First, I said: > > As well, the feeling of those who "designed" the US (the Founding > > Fathers?) was that they had a rare chance to start with a clean slate.
Then Bob retorted: > > Not so rare, really. In England we did it in (at least) 1215, 1649 and > 1688/9. These were revolutions which restricted the power of the > monarchy and led to the supremacy of Parliament through the drafting > of revolutionary laws. In France they did it in 1789. In 1848 it > happened throughout Europe. In 1989 it happened again. Since the 1960s > the former colonies have gained their independence, and had the opportunity > to start from scratch (although they were severely hamperred by Cold War > politics from actually achieving what they should have been able to), > but South Africa has a chance that most of the other African countries > didn't get. > > -- > Cheers, > My name is Bob, and I approved this message. > I feel that matching wits with you, Bob, is much like using a peashooter to shoot down a B-52; a somewhat one-sided affair. <vbg> BUT (here goes - gulp!), what I was trying to say, is that the ~framers~ of the US Constitution ~thought~ that they were engaging in a bold new social experiment. At least, IIRC (and please don't anyone ask me to point to specifics), that's what they expressed in their commentaries and correspondence WRT said Constitution. They thought they were starting with a clean slate, unencumbered by the shackles of history. And, in a way, they were. They didn't have to wrest power away from the monarch: They already had it. They beat the monarch in a war, had a (pretty much) new land, and got to make up a whole new written constitution which empowered a new type of government. That's not at all the same as the gradual constitutional reform in England that started with the Magna Carta in 1215 (is that right? I think so...) and continues to this very day. This wasn't reform. This was brand new. Pick and choose from some old but still good ideas, make up a bunch more new stuff. Whether they really were starting with a Tabula Rasa is most certainly arguable; my point was merely that ~they~ thought (or expressed that they thought) that was what they were doing. And, now my brain hurts. That's what I get for involving myself in such threads. <vbg> cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
