The political landscape in the United States has become a tumultuous stage of obfuscation and derision over the last century. It seems that with every new movement, every revolution and every change of regime, we move ever closer to social institutions and government processes that are not only needlessly complex, but stepped in internal workings that are not accessible to the average American. This problem is only worsened by complex social lies, or what I have come to refer to as “social myths”. A social myth is typically used by one of the major American political parties to confuse the American people and to advance an agenda.
Social myths can be recognized by their utter contempt for fact and reality but an accepted status amongst society, as if it were mere common sense. While many people are guilty of this act, this has become a tried and true practice for the GOP for as long as I can remember. Examples from recent years include the “death panels” incident, the birther movement, the utter acceptance of capitalism as the ultimate form of government, and the single standard of United States foreign policy. Each of these social myths serves a purpose in promoting a view, but is not based in truth, and instead acts as a ubiquitous idea, seemingly harmless in nature but deceptive by intent.
The Tea Party is a perfect example of what a social myth can do. This is a group of people who truly believe that what we need right now is to get back to this countries roots, but they unwittingly support legislation that will not only worsen their lifestyle, but will harm the lifestyle of others.
One of the most damaging of these social myths is the phrase “the founding fathers” coined by Warren Harding in 1916 at the Republican National Convention. Rather than the phrase falling into antiquity as it should have, it has become a key phrase when major political reforms are considered. “What would the founders do?” they ask, as if the founders of this nation had to face the complex political challenges that we do today. To make myself clear, I do not intend to diminish the accomplishments of the founding fathers or to damage their character, but upon minimal study it can be shown that the “founding fathers” had very different goals and morals than most Americans do today.
The Constitutional Convention that established our form of government instituted practices that are very different from the government that we experience today.
One stark difference is that aside from allowing citizens to vote in elections for the House of Representatives, there was very little expansion of true democracy. The founders were mostly staunch intellectuals, and actually feared rapid expansion of democratic rights because they did not trust the masses to be intelligent enough to make the correct choice. Enter the Electoral College. Each state had their own set of electors who would vote for the Presidency and the Senate, because the common man could not be trusted to do so.
Even worse, in a further effort to keep the common man from voting, all of the original 13 colonies adopted property qualifications under the original constitution. This was not abolished until 1840 under Andrew Jackson where voting rights were extended to all white males. Even more than this, the original founders did not see slavery to be an important enough issue to address in their newly drafted constitution. Instead of abolishing slavery entirely, they compromised with the South and compromised their morals in the same move, deciding that slaves were only worth 3/5ths of a normal person. Do not confuse this as an attempt to give slaves of the times the rights that they deserved, it was merely a way of allowing the southern states to pull more weight in the electoral process.
The way these men are portrayed in popular culture and in the political sphere is not based in fact. The GOP and other strict constitutionalists would seek to use the founders as a shield, turning them into a false idol of our complacent nature, one that we must strictly adhere to, and as such, progress is the enemy. As if these traditional values can be kept without wavering throughout the ages, regardless of the fact that society is constantly changing and evolving. Despite the fact that common morality is in a constant state of flux, we continue to ask ourselves what they would have done in our situation, and vilify those who suggest doing otherwise (whether that accusation has basis in fact or not). We use them as the benchmark for our tools of social and economic justice, instead of asking ourselves “is this change right for us?”, or “is this right for the American people?”
We are not yet past the point in this country when we can stop considering moral and ethical issues in our legislation. We have not yet crafted a perfect document that we can easily adhere to, because this is contrary to human nature. As our collective morality changes, we must constantly evaluate our current standing, because just as our constitution has done many times before in the form of amendments, we too must change; we must amend ourselves.