The views of our founding fathers

                Now today I’m going to talk about the founding fathers. Mainly just what my views are on them. First off there is an article titled “American Genesis: In treating the nation’s founders as holy relics American forgets they were revolutionaries and risk-takers.” and before I read it I am going to tell you what my initial thoughts on the founding fathers was. Initially when someone mentioned the the phrase founding fathers I immediately picture john Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, etc.; signing the declaration of independence (The painting by John Trumbull). My other immediate thought is war. George Washington comes to mind when I think war. Back in those days and he was a founding father. He was the first President of the united states and commander of the revolutionary army. Also when I hear founding fathers I think of our constitution. I think all the amendments and articles of confederation. I also think of John Adams. He was the second president of the united states. He was also a lawyer that freed British soldiers at the Boston massacre. Next I think of Benjamin Franklin. Honestly you have to admit when you hear that name the $100 bill comes to mind (at least for me anyway). I also think that all these men were great innovative thinkers and heroes for some. I also think they were very courageous for standing up against Britain (Their mother county).

                Now I am going to tell you my views on the founding fathers, now that I have read the passage “American Genesis: In treating the nation’s founders as holy relics American forgets they were revolutionaries and risk-takers” my views on the founding fathers have change a bit. At first I thought the founding fathers had it all planned out and knew what they were doing. Turns out they were clueless on a bunch of stuff. They took big risk and I quote from the article “The ice was thin, but was interesting, exhilarating… How in fact do we know what kind of government best serves the people who live there? What sort of data should we use Our Senses Nature? History? The American revolutionaries wondered; they did not know.” That actually took me by surprise because I thought this was all like a revelation to them; the constitution and government concepts. Turns out actually that John Locke said it himself that “knowledge comes from our five senses. It does not come from ideas that god has implanted ion our minds.” I was even more surprised when I heard they freely admitted that they didn’t know most of the answers to the questions people had. This however made them strong in the fact that doubt is what led our country and the article talks about that in depth. Even though they were clueless they sought hard to find the answers and along the way was some philosophy and conspiracy. My mind has come to the conclusion that these guys were dumb genius. That is because they make really dumb decisions and they learn and become smart by doing this.

The Views of Our Founding Fathers

The Founders of America are a crucial part in the history of the United States. These Founders helped America become a place for families to live and make it their home. The Founders created all of the needed information for the United States to have before becoming a nation, such as The Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The Founders might have done some questionable things but overall they made a huge impact on America. Without the Founders, America could be a totally different place ran by people that could have ruined everyone's lives. These men were the reason everything started to change in America for the better. They were very helpful in creating America and determining what should be apart of America. They also helped get out of Great Britain's control. The Founding Fathers are part of the reason America is a free nation. When they signed the Declaration of Independence, it made us free and without them signing it there's no telling what could have happened. These men were so great with what they did. They saved everyone from Britain and everyone was so thankful for them. The Founders had to be brave with this, however. They could have made a mistake with signing this and it could have affected everyone. Luckily, the Founders made everything better for all the people in America. These men made a huge on everyone living in America so the people learned how to trust and help others make it through everything going on around them. This changed everyone's lives forever.

After reading the article, my views changed about the Founding Fathers. These men really might have not even known what they were talking about, yet we as a whole chose to follow them and trust that they knew what they were doing. They could have wrote a bunch of random things in the documents that we have that made us do different things than what we do now. They could have tricked us because no one had the time to go through and read every word of any of these documents. This could have also been a trick that Great Britain was playing and when we fell for it everything could have changed. Luckily, the Founders knew what they were doing and all the people trusted them. If this fable would have been real, there is no telling how different the world could have been. The Founders could have made the world miserable if they really wanted to. However, they decided to make it to where everyone could live freely in this world. The Founders still are a great group of men that came together to accomplish many goals for the United States, but the people still should have looked more into all of this to make sure everything was going to work out for them in the end. The people were brave enough to trust these men with the lives of everyone living in America and trusted that these men had read the documents carefully before signing them. Thankfully, the Founding Fathers were trustworthy men that everyone looked up too and made the world a better place for everyone.

My first views on Founding Fathers

 I believe the founding fathers are some of the most important people in American history, and rightly so because they basically started the whole country. Still it's crazy how the way the government was almost built to fail, then the fathers saved the country with ratifying the constitution. The way the unicameral system was put into place because in Britain they had no representation and no power was given to the states. The effect was overcompensation when making the new United States. Knowing that the constitution was going to fail the ratifyists (that's what I'm going to call them) saw the wrongs in the country and changed it into the longest lasting constitution in the world. The ideas of checks and balances, bicameral legislative branch, the way the justice system has a way of working out, and the fact that there is not a KING. Also it is amazing how they still stayed true to the beliefs that started the revolution including no taxation without representation and Locke's natural rights. But we also have to address the lines in the constitution that at the time were not true to the fold. The statement that, "all men are created equal," is a statement that at the time just meant rich white guys with land. This does not include African American slaves or the fact of women not having suffrage rights. This is one of the few tweaks that Jefferson did not tell the whole truth, maybe to him, but not to readers who will follow every word

The Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers founded the United States of America. It's hard to imagine just off the top of your head creating a new country, it's even crazier to come up with a country that would become the envy of all other countries. That's just what the founding fathers did. Hot off of the Revolutionary War win, the colonies found themselves in a difficult situation. They had to figure out how to create a country. They listened to what the colonists wanted and figured out ways to implement it into the constitution. Luckily, they had some help from other countries' constitutions. The founding fathers were very smart. They observed what worked in a country and what didn't. They took what worked and applied it to their constitution. One thing that didn't work at first was the dividing of power. The founding fathers, who feared strong and powerful central governments decided to give most of the power to the states. This didn't work because the central government was not able to do anything. This was not a bad thing though. This would allow the country to learn from its mistakes and make better decisions. The founding fathers were very wise. They set up the country to learn along the way. They made sure that things could be added to the constitution to make it more practical. It's hard to imagine that these Founding Fathers thought that far into the future when creating the country. To this day the United States of America is still learning. We can thank the Founding Fathers for creating a strong foundation for us to build a country on.




From what is taught it seems the Founding Fathers were confident and got it all right the first time, but that is far from the truth. The author compares the founders to skaters skating on thin ice. They were curious. They didn't have a clue how to create a country, but they were curious. The founders asked questions about everything. They wondered about everything. The author says that today we see the founding fathers as people who did not make mistakes and knew everything that needed to go in to creating a government. The author states that doubt was a key quality  of the American revolutionaries. The founding fathers doubted things. They doubted each other's ideas about the new government, but this caused them to think deeper. John Locke said that language was a big misunderstanding. Basically words can mean anything. This influenced the founders to make the Constitution not just words, but for people to interpret what the words meant, for the people to decide what the Constitution was to them personally. The arts and Enlightenment ideas of the time, had a great influence on the Constitution. The
 influence was that things can be viewed and understood in many different ways. Enlightenment ideas helped create and give the United States meaning. The authors main point though, is that doubt and uncertainty are what drives everything. Uncertainty brings questions, people sought for answers, and these answers create more questions. It's a pattern that continues and drives us on. So the truth is, this country was created on the foundation of not knowing, curiosity, and doubt, things we view as weaknesses, that are truly strengths.

Week 2

The colonist revolt against the British Empire was caused by taxes. They were okay with being controlled by England at first, but like any other person they got tired of someone telling them what to do. The colonist wanted what they wanted and when England tried to handle it, but it was too late. The taxes were their attempt on trying to handle it, but it only made things worse. The colonist would treat the tax collectors badly then started boycotting goods. So, England decided to get rid of taxes except on tea. Well since the colonies got what they wanted the first time by pitching a fit they did the same thing with the taxed tea. Colonist began smuggling tea to the Dutch.Which would eventually lead to the Boston tea party. The colonist dumped tea off of English ships which was considered the Boston tea party. So basically, the colonist fought for what they wanted and it worked. 

The colonists decided to revolt against the British mainly because of taxes. At first the colonists were fin with being taxed and controlled by England, but as time passed the colonists wanted more freedoms and less taxes. England tried to pull the loosened reigns on the colonists tighter, but it was too late when they tried. The English attempted to tighten the reigns on the colonists by increasing taxes and sent more soldiers to the colonies. The colonists didn't like this and they reacted by boycotting goods and beating up tax collectors. Eventually the English gave up for a time and removed the taxes on everything except tea. Not long after the taxes were revoked the colonists decided they wanted more rights, so the English attempted to raise taxes and prevent tea smuggling by closing ports. The colonists didn't like Britain's course of action so they made it clear by dumping tea off of a English ship bringing it in, and once again boycotting British goods and beating up tax collectors. Once again defeated the British gave up and removed taxes and lowered the price on tea to stop smuggling. The colonists have experienced many unfair taxations just because England wanted to keep their colonies from revolting, but it ultimately led to the revolution.

Over the past week or two we've been discussing and reading that the British King and parliament have been taxing with out good moral reasoning other than profit from the colonies.
Over the years they had taxed everything from tea to paper and it doesn't even make sense to the colonist because there is no reasons tax other than sheer profit. The colonist were also very poorly represented. The colonists where represented by parliament. The king and parliament said every one is subject to parliament and King. Where as in the colonists mindset they expressed that the colonies were in equal with the King and Parliament. The kings and parliament had put up with and laughed at the previous actions of the colonies as if they were a teenager throwing a temper fit and threatening to run away. They saw all of this as cute and actually eventually gave in to the teenage colonist wishes. proving to the colonists that if they say the things that are bothering them and on their mind they can change the way England will treat them. So things started to brew like the colonists started to boycott the English goods and instead smuggled the Tea and goods from the Dutch Merchants. This enraged England and they lowered their price to lower than what the Dutch merchants. Even this didn't stop the Americans colonies from boycotting since they knew it would work. This all eventually led to the Boston tea party. All of these events were big influences saying that the American colonies can work around the British and that England does not scare them. Which is why they DARE  to rebel.