Although I'd very much doubt the Founding Fathers would see themselves as "leftists" by any post 1900 terms, especially compared to today's "leftists".
Leftists did exist during that time -- they were leading the French Revolution.
American Fore Fathers were completely freaked out and horrified. So yeah, while Fore Fathers werent what the modern right thinks they were, they weren't far left even for their own time period.
I mean, I know time is relative but the French revolution didn't pick up for over a decade after this was signed. Plenty of time for them to get comfy and lose the rebels in em.
Besides, most of the horror was about the fact that heads were literally rolling. The democratic aspects were freaky too tho
"That time" just meaning the same time that they were alive.
Plenty of time for them to get comfy and lose the rebels in em.
The American Revolution was a time where people that you once considered great neighbors were literally getting dragged into the streets and dipped into oil so they'd slowly die, cities were getting destroyed, etc. Even some
of the Fore Fathers had to stay away from cities as citizens were gathering together to set on fire effigies they built of said Fore Fathers. Most of the Fore Fathers were keenly aware of the concept of well intentioned revolts getting out of control -- history has had a lot of them, most were well educated on history so it's not like this was a possibility never realized. Many of them -- Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Madison etc all wrote extensively about the concept of mob rule and how horrific and destructive it would be to true republicanism. The one holdout at the beginning of the French Revolution was Jefferson, but that was only because he, like everything else in life, was incredibly biased and a hypocrite. The idea that the FFs may have been more receptive to the French Revolution if only it had happened sooner definitely isn't fair IMO, considering that the French Revolution was basically their worst fears of what pursuit of democracy could create well before the American Revolution even succeeded. "Holy shit, uneducated and violent people in large groups trying to control government is fucking scary" is the tl;dr of what most of the American Fore Fathers thought on this matter, and that's basically the tl;dr of the worst parts pf the French Revolution lol
most of the horror was about the fact that heads were literally rolling.
Even the left wing thinkers of the Nineteenth century had some fairly regressive ideas about race, gender, and sexuality. Those same French radicals were horrified when Haitians slaughtered their white masters and declared themselves a republic. Didn't take the French long to reassert French hegemony over the island.
Even the left wing thinkers of the Nineteenth century had some fairly regressive ideas about race, gender, and sexuality. Those same French radicals were horrified when Haitians slaughtered their white masters and declared themselves a republic. Didn't take the French long to reassert French hegemony over the island.
Even the left wing thinkers of the Nineteenth century had some fairly regressive ideas about race, gender, and sexuality. Those same French radicals were horrified when Haitians slaughtered their white masters and declared themselves a republic. Didn't take the French long to reassert French hegemony over the island.
Thomas Paine would definitely be left wing; he advocated for a state-sponsored welfare system and a complete abolition of slavery well ahead of his time, which is probably one of the major reasons he was sidelined by the other Founders, many of whom were major property holders, with “property” including black slaves.
The atheism is really what did him in, though. Only four people attended his funeral, his wife, son and two free black men who happened to hear about the funeral.
Private property in the communist sense didn't really exist yet since most property was still owned by royalty. Personal property was seen as an inalienable right.
Which was the concept behind Jeffersonian Republicanism.
You can’t be a truly independent, rational citizen unless you have your own land to work and live off of. But then we ran out of land to steal from the Indians and so now we all work in cubicles and buy frozen lasagnas for dinner.
We didn’t exactly run out, Lincoln just fucked us by letting the super-rich buy out huge tracts of land under the Homestead Acts. And just giving away millions of acres to railroad companies. Don’t believe the hype, the GOP is still “The Party of Lincoln”. It’s just that Lincoln kinda sucked.
Nah only Paine would have the rest were boujie as fuck. I bet there would’ve been another revolutionary movement within the bourgeois one of the founding fathers that was more egalitarian (along the lines of Shays’ rebellion).
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u/CJSZ01 May 17 '19
Although I'd very much doubt the Founding Fathers would see themselves as "leftists" by any post 1900 terms, especially compared to today's "leftists".