Trump Fires Comey

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-17-2017, 02:35 PM)David Horn Wrote: ... which makes my point.  Why would anyone existing in an era that had run for the entire breadth of known history assume that this would miraculously change in the immediate future ... or ever?

There is some validity to this. Science Fiction writers have claimed that they 'invented' the future at roughly this time, writing stories about new technologies utterly changing the world. Prior to that, it is alleged that no one noticed progress. Now would last forever.

With 20 20 hindsight, how could they not notice the world was changing? The steam engine, printing press, gunpowder and Enlightenment values had all taken hold to great effect. Fully rigged ships had made the world a much smaller place. How could they not see the future roaring down at them like an onrushing freight train, even if there weren't yet any freight trains?

Arguably, the right to bear arms was a recognition of a changing future. They had entered an age where an armed populace could have a profound beneficial effect on politics, on enforcing Enlightenment values. The right to bear arms was touted at the time as the primary right, the one that enabled all the others, with considerable truth. This was a definite change from the Agricultural Age norms, when the elite military and land owning classes forbade weapons to the common man.

But there is truth to what you say. It is not easy to anticipate inventions or the effects of them on a culture. The founding fathers acted on what they saw in the English Civil War and American Revolution, their immediate past. They did not clearly see the future. Certain principles had been noted and declared holy. Other things were not anticipated. Given democracy, common men with arms did not remain the primary force for cultural change. Democracy was an experiment. They did not foresee how well it would work.

Regardless, what we've got is a Constitution written in the aftermath of the English Civil War and American Revolution. The wisdom of that era, however incomplete, is what got carved in stone.