Spare Me the Founding Fathers

Every election year I end up having the conversation with someone about the Founding Fathers.

These were great men, no doubt about it. But I do not want my country run based on what the Founding Fathers intended. I want my country based on the framework they left behind.

When Sarah Palin said regarding the Pledge of Allegiance and the “under god” phrase that if it was good enough for the Founding Fathers it was good enough for her, many on the left jeered (and rightfully so) because the Founding Fathers didn’t write it, nor was it even written in their lifetimes. But it’s the other part that disturbs me. If something was good enough for the Founding Fathers it was good enough for her.

• So she doesn’t want the right to vote?
• She doesn’t want children barred from strenuous labor?
• She doesn’t want slavery abolished?

You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of the Founding Fathers’ intentions you support when you make sweeping statements like that. It’s the reason I despise Scalia as a Supreme Court justice. Not because of his rulings, but because of what he bases his rulings on.

Interpreting the Constitution is a tricky business. But it’s dishonest to base it entirely on what you think—or even know—what the original intent of the Founding Fathers was. I for one have been glad to see the Founding Fathers’ intentions blown to bits in many cases.

Honor what they created. In many ways, it was in spite of themselves.