The Founding Fathers?.........

[Bill Spillz]

In this day and age... would they be modern-day liberals or modern-day conservatives.

I got in this huge argument about this with my pops last night.

I would say they would be flaming liberals. They left Europe because of religous oppression. They hated the notion of a combination of church of state. They had radical, progressive ideas on how a country should be run. They wanted change (a liberal/idealist attitude) Hell..........they got high too.

c'mon now

[zerojunkie]

I'd say neither.

[question]

By Today's standards, they'd probably be moderate.

[Bill Spillz]

for what reasons

Depends on which "founding Father" you're talking about.

The landed quasi-aristocracy of the South was quite different from the puritan protestant city dwellers in New England.

Compare James Mason to John Jay or John Adams to Thomas Jefferson - it'll be an odd group united by its disgust for England's rule.


However, in general they were politically "classical liberals." Which would make them more like conservatives in many respects. Although their ideas can be claimed without blushing by either side of the spectrum. Socially, they were Christians (exceptions will only prove the rule). They feared an official state religion - not religion itself... see all the references to God and the citation to God as the source of teh inalienable rights. They'd have favored sctrict constructionism in interpretting the consitution... most of them. They wanted the government to have no more authority than explicity granted in the document they drafted... and we drifted


here's a blurb on classical liberalism and its evolution

[Adam D]

Excluding a few for truly Leftist ideas, most of them would be running to the middle at the same pace as modern day Dems and Reps. They represented business interests just like their progeny 200 years later.