On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Dan Minette wrote:
> I have tremendous respect for the founders of this nation. But, you do have
> to remember that they were politicians, not theorists. I think much of the
> American mythology surrounding them actually decreases a true appreciation
> of their efforts. I am more than willing to accept that the founders of
> this country had more than their narrow self interests at heart. I also
> agree that they made a radical step. But, they did not make a full step to
> the democracy that we have today.
> Dan M.
Now, Dan, you know that saying something like this is waving a red flag in
front of a bull :-) Part of what makes the Founders so special is
precisely that they were theoreticians, not just politicians. In fact,
three of the most important ideas in democratic political theory were
developed by the Founding Fathers, most specifically in the Federalist
Papers - still the best explication and defense of republican government
ever written. In fact the idea of a Federal government, the idea that a
multiplicity of conflicting interests would actually make for good
government, and the idea that a large republic would actually be _better_
governed than a smaller one were all original ideas of the Founding
Fathers that they first propounded, that were directly contradictory to
all previous philosophies of democratic government, and have been proven
to be essentially correct. When they wrote the American Constitution they
created a government more similar to that of the Roman Republic than any
other government in the world since the time of Augustus, but it wasn't
terribly similar to that of Rome either - it was a largely original
creation, and remains, in Harvey Mansfield's words, "the foremost creation
of political science."
Gautam Mukunda
