It has become rarer as American becomes more of an oligarchy and wealth is not taxed, but passed from generation to generation. Conservative ideology is spurring this on. George Will for instance is perfectly fine with the massive increase in tuition at UCLA and UC campuses. He thinks it shoud be market based. For every working class person of talent like your friends who went to Harvard dozens others with equal talent are crushed by our system. BTW hopefully your friend is not involved in the recent financial looting of middle class dreams.
I wonder why no one is condemning them for what they did to the Native Americans (except for LScolaDominates). It was bad, it was horriffic. It MAY have affected the writing of the constitution because it would be prevalent in their political thought-process. However, since the system allows for amendments, it is irrelevant and they are insignificant now. They are not the champions of the constitution, the American people are. It is simply, IMO, through something they did somewhat right that everyone else took the lead and made it something to be proud of. I can be a head of HR and write the first, alebeit crappy, employee handbook. I don't have to subsequently be glorified for the being the first, bcause someone came along and made it worth something. Don't glorify the paper, rather glorify the theories and the system.
My Dad's side of the family came from Tennessee as well, back in the 1800's, making their way from there to Arkansas and then by covered wagon to Texas. My grandfather ended up farming cotton, but his ambition led him to a career working for the railroads, moving up, eventually, to becoming an station agent (a pretty important position back then), in small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, and the rest of the region, always having a ranch outside of town where he raised cattle as a "sideline." Dad moved himself to Houston as a teenager (long story), living with the family of his best friend, graduated at the top of his class in high school and the best job he could get during the Depression was as a guard on mail planes operating out of what became Hobby Airport. Enlisted in the Navy when the war broke out, married my mother, and was able to go to college after the war only because of one of the greatest government programs ever created (I know... the government isn't supposed to be able to do anything right), the GI Bill. Dad told me that when he was flying after high school (with a pistol in a shoulder holster), he daydreamed about going to college, but never thought he would ever be able to afford it. glynch, sometimes you are too freakin' pessimistic. And no, he had nothing to do with the recent financial disaster, thinks it is appalling, and is busy operating his own business, mostly dealing with IPO's, sometimes being the initial CFO of those companies, until they are doing well enough for him to walk away with his stock options. In his own way, he's creating jobs and making money. Nothing nefarious about it.
am i reading this wrong, or hasn't it always been this way? at what point in our history was wealth not passed on to the next generation? and, if used loosely, we've kinda always been an oligarchy as well. not tyrannical, but with few exceptions, the leaders in power have a history of being in power.
There should be individual responsibility, but if its likely that a certain group of people is more genetically predisposed to alcoholism and another group takes advantage of that, there is enough blame to go around.
That's really cool. I feel like we're almost related now. My Grandfather did the exact same thing working for the railroad, though it was mostly in Missouri, until he made his way to Texas, and also had ranch outside of Austin where he raised a few cattle, chickens, and occasionally some hogs. The railroad story is almost exactly the same thing. My dad then also enlisted in the Navy in WWII. He was in the Pacific, and then went to art school. I know I'm quite a bit younger (both my father and grandfather didn't have their respective sons until much much later than normal in their lives.) But it's cool that we have a lot of parallel's as far as family history.
I look at the Constitution the way Christians like MadMax look at the Bible, it seems like everyone knows what it is, likes to mention it, even read it, but few seem to really understand it. There is no doubt the Founders were very flawed. They were the products and masters of what was a flawed and barbarbaric time. I don't think we should excuse them for that but at the same time as an assesment of their role in history I don't think we should dwell on that either. To me its a disservice to history to try to judge everything in terms of the mores of our time because that ignores the context of when those people lived. In many ways applying our social mores to the Founders would be like expecting them to be aware of things like automobiles and computers. While the Founders were men of their times they were still geniuses in that they did create a system that decentralized power, enshrined rights and were able to look beyond their times to understand that things would change. So as much as people can bash the Founders for being slave owners and participating in a barbarous system that oppressed women and nonwhites they also laid the framework and principles by which slavery could be legally abolished and women and nonwhites could gain their freedom. When compared to anything else of that time and even since then what the Founders did was truly progressive and forward thinking.
Kind of a trip! I thought Republicans and Democrats were supposed to be polar opposites? Wow! Small world, FB. Funny how people made their way to Texas and found their way to what they'd do with life there. The land of opportunity. It really was. Texas could be pretty tough and brutal back then, as well, but people tend to last. Lasted long enough to experience the two great defining events of a generation, World War II. On the side of my Dad's mother, my Granny, her family came to Texas very early, before the revolution, and one of them has his name carved on the San Jacinto monument, something I'm probably a bit too proud of.
I don't think it is fair to fully discredit political ideologies of our ancestors because of some of the political/social institutions that existed during their lifetimes. There also were distasteful political and social institutions that existed in the 19th and 20th centuries, and there are some that still exist today, but all progress during those times should not be thrown away by virtue of the existence of those institutions.
Yes, it was a good thing they were progressive for their time. Imagine if they were wing nuts conservatives, what would this country be like today.
the constitution was probably meant to be a living document. in that sense, it would be interesting to have another constitutional convention, where we would keep most of the founding ideas, and we get to resolve some ambiguities like the second amendment, the right to privacy...etc. It would be really cool to have women, minorities, gays, rich, poor, basically a more diversed modern group sign the new constitution.
I agree with you. It's hard enough just for one amendment. In normal peaceful times, the risk is probably not worth the reward to have another convention. How do we go about selecting the delegates for example, it's fun to talk about it in an academic sense, but realistically speaking, i think the original constitution will be around for a long time.
Let's put our heads together and start a new country up Our father's father's father tried, erased the parts he didn't like - REM
