If Our Founding Fathers Returned Today...

[Jason9612]

Would they think that America changed the way they anticipated it to? And, more importantly, would they think that America has changed for bad or for good? This is open ended, so let's hear some thoughts.

[T Town Jake]

1. Why'd they take Toady in the first place?

:evilgrin:

[Richard Steele]

2. Because it makes a DIFFERENCE!

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

[Jason9612]

3. My bad. It's edited, now get serious!

See subject.

[MADem]

6. That was my question, too!!!

I certainly hope they weren't thinking about eating him!!! That would be....so....FRENCH!!!

And they wouldn't have been very inclined to help us with our Revolution if we'd stolen their supper, now, would they have?

[MadisonProgressive]

4. They wouldn't have the chance to complain

They'd be rounded up as terrorists and sent to GITMO to be tortured to death.

[Richard Steele]

5. Seriously, it HAS changed as they anticipated, just not for the better.

Our current situation contains many elements
which they VERY SPECIFICALLY WARNED US ABOUT.

[Mythsaje]

7. I've wondered that myself for years...

since this ugliness first reared its head during the eighties.

I posted this the other day.

Oh, btw. Welcome to DU!

NSA tracks secret liberal lab
(Satire)

Odd Squad News

February 24, 2006

Unconfirmed sources have alleged that the National Security Agency is investigating a report that liberal American scientists have established a secret time travel laboratory somewhere in the Pacific Northwest and are planning to use the device to bring back certain American historical figures to counter the claims of the Bush Administration.

"The theory," said one anonymous source, "is that if they bring back such luminaries as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt, they'll be able to put this administration on the run."

The NSA has so far refused to comment on the case, though an agency spokesperson responded with a rueful laugh and a shake of his head when asked about it.

"What they have to worry about," said one Presidential historian, "is keeping Thomas Jefferson away from weapons--he's likely to march right out and launch a second American revolution on the spot.

"That's assuming, of course, that time travel isn't just yet another liberal daydream. These poor people are DYING for leadership."

[enigma000]

8. I think they would be pleased it is still going

Think of it: 13 small colonies with a few million people on the Atlantic seaboard, with an ethically homogeneous population. Two centuries later, it has spread across North America, with nearly 300 million souls from countless backgrounds. The world's only superpower. While most of Western civilization embraced, at one time or another, fascism, communism, Nazism, colonial imperialism (I mean long term occupation of distant lands) the US managed to avoid, almost, all these ideologies.

Will it continue in the future? I don't know. I would bet that the new and popular ideology of the moment is Chinese corporatism (complete with slave labour camps) and will not take hold in America easily.

[happydreams]

9. They would take one look at the CIA and

go into full revolution mode.

[Golden Raisin]

10. The one thing I think

they'd be utterly shocked about is the inability of our current President to speak English in a grammatically correct, cohesive way. Putting aside issues of native intelligence or wit, the sheer eloquence and ability to articulate clearly demonstrated by such as Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etal. throws Dubya's stammerings, mispeakings and syntax assassinations into high relief. You only have to read one sentence from the Declaration of Independence to see the vast, almost cosmic chasm of difference which exists between Jefferson and Bush. Even though some of the Founding Fathers played the role of rustic "gentleman farmer" I don't think any of them pandered to the general public like Bush (the privileged patrician from the Northeast) with his fake, put-on, phony-baloney, down-home, just-one-of-the-commonfolk Texas accent complete with dropping "g's" (runnin' votin', comin', goin').

[brokensymmetry]

11. Perhaps this says it best:

http://www.iff-ifoundfreedom.com/freedom/ghost.html

I had a dream, the other night I didn't understand, a figure walking through the mist, with a flintlock in his hand, his clothes were torn & dirty, as he stood there by my bed, he took off his three-cornered hat, & speaking low he said:

we fought a revolution to secure liberty, we wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny. For future generations, this legacy we gave, in this, the land of the free & home of the brave.

The freedom was secured for you, we hoped you'd always keep, but tyrants labored endlessly, while your parents were asleep.

More at the link: http://www.iff-ifoundfreedom.com/freedom/ghost.html

There's also a WAV file at: http://www.fortunecity.com/millennium/family/1084/vforge.wav

Yes, there are some elements that are a tad right-wingerish; but the line about
"Your leaders ship artillery & guns to foreign shores & send your sons to slaughter, fighting other people's wars."
certainly seems appropriate.

[Yupster]

12. They'd be both pleased and shocked

Pleased that the country they founded still survived and grew so greatly in geography and power.

Shocked that all the care they put to limit the government's involvement in people's lives has been put to such a shambles.

"Income tax? What's an income tax? You have armies in how many countries?"

They'd be astonished.

[Rocknrule]

13. If the FFs were here today

Limbaugh and Coulter would be calling them anti-American treasonous liberal faggot scum who should move to France. On the flipside, if most of todays Repubs were alive in the FF days, they would be the British loyalists.

[benEzra]

14. George Washington would be arrested for growing hemp...

he did, you know...

There'd be quite a bit of culture shock as well, as well as technology shock. Some things they could easily grasp--Washington or Jefferson could pick up a modern firearm and be fully proficient in its use with 60 seconds of instruction, and could grasp the concept of an automobile or Webb press fairly quickly, but try to explain a Blackberry, or a cell phone with built-in digicam and MP3, air travel, or satellite radio...

Politically, I think they'd feel some things had changed for the better and some for the worse. I think they'd be troubled by the decline in respect for civil liberties, but cheered that the system of government they set up was still standing (though a bit tattered here and there).

[depakid]

15. They would emmigrate to Canada

or petition the British to return.