Our Founding Fathers...

Let us take a  moment, now that the Fourth of July has come around again, to look at the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and how they might see the world today.

A lot of Democrats, in a knee-jerk reaction, reject the wisdom of our Founding Fathers completely, seeing them as an elitist group of rich white men who met for a brief time to decide on the future of our nation, then went back to their plantations where their overseers kept money coming in by mistreating slaves.

You have to give them some points for accuracy, although not all of the Founding Fathers lived in the south and the debate over ending slavery almost killed our nation before it was even born. If you doubt it and don’t want to actually read a history book or two, go watch a movie - 1776. It's pretty accurate, about as accurate as Hamilton and it won’t cost you nearly as much.

A lot of Republicans (or maybe Conservatives, it’s hard to tell the difference nowadays) look upon our Founding Fathers as Gods, giants who strode the earth and stood for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. At least they strived for those things for the same rich white men who could actually afford it. And the ones in the north who didn’t keep slaves could always rely on their indentured servants to work for no money for a good seven years, then pat them on the head and send them away to find their fortune. Someplace else.

But, they did have a point. They didn’t believe in government interference, certainly not big government interference.

Which, in their wisdom, our Founding Fathers turned into a virtue, especially when the big government they opposed was far away, on the other side of the Atlantic. When they became the government, of course, their view changed a bit. They did have a point.

So, as we look back on our history this July, let’s take a glance at some of our problems today and see how our Founding Fathers might have actually handled them. Trust me, it will be fun.

First, let’s look at immigration. Just how did those Wise Men handle the question of who was allowed to come into their newly independent colonies?

As you might guess, state’s rights were King. Every state made its own policy on immigration. And, it caused a lot of consternation. That’s when three of the wiser Founding Fathers wrote a paper we call Federalist Number Two, under the name of Publius, suggesting that the new federal government take over the power from the states. Which was fine with them, because it was causing more problems that it was worth.

How about national defense? Well,  if the principals of our Founding Fathers were in use today, every governor in every state would have the right to keep their troops home in an emergency. Don’t think the battle in Syria is worth fighting, then just don’t send your men and women over to fight it.

Think of the debates we could have. 

Or think you should have more money coming into your state from the federal government? Just demand that the Army build a new training camp for 30,000 or 40,000 in some needy part of your state, or they get no new recruits. Think of the jobs you can create that way.

And then there is the matter of tariffs. That’s what we charge other nations to bring their goods into the United States.

Well, our deeply independent Founding Fathers believed in tariffs, but each state could decide on its own what tariffs to set. Each state could also print its own money, appoint its own army officers, and decide whether or not it wanted to pay its share of federal taxes.

That’s why our Founding Fathers changed their mind after a few years,  held a new convention, and decided to form a much stronger federal government. Ah, yes, the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.