The line in the political sand is growing very long...

[AOR]

16. "Our founders" were white capitalist slave-owners...

interested in protecting the private property of such. Nothing more and nothing less. The sooner people get the tooth-fairy idea out of their head that the "founding fathers" had benevolence of the WHOLE in mind the better off we'll be going forward.

As a leftist friend put it...

"The pattern that was set by the Revolution and the Constitution persists today. The net results of that pattern are tyranny and destruction. Who was set free by the revolution and for what purposes? Who is protected by the Constitution? Those who find a way to rise, to make a fortune one way or another - born to it, marry it, use capitalism to amass it, kiss up to it as some sort of court jester - as with the attorneys for the wealthy and powerful. This is a distinctly American pattern, and is not a law of the universe or the inevitable outcome of something about human nature.

This new class - from New England shipping magnates to slave traders to bankers to real estate speculators to brokers to dealers and developers, with their connections and law degrees and control over the legislatures - ascended to power and remains in power. Those whose skills and contributions cannot be leveraged into massive fortunes are left behind. We can't expect a nurse or a teacher to make a fortune selling their skills on the supposed free market, and that means they are powerless in the American system, unless they organize, and the history of the country is an ongoing ruthless suppression of such organizing.

The Revolution liberated, and the Constitution protects, a new group of striving, upwardly mobile men and a particular path to amassing wealth and gaining power. The crown was a check on their lust for power. The working class didn't benefit by the Revolution and is not protected by the Constitution. Were that true, then we would expect to find that the working class would have been dramatically worse off in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and in the UK itself over the years.

We are to believe that because we threw off the monarchy, and because we don't have a European style landed aristocracy, that we are therefore “free.” Pointing out that there were working class men fighting in the Revolution who, "whether or not they had property demanded the franchise" tells us nothing. Working class people at all times and places have yearned to overthrow the tyranny of the aristocracy. That doesn't legitimatize or mitigate the replacement of one tyranny with another."