The Spirit of the Framers....

I love this little story about John Adams as an old man:

"When one young man tried to congratulate him for belonging to a truly heroic generation, Adams felt obliged to correct him: 'I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers, meaning those concerned with the direction of public affairs,' he cautioned, 'but to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merit of different periods, I have no reason to believe that we were better than you are.' "

When we study the Constitutional Convention we see that the participants were smart, but there are lots of smart people around now.

And yet, in 1787, a group that disagreed on many issues, ultimately wrote a complete Constitution for an entirely new government, that was then accepted by the people of every single state! Now, in 2017, we can't even get a health care bill passed, or reach a compromise on gun safety.

I think the biggest difference is that in 1787 leaders were debating HONESTLY, which doesn't mean they never shaded the truth but that they were sincerely trying to solve a problem. In 2017 leaders are not really trying to solve problems, they are trying to WIN and make their opponents look bad.

I think that is the difference.

I think if we could get people to argue less about parties and factions - which are hopeless arguments that never end - and argue more about problems and solutions - which are practical arguments that can lead to progress - we might be able to recapture some of the spirit of 1787 and make the world a better place!

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[Read this great book about the people who started the United States.]

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Copyright © 2017 by Joseph Wayne Gadway