Well George Washington agrees with me on this one...

Regardless of how impossible it is to compare political positions of 230 years to now, at their time in history, the founding fathers were essentially the most liberal politicians in the world, so try again. Conservatives for one hand would've supported the British monarchy and not even have been part of a revolutionary movement, let alone one that supported a democratic republic with a written constitution of guaranteed rights with popular sovereignty at its basis.

Political theory aside, the only other major area is economic theory on which the founding fathers were quite divided on.

Also, the founding fathers are completely irrelevant to 2010.

 

It's impossible to get rid of political parties. People have a herd like mentality and naturally form into groups and bend their beliefs to conform. That said the US system is as fucked as the OP suggests. It would have been nice if those that wrote our constitution had attempted to set up restrictions on the power political parties hold. Things like forbidding subcommities, tons of procedural rules on how bills are brought forward and voted on, and party primary systems. That would have required more foresight that can be expected though. Too late now, it would likely take a complete change of system to change things meaningfully now though.

Fact is, all political systems are doomed to failure. That is because they are run by people via the will of the people. Those in power will consolidate that power in the name of good until enough people are wronged by that consolidation that they change the system in the name of their own good. No guarantee what comes after is better though.

 

OK, true, the founding fathers were very liberal in that they were doing something that had never been done before. But what I meant was in reference to small government. And of course one can never say what someone else would do, but I simply believe that the founding fathers would look at this huge monolithic government and be appalled. I think they would look at Obama and see King George. In that regard, their support for a small central government, I don't think they are irrelevant at all.

You won't see me quoting Alexander Hamilton anytime soon. Rather, Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington and others that were for small central government, because that is what made us so strong and great in the first place.

 

Most of the founding fathers argued in favor of states ratifying the constitution over the Articles of Confederation to purposely create a stronger federal government, so.....

 

Are you seriously arguing that those founding fathers would have been in favor of greater, stronger central government. Yes, there were federalists, like Hamilton, but I'm not talking about them. Yes, we do need government, and it does need to have power. But you can't actually believe that this abuse of power that is going on in Washington today would have been supported by the authors of the constitution.

 

How do you know they wouldn't? You can't compare government of 1790 to now, the context of the times need to be taken into account. Everything our government does not didn't even exist in theory in 1790. It's impossible to know what the founding fathers would've thought about it.

Hell even Jefferson who was on the side of limited government put into effect a giant tariff that he was forced to revoke 2 years later.

-Thomas Paine

-Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Madison

I guess not everything was out of philosophical realm, Thomas Paine in the 1700's arguing in favor of an idea that basically would become programs like social security, unemployment and the such

Hell George Washington levied the first non tariff tax in the country and when it wasn't being enforced by the states raised the federal army to put down the tax evaders. And people say the IRS is tough. Most people fear the cops showing up at their house when they don't pay their taxes, try having an infantry platoon.

Also the founding fathers were not some coherant group of people, they composed a wide arrange of political ideas and often hated each other with passion to the point of the vice president shooting dead Hamilton in a duel. So whatever some founding fathers would think on one issue, others would disagree.