Gee Wally,
That's not the way my 4th grade history teacher learned us! And Columbus and the way things really were in America...
Gawrsch Mickey! Uhyuuh! And we blame the Republicans for their topical revision of history! Wonder where they got the idea?
Nex thing you know, they'll be telling us we put a man on the Moon!

Old Ben at least had the advantage of speaking only to his own kind, white people unlikely to be seriously offended on behalf of those voiceless blacks and mulattos. I like seeing quotes like this, which put the revered founding fathers into perspective as men -- exclusively men, of course -- of their own time. I was disappointed that Elena Kagan kept silent and refrained from putting forward such perspective to those GOP senators who expressed unconstrained reverence for those founding fathers, seemingly ignorant of the fact that their great legacy has undergone substantial modernization over the course of 27 amendments.

Good afternoon, rm hitchens.

In fact, it was not only the Amendments to the Constitution, but more deeply, the constitutional law constructed over the centuries since Marbury v. Madison that defined exactly what the Constitution meant; and what it meant, if only slowly and fitfully, adapted to the development of understanding based upon precedents in tension with social consequences.

That is the power of common law as opposed to purely statutory law. As an odd result, though, over a period of decades and centuries, we can supplant the past that really happened with a narrative that offers the colors of modernity and its sentimentalities about the stark relief between black and white.

"Notwithstanding the possibility that civilizations can evolve deepening understandings of rightful thought and action, the people of the present era should not be held to a standard of enlightenment any more refined than the people of the past, certainly not within the cabin of the broad and long-lived arc of Western Civilization. Cruelty, inhumanity, hate, and injustice swiftly emerged as undesirable and were understood as such well before the time of our Founding Fathers."

I'm not sure I agree with this, for the simple reason that (I'd like to think) that a man such as Benjamin Franklin (a man, at least in our legends, famously open to science and the data the scientific method provides) had he access to the data we now have, would not think as Mr. Gibson appears to think.

" I like seeing quotes like this, which put the revered founding fathers into perspective as men -- exclusively men, of course -- of their own time. I was disappointed that Elena Kagan kept silent and refrained from putting forward such perspective to those GOP senators who expressed unconstrained reverence for those founding fathers, seemingly ignorant of the fact that their great legacy has undergone substantial modernization over the course of 27 amendments."

Touché. Likewise, I see what the Dark Wraith means when he asserts that Common Law has profoundly influenced how exactly we interpret the Constitution.

Good evening, Oddjob, and welcome back to the comment threads after an absence much too long.

Suffer me a brief anedote about Franklin. It seems that in this same time period when he was whipping up sentiments against non-Anglo-Saxons, he was invited to visit a school where Negro children were being educated. The standards and curriculum were pretty much the same as those used in any other school of the time.

Upon completing his visit, he is reputed to have expressed his surprise that the schooling had made the kids about as intelligent as any other children.

Mr. Franklin's writings subsequent to this revelation did not show any evidence that he was willing to stop race-bating to achieve his political and social goals.

It seems the stakes were too high in Mr. Franklin's estimation to allow stark evidence to interfere with compelling agenda.

To that extent, Benjamin Franklin was, as praise would have it, a man for all times.

"Upon completing his visit, he is reputed to have expressed his surprise that the schooling had made the kids about as intelligent as any other children."

DW,
Perhaps we could find that school today and see if its curricula could help ALL of our alleged students? Wouldn't that be novel?

Of course, (Dr.?) Pat Robertson would undoubtedly hire him to t(pr)each at Liberty! Or he could be a consultant to Jeff Sessions.

Ain't America grand?

Perhaps I am jaded; I don't necessarily expect enlightened behavior---people don't change that fast.
What I wonder is this---since Franklin did many good things to make people forget or overlook his more ignorant moments, what is Mel Gibson capable of doing to render himself more pleasantly memorable?