I've always been fascinated by our Revolutionary period, and have read a lot on the subject. My shelves are filled with books by authors who concentrate on America in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Gordon Wood, John Ferling, Joseph Ellis, David McCullough, Allen Pell Crawford . . . to name just a few. Their books are generally solid, well-researched, occasionally provocative. But while they're not abject hagiography, the kind you might find in home-schooling kits, they do suffer from our myths and help reinvent them for newer generations. They are important to read, but it is more important to transcend them.
We need antidotes of reality. The truth. Not fairy tales. Not myths. We need better history, the kind that does not assume "greatness" for any man or group or generation. Eric Foner recently wrote a book about a later historical period that moves in the right direction. His The Fiery Trial made far fewer assumptions about Lincoln, and bravely spelled out his deep flaws as well as his triumphs.
Still another kind of history is even rarer, unfortunately. The kind that deals objectively with capitalism, with the system of capitalism and its effects, and America's role in those effects. One of the best books about the origins of capitalism is Michael Perelman's The Invention of Capitalism, which details its violent, coercive origins in primitive accumulation and the part that the state and political economists played in its rise. This book is a revelation for those who believe in the fairy tales we've been fed for decades, even centuries. And I've recently finished the excellent and essential The Making of Global Capitalism, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, which adds to the impact of Perelman's work. This is what history should be. Heavily researched and sourced, comprehensive, probing, as it casts off the myths and fairy tales beaten into us from Day One. It's a must-read for those who want to see the Big Picture of how governments created, maintain, fight for, defend and expand capitalism (by force, subterfuge and extortion) into every nook and cranny of the world and our lives -- with America in the lead.
More under the fold.
But, back to the "original intent" of this diary. The idea that we should care what the founders thought with regard to government, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. The idea that we should still be guided, in 2014, by a few white slaveholders. Well, I find that almost as appallingly stupid as ceding one's judgment and analyses over to small groups of desert nomads who lived 2500 to 2000 years ago.
The issue of the second amendment, of course, looms large within this cracked idea. What did they really intend? Why did they really put that amendment into the BOR? And why should we care? First off, in Internet debates about this, RKBA supporters typically toss off misquotes by the founders with the same reckless disregard for truth as the Breitbarts of this world. Any trip to urban legend sites, or, better yet, foundational sites for the white male slaveholders in question, will show how often those quotations are distorted, misappropriated or outright invented by the NRA and its peeps. Of course, the larger question is this: why should we give a damn what they intended?
Short answer? We shouldn't. We shouldn't care one iota what a small group of ruling class white male slaveholders wanted in the 18th century -- for too many reasons to recount here. But I'll give a few. First off, their world isn't our world. We have virtually nothing in common with them. So why on earth should we make public policy today according to their beliefs? Why on earth should we be guided by the thoughts and feelings of the ruling elite of any period, much less well over two hundreds year ago? What are they to us? If we are not authoritarians, or authoritarian followers, or intent on deifying our forebears, it makes zero sense to be locked down and enslaved to their vision. Again, it's almost as appalling to cede our autonomy over to them as it is to do this to bible authors.
When it comes to gun laws, the founders were dealing with single-shot weapons that were incredibly difficult to load and reload. One shot. That's it. Not 10 round magazines, which led to 30 rounds, then 100 rounds and so on. The context is so radically different just with regard to firepower, it's insane to remain stuck in the 18th century. It's insane.
Another reason? The founders represented a tiny fraction of the populace, and they didn't trust that populace very much. If they had, they wouldn't have limited voting to white males with property. While they couldn't narrow it down to just their fellow ruling class peers inside the rooms in question, they tried the next best thing they could get away with. Propertied white "gentlemen," only. The vast majority of the population wasn't even enfranchised, and some people think they trusted everyone to have guns? Again, why should we care what the 0.01% of the time thought was best? Why would anyone want to lock in their vision of America for all time?
Lastly, we've amended the Constitution nearly 30 times. We've moved far away from those founders already, as we should. They created a terribly flawed government, with some very ugly underpinnings. For those who think "original intent" is so important, would you rather we had never ended slavery, or given women the vote, or the people the right to elect senators, etc. etc.?
Why do you still cling to myths and fairy tales?