I can tell you're the type of person, Agent Cobalt, who is deeply religious and will take any criticism of Christianity as a personal insult. It's an annoying American stereotype and it's hard to argue with people like you because if you're wrong, that means your faith is wrong, and you can't live with that.
I'm actually not "deeply religious." I just have faith in my God and I understand what my country was founded on and object to people trying to uproot our society. I don't go to church, I don't go to congregations, or any of that other stuff. And you're commenting on a guy who was once an atheist, an agnostic, and a Deist before converting to Christianity. I am anything but dogmatic and close-minded. So I can take criticism. But that doesn't mean I'll pull any punches either. In fact I didn't start this debate. I gave my opinion on hemp and pot and others decided to try dispelling my opinion. So I naturally responded.
Explain why this is a bad thing.
Because without those key components of the American system, we shall cease to have a country and our republic with wither away and die so others before it.
Oh please. What do you think they would have thought about a woman running for president? Yeah, they were sexist.
And that's sexist to object to? I don't have a problem with it, but I have female friends who would give up their vote to prevent Hillary Clinton or anyone like her from taking the Oval Office. If you give the Founders so little credit on the issues of bigotry, I can only advise you to read up on the British Crown. While there was much contention between our nations, America still had common law. Our system, though different, is partly inspired by the British one. The British had monarchs, but they were still executives. And one note of interest is that the British did in fact have female heads of state. Americans inherited much from England, especially attitudes about social issues. It's where gun rights, the right to petition, and so on originate. We really can't delve any deeper about this, though, as it's all speculation about a what-if.
The founding fathers never made any serious attempts to get rid of slavery, so it must not have been a very big moral dilemma for them. They saw it as a "necessary evil," but most people today would just see it as an "evil." I'm sure many people would trade freedom for an unstable economy any day.
Did you not read what I posted about the abolitionist movement and the danger of breaking the Union? It was a difficult issue that plagued the Founders and threatened the republic's very existence. If we made slavery a dominant issue we very well might have lose the Revolutionary War.
You say they were conservatives, but it's called the American Revolution for a reason. After the Revolutionary War, the political system focused on the issues of state rights vs. federal rights, not conservatism vs. liberalism, so you really haven't provided any real evidence for why the founding fathers were conservative. A lot of the reason they did not support the French Revolution was because they did not want to feel permanently indebted to France for their help in the American Revolution.
They supported order above revolution, though. I suggest reading the Declaration. It's clearly written that revolutions should not be encouraged and that they should only take place under absolute despotism which existed under the British.
They were conservatives because they believed largely what Edmund Burke believed. He was the father of modern conservatism, a supporter of the American colonies, and an opponent of the French Revolution without being American. And liberalism back then was not an opposite of conservatism. Adam Smith and Burke agreed on a lot and never were considered philosophical or political rivals like leftists and conservatives today. That's because that was real liberalism back then, not socialism/progressivism. Both liberals and conservatives supported limited government, free markets and low taxes, equal representation in legislature, and so on.
You're confusing the debate today between conservatives and "liberals" with what I'm saying, that the Founding Fathers supported a moral order which is one of the core principles of conservatism. Man is imperfect and so too are his institutions, so man needs moral guidance to build a strong foundation for society. As James Madison put it, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. Defending liberty and upholding moral constructs were the only legitimate functions of government. But backing up, they opposed the French Revolution because they saw the bloodshed in France and feared it happening here. Edmund Burke actually predicted it and spoke against it, and was proven right when the monarchy was overthrown and executed only to be replaced with an emperor in Napoleon. Conservatism preaches stability and rationality, not revolution at any point of inconvenience.
Blacks gained the right to vote in 1870. Women gained the right to vote in 1920. The right for Blacks and Whites to intermarry was granted in 1967. Same sex couples will gain the right to marry in 202X. I agree that rights do not change, but what does change is whether or not a government recognizes and protects those rights. Humanity will always advance towards a more liberal society (compare today's society to 1909, and you have to admit we are more liberal), and the value of conservative opposition is that we don't go too fast and screw ourselves up.
I disagree with your definition of liberal. When you say liberal, you mean progressive. That's modern liberalism, and I reject. I'm a conservative today, but two hundred years ago conservatives would be called liberal and the liberals would be called Tories. A true liberal opposes the welfare state, supports a strong nation defense, believes in constitutionalism, believes in the importance of religion in society, and opposes government regulation of the economy.
So no, I don't agree we've gotten more liberal, because that'd be a good thing. We've gotten "progressive" or socialist. Our economy isn't liberal, nor the government, and so on. I wish it was. Our enemies would be dead, our borders would be secure, our values would be upheld, our Constitution followed, our spending under control, and our debt nonexistent. And I could never allow myself to compare the gay marriage movement to anything even close to women's suffrage or civil rights. That's a terrible comparison. In one instance a group wants special rights or privlidges, and in the other their basic human rights in a free society are denied.
By your logic you could say that any government that outlaws killing is a Christian nation.
No, because killing isn't anti-Christian. There's plenty of killing in the Bible. Murder on the other hand... I know I know, I'm being a dolt here. Seriously though, I'm not making that case. All societies have some laws regarding ending a life, however they're divided into different reactions. Again I cite Athens. They openly supported leaving babies to die.
You know what? By your logic we're also a Jewish nation
Judeo-Christian. I mean, come on, half the Bible is Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. A Christian is by default a believer in the Jewish Bible.
and a Muslim nation (Islam views the Bible as the word of God, just as Christianity views the Old Testament, or the Torah, as the word of God).
Incorrect. Muslims don't believe in the Bible. They actually oppose it because they claim its texts are corrupted.
We're also an atheist nation, because I'm an atheist, and I share these values.
So China is Christian if I go there for a vacation (Heaven forbid)? That's not how it works.
My point is: morality was not suddenly created when Jesus came along.
No, it goes back before the New Testament, sure.
America has tried making alcohol illegal and it didn't end the alcohol problem. In fact, it made it worse. The exact same thing is happening with marijuana prohibition.
That's somewhat of a myth. Some cities in America experienced gang problems, such as was the case with Al Capone's operations. However most of America still remained dry, and that's rarely ever brought up. Honestly the 18th Amendment was only repealed because of bad PR and public pressure. The truth is most of the country was fine under prohibition, and I say this as someone that doesn't advocate prohibition.
