https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html

She just won a Pulitzer for this work and the rest of the project.

I've not read most of the 1619 material but the article above is beautiful. I think it's a problem when critics focus solely on perhaps a couple historical inaccuracies, and don't acknowledge the legitimate stories and larger narratives in a project like this.

people who idolize founding fathers and shine a false light of hope on their intentions are fools anyways.

"land of the free", they owned slaves. "they invented real democracy", women couldn't vote until less than 100 years ago. etc.

they were a swell bunch of guys im sure, with a lot of good ideas. they just didnt put them truly into motion, nor did anyone else for centuries.

are you going to criticize modern democracies for failing to grant voting rights to cats and dogs?

The fact that blacks and women were considered subhuman in the 1770s is a human rights issue, not a criticism of the design of the political system.

Later, when blacks and women got plugged into the existing vote system, it functioned in fundamentally the same way (though there was some degree of evolution over time). All they did then was to change the inputs to the existing system.

There's still some undeniable significance to the fact that 1776 represented a shift from a monarchy to a non-monarchy. Progress is incremental. It's not fair to discount each step of progress simply because that one step doesn't constitute the entire stairway to heaven.

This post was edited by Kayeto on May 5 2020 01:07pm

Im a major proponent of incremental change. i didn't come around to that viewpoint right away when i was young, it took time, and several steps.

nothing in your post disagrees with mine. they had good ideas, no monarchy, 1 citizen = 1 vote, representation in a congress also by vote, etc. it just took hundreds of years for these good ideas to be fully fleshed out.

my point was that the founding fathers didn't intend to give women, blacks, or even non land owners a vote. and often times people attribute the democracy we have now to the founding fathers. they've been historically revised into perfect beings, idolized, etc. when in reality they were a bunch of wealthy new world land owners who didnt like the kings taxes, far more than they didnt like representation in Parliament. people attribute democracy, truth, freedom, etc to these founders inherently, when in reality it was about money as much or more than any of that. a fact u dont hear people touch on often.

You seem triggered



I love when conservatives get angry at liberals for being elitist. Bitch this country was founded on elitism.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on May 5 2020 01:12pm

Do we attribute a Boeing 747 to the Wright Brothers? Should we attribute it to them?

If we attribute the Boeing 747 to the Wright Brothers then we attribute America's Democracy to Locke

that's not what im saying. to follow the same comparison it would be like saying "the wright brothers foresaw that some day less than 100 years later 300 passenger planes would fly across the pacific ocean, and would have made that same plane if they had the machines to create the parts".

the founding fathers were dominoes in a string of great ideas and leaders, not a pack of Nostradamus like prophets confined by their society.

honestly i dont even think we disagree, bit odd you came at me so hyperbolically with cat/dog nonsense.

because cats and dogs in 2020 are comparable to blacks and women in 1770



it's hyperbolic to say that the lack of women votes prevented it from being a democracy. The fact that their standards of citizenship seem barbaric by modern standards doesn't prevent their system from being a democracy (fundamentally speaking)

This post was edited by Kayeto on May 5 2020 01:30pm

you're strawmanning like crazy bruh. i realize they were in line with their age. my point is that people now adays dont always realize that, and ignore their barbaric standards to idolize them.

again we seem in agreement, you just seem intent on strawmanning me. u can stop if you'd like.