[pranjalv123]

The American Revolution was fought in part to preserve slavery [1] and to allow westward expansion at the expense of the Native Americans [2]. Tens of thousands of slaves, as well as most of the Native American tribes, fought alongside the British.

I also don't quite understand what you mean when you say that the Founding Fathers didn't establish an aristocracy of their own: the first five presidents were involved with writing the Constitution and establishing the Federal government, and the sixth president was one of their sons!

1: https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/23/was-the-american-rev...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_1763

[TangoTrotFox]

Basing your views on meandering blogs from a hyper partisan site is typical for the times, but an extremely bad idea. Read the actual views of the founding fathers on slavery. This article [1] sums things in a pretty balanced way. Jefferson actually wrote against slavery in the initial draft of the declaration of independence.

Of course he also owned slaves along with many other founding fathers, yet institutional ideals and personal action are often detached. For instance Apple products today are produced in factories where workers earn a pittance per day while living in on-site dormitories surrounded by suicide nets. And we can go much more overt as many chocolate treats are produced as a direct product of slave labor which is still rife in West Africa - companies like Hershey and Nestle being some of the biggest sponsors there. And then there's your seafood, or catfood and other seafood derivatives.

Okay all that aside, another big point is that the United States' original view was one of an extremely minimal federal government. States would essentially be similar to nations in terms of sovereignty, but united under a single flag for collective defense and other necessities. Slavery remained a major issue throughout the founding of the country. The Republican party was actually founded in large part as the anti-slavery party. Founded in 1854, the party's first president would be elected in 1860 - Abraham Lincoln.

Imagine Musk, and SpaceX, succeeds in their mission to colonize Mars. And Mars ends up electing its own representatives. Who do you think they might pick to the highest role available? That a people are highly reverent of the people that lead them towards progress has nothing to do with aristocracy.

[1] - https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Sl...

[ForHackernews]

> institutional ideals and personal action are often detached

Yeah, there's a word for that: hypocrisy.

[natecavanaugh]

Yes and shouldn't our first goal to be to examine ourselves for it and understand that sometimes that our culture and times and the systems involved make living in a purely idealistic state either untenable or at least make it incredibly hard for us to have any cultural impact towards the better?

For some, living any part of the system is hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance. For others, it's trying their best to live towards their ideals while also understanding that progress is a constant journey. And for some, it's a mix of both.

Being human and flawed isn't unique to any one person or group. It's the default, and I tend to think that those who throw hypocrisy towards others should eliminate it from their lives first. I have yet to meet a single person who has done that, and even the extreme ascetics or saints engage in some form or other. Armchair quarterbacking someone else's hypocrisy a few centuries after the fact seems even harder to pull off without at least some level of humility towards our own institutional blindness.

[ForHackernews]

Sure, we're all guilty of it to one degree or another. You call it "armchair quarterbacking", I call it dealing honestly with flawed people in history. I don't understand the reflexive impulse (in this thread and elsewhere) to try and absolve revered historical figures of their very real crimes and yes, hypocrisies.

[natecavanaugh]

Oh, I wasn't implying that I think he or any figure should be "absolved" of anything.

If we're all guilty of hypocrisy in some form or another, and we all struggle with it, and the person your describing is dead and can do nothing to change that fact, what is actually the point?

I mean, there are times hypocrisy is overt and blatant, and times when it's subtle and we don't see it in ourselves. In those times, I think it should be called out on, and even historically, it can be useful to make the distinction between outright deceit and phoniness to cognitive dissonance to just being unaware.

With Thomas Jefferson, or most people from the past, I can't know which part of the spectrum of hypocrisy they fell on.

I think it's fair for you to be honest and point it out, but it's so often used as a pejorative statement without any nuance into the relative ways in which we could easily be talking about ourselves.

But again, I don't say any of this to try to defend or deny the sins of those in the past, those should be discussed frankly and out in the open.