Should the founding fathers be cancelled?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Not cancelled, but their wrongdoings and fallibility should be talked about more often.

Anti-"CRT" activist: "You can't teach children that they should be ASHAMED of the föunding fathers of their nation! It would surely TRAUMATIZE them! America First!"

[T'Chenka]

Not cancelled, but their wrongdoings and fallibility should be talked about more often.

Anti-"CRT" activist: "You can't teach children that they should be ASHAMED of the föunding fathers of their nation! It would surely TRAUMATIZE them! America First!"

Right wingers who have had schools coddle them for decades getting triggered over the idea of "try to avoid being unnecessarily political and just teach the students in a straight forward way" is hilarious. Not ostracizing trans kids or not pushing American history propaganda makes them lose their minds.

[DaleCooper]

Again, this idea that no one ever mentions the Founding Fathers' history with slavery is a joke. I'm sure a handful of horrible schools in the worst sh-tholes in the south still teach fake history, but when you try to tell the country as a whole that we never hear about slavery or the genocide of the American Indians, they know from experience that you're either lying or uninformed.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

No. You can't whitewash away the ugly parts of history or we will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

[certified hummus supporter 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

Sure I guess 

[Koharu]

The view for this is essentially that a good chunk of the founding fathers were slave owners, racist, trashing the poor, abusing slaves or in some cases, possibly child predators (Jefferson).

They all were problematic in different ways. That's the truth of history.

I'm not sure what "canceling" them would entail. We need to continue to teach history as best we can, presenting the realities that the framers were normal people, and like normal people, could be pretty messed up.

Part of the reason so many of them were able to sit around and research and learn was because they were able to have others do the labor necessary for their survival instead of having to do it themselves. In general, that benefit requires privilege. Privilege isn't inherently a bad thing, it's just something that needs to be acknowledged.

Anyway, the framers did some absolutely amazing things. I think, while it has issues, the constitution is a pretty amazing document. The establishment of America is really awesome. The people who helped with that were pretty amazing in a lot of ways, and most of them had admirable qualities. But a lot of them also had vices and reprehensible views, too.

If "canceling" them means taking them off a pedestal and realizing that they were complicated humans, not some sort of demi-gods, and acknowledging that people can do good things and awful things at the same time, then yeah, I'm all about "canceling" them. Which mostly means I'm all about canceling the religious-like worship of the framers that ignored the realities of the bad happening alongside the good.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Hell No

[T0rM3nTeD]

What is the definition for this thread of cancelling? I voted Yes (D) if by "cancelling" you just mean telling the truth about their pasts and not white washing it. Of course they did some good to go along with their moral failures in the past as well, which should be taught too. The history of America should be taught as it was, not as we want to hear it. So my yes vote was basically the founding fathers should not be treated fully as heroes who made the greatest document of all time, but as men who had flaws and also helped establish America. The "cancelling" would be to evaluate the constitution as it is now and see if it still makes sense centuries after they created it and not acting like they're all geniuses with no flaws.

[Christian Man]

Obviously not.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Judicial Review was disregarded by DIXIECRAT as a unconstitutional check on the state Govt, because thet wanted Apartheid, CJ Marshall did want to give Marbury his Judgeship but he wanted the ScoTUS to look strong, he the Judicial Act said that all ministers have Original Jurisdictions in SCOTUS, but Article III all judgeships must be issued thru Appellate Jurisdiction so Marbury didn't get his judgeship, which implied that any statute regardless of State of an Act by Congress or Executive Order can be nulified by SCOTUS,this, Apartheid was Nulified, APARTHEID took so long because we had Chain Gangs after slavery no Public Defenders until 1963, Blks we're sentenced to Chain Gangs by DIXIECRAT judges

So, anyone but Jefferson should be congratulations because of Judicial Review the Monarchy Today is the Whig Party not Conservative they are pro Environment and Queen Victoria even though Colonial power was off of slavery, she was close to Lady  Lincoln after Lincoln died

That's why we don't see the Monarchy as Conservative because like the Pope they reach out to charities Teddy Roosevelt and McCain were pro Environment , today's standards since they don't sit in Parliament they would be Considered the Whigs , whom in Britain was the SECULAR party before Labor and even in this country they DIXIECRAT sat on the right side of the Crt against Judicial Review , Booker T Washington was very disturbed by Grover Cleveland appointment of Melville Fuller that affirmed Plessy v Ferguson that's why he went to WH under TR not GROVER CLEVELAND

[Sol]

Not 'cancelled,' but I don't think they should be particularly canonized in American civic history and memory in the way that they often have been in the past (and to some extent the present). As a country I think we'd be much better off in emphasizing the Civil War as a founding myth rather than the American Revolution (though of course that elides complexity too, and shouldn't be taken as far as Founding Fathers worship has been).

Little kids should grow up admiring Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, not George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.

[jojoju1998]

I think we have to take a step back here.

We have to see the Founding Fathers as a Starting Point. Did they have flaws ? 100 percent. ( All of us do by the way ). But they also created a foundation on which future progress can happen. We should thank them for that foundation.

One of things I disagree with, with some; is that because the Founding Fathers were so dominant; that we can't look at History as a arc.

That's folly. The train doesn't stop moving.

[jojoju1998]

A tendentious and immature question. Beyond that, one of my heroes, a most thoroughly modern man in almost all ways except accepting duels with slime, Alexander Hamilton, abhorred slavery and never owned any.

John Adams was also not a Slave Owner ( Yet he was controversially flawed for other reasons ).

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

What does this mean

[Santander]

I've always said the Founding Fathers were the alt-right of their time.