to state the fact that whatever those founding fathers wanted for the union, it doesn't really matter 250 years later.
They owned slaves and didn't abolish slavery lol
Sure, they should have had the War for Independence then gone straight into a civil war.
Thank you for all the information! You presented a very logical and rational argument. Of course, all the information in the world will not change closed minds. 👍👍🌟
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍Thank you!
This is just as revisionist as the right-wing version lol Unless ya mean "progressive" only in the loose and mad relativist way. Cause in reality the vast majority were not.
The few things we can cherry pick to say they were can be easily matched by the right to say they weren't.
The real progressives of that era were abolishionists and closer to mutualist or socialist in their economics. There were many people alive at the time that were FAR more "progressive" in their ideas. By this logic, modern progressives are conservatives and socialists are the real progressives. I see it that way, but you've said multiple times ya don't. Either way, it's a bogus and incredibly incomplete take on history. Especially when ya look into the motivation for these things, it wasn't always great ideas and was rarely a pure heart.
That was a great compilation of ideas. thanks david!
I disagree though not entirely. We can learn a lot from those who came before. We can add new perspectives to their vision and correct their mistakes as they intended. In that sense we should care about what the founders thought.
yeah owning slaves is so progressive
"Shall not be infringed "
"well-regulated militia"
@@johnwatters3431 Bonus! As British citizens they had the written right to own and bear arms for self defense. In their own constitution they retained the right to keep and bear arms for self defense and gained the right to form citizen militias. Winning!
@@bobbyharper8710 Except the militia was the only explicitly given reasoning for the Amendment. Fail. Kinda.
@@johnwatters3431 That's your opinion and not that of the United States Supreme Court. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home
@@bobbyharper8710 I'm familiar with the case, but I would point out that Heller was actually an opinion, not what I said. What I said was a fact. Out of all the Amendments, the Second is (if I recall correctly), one of, if not the only one to explicitly include reasoning. That's not an opinion. That's a thing that just is. Heller is an opinion. Based on the facts I have noted.
Wow David, this is a really amazing video. Every conservative needs to see this.
The truth is progressives would’ve been Patriots back then and the conservatives would’ve been Tories