How would our founding fathers feel about todays political climate? They would regard the size and scope of modern government as completely beyond all propriety.Most would fall into the Libertarian party. they wanted to maximize freedom, while minimizing the power of government. If they saw the size and scope of our current government, and the amount it taxes us, they would probably go straight into cardiac arrest. Though all the founding fathers were good people, this is kind of a blanket question.Here's the thing: The founding fathers did not all agree with everything each other said. Just like our current government, they all had very different ideas and beliefs. The winning side, the antifederalists, were very libertarian. This group included people like Thomas Jefferson and other greats. However, there was a group called the federalists that were almost exactly like today's democratic party,and they were led by Alexander Hamilton.Based on what is considered "far right wing conservative" today, those who call Bush and republicans "right wing extremists" would have to call the founding fathers crazy.Why? Because the founding fathers were so incredibly far right by today's political standards, that they would be shunned as outcasts and freaks. Look at the Constitution that they themselves created, which has been interpreted to mean hardly anything by activist judges.
Together using George Mason's "Virginia Rights of Man" as part of their basis, they came up with the Declaration of Independence that said "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"Right in that text they said "Governments are instituted among men, ***deriving their powers from the consent of the governed***"Then right in the tenth amendment they say "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."Nowadays, it is the other way around. We go to government to ask their permission to see if we can do something. The Federal government holds states at their mercy by witholding federal funds if they don't comply with that they say is right. Federal judges overstep their jurisdiction and remove an elected judge from the bench in Alabama because of what they thought was right. That would be like me coming into your house and spanking your kid because he didn't eat his peas the way I thought was right. I have no power to do that, and neither does the federal judiciary, yet they regulary ignore the Constitution that governs our political system.Basically, what the founding fathers designed has been shot to pieces and is pretty much ignored nowadays, save a few select amendments (like the first, etc..) that is convenient for people. Nowadays liberals say that the First Amendment has virtually no limitations on it (child pornography is protected, etc...) yet the second amendment limits you to only "approved" arms that they think is ok. Washington, Jefferson, and the other designers of our nation would be appaled, as are the "right wing extremists" speaking up today. So I guess there's your answer, they'd be "right wing extremists" (although they'd be CORRECT... that should tell us something, that maybe these "right wing extremists" are really just people who believe in what the country was founded on).
I do think that there is a certain point to the gripe that the federal government pressures states by withholding funding (despite the constitutionality of the practice). For example, there is _no way_ we would have less rights(Medicine,Drugs,Insurance,) in fifty states if it weren't for highway fund blackmail.
Pieced together by LBP The general thoughts Kristan T Harris
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