FM> others (Stalin).  If you see no difference in this and the varieties of
 FM> thought on which the "fathers" of the American revolt against England
 FM> drew upon and still considered only the best they could do and capable
 FM> of being altered even in the deepest aspect of sovereignty later then I
 FM> don't know that I could offer much more evidence of the VAST difference
 FM> in our positions.
 JB> Hence, the brillance of our founding fathers.  However, do you not see
 JB> this was our founding father's dogma, the belief they "considered only
 JB> the best they could do and capable of being altered even in the deepest
 JB> aspect of sovereignty later ...."? Our founding fathers did do something
 JB> new, and did so by -NOT- doing what has gone before.
   No, John, most definitely NOT.  You have only to compare Robespierre's and
his contemporaries' slaughter of Frenchmen en masse to insure absolute mental
and physical conformity with the slogans of the French Revolution with the
peaceful social revolution taking place within American societies as the
colonies carried through their rebellion against the British Crown and
Parliament (first as Englishmen themselves) toward independence.
   Any working American historian would tell you that the American
Constitution was the furtherst thing from a political "dogma."  It is 
ommonly
characterized as a "bundle of compromises" and those who cobbled together the
strong "dogmatic" interests of the various sections of the country into a
document could only HOPE that it would work at all.  Without the power later
claimed by the Supreme Court (considered by some ideologues as BAD) and the
levying of taxes (Whiskey Rebelion) to assert its legitimacy it probably 
ould
NOT have survived.  Calhoun later developed the "dogma" of "concurrent
majorities" to stave off the fight we now know as the "Civil War."  
   State constitutions (for reasons that I will not go into here) have tended
toward the ideological because of the original fear of the English governors
and for that reason they have had to be changed more frequently.  Here in
Louisiana we've had at least two entirely new constitutions in this century.  
   The brilliance of our "founding fathers" lay in their wisdom in drawing
upon many sources, ancient and modern for political canons and in the Bill of
Rights upon the centuries of English traditions of slow curtailment of
monarchical power.  Ideologues they most definitely were NOT.  Many kept up
with and embraced the scientific efforts of the civilized western world of 
he
day.
 JB> Yes, they did, however, haven't -you- defined ideology as "discovered
 JB> final and unalterable truth...."  You have set ideology to be
 JB> "discovered final and unalterable truth...."
   Yes, that is what the ideologues think it is.
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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