• Asafum@feddit.nl
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    3 months ago

    Our founding morons were the most naive idiots in existence… Sure they lived in a different time, but how could you possibly look back at any time in history and say “it’s ok only moral people get positions of power so we’ll play by the honor system.”

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      US citizens give way WAY too much credit to their founders. Calling them “founding fathers” almost sounds like it’s a religion. I’m sure they were smart guys in their time, but they too were flawed and made a shit tonne of mistakes, like everybody else. Just fix those mistakes already.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        They were fans of Montesquieu, but they also thought the VP should be the runner up in the election and that self interest would prevent one group from attaining too much power

        In this case for example: the judge would want to avoid being labeled as partial because he would ruin his family name and lose his profession

    • olympicyes@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The Founding Fathers could not have anticipated that honor and shame would be totally foreign concepts to a sitting president and congress. In the 1790s for example, pistol duels were the leading cause of death for US navy midshipmen.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      The founding slavers were literally slavers. Their goal was simply to maintain their violent control. It’s worked great for 200+ years.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They had faith that people who got to power would use it in good faith (and get there in good faith) while or after having fought a war with a power that they believed wasn’t being used in good faith.

      I just wonder how much longer this system can hold up for. It’s got different parts that conflict with itself but different people value different parts of it to the point that getting rid of any of it is going to be, ah, a bit rough.