[cbozeman]

> Majority of Americans (and most people I'd imagine) do not really care about their policies. They don't give two figs about it, and just go about their life just fine without being affected by it one bit.

That's the problem with not giving a shit. When things finally do become bad enough that it affects you personally, it's too late. When it comes to standing up for what's right - and I define what's "right" as mostly what the Constitution of the United States lays forth as our inalienable rights, you better give a shit from the word "go" and you better oppose it stridently because once freedoms get stripped away from you, they're nearly impossible to recover.

I can't even imagine how the Founders would react to things like the PATRIOT Act.

And we can blather on all goddamn day about "muh private corporations!" but when these corporations are actively suppressing competitors and are working hand-in-hand with news outlets to label any new alterative as a Mos Eisley-esque shithole that no respectable person would frequent, the point is moot.

Facebook and Twitter are the modern day public square. Some people will want to claim it's "The Internet" itself; you can just go make your own public square and publish your own website, etc., but that's not actually how a public square works. Just because you hop on your tractor and box blade your front yard flat and pave it over with concrete and add some park benches to it, doesn't turn it into the public square. You actually have to have the public actively occupying it. The public square is where the people are. And the people are on Facebook and Twitter... at least in America.

[Broken_Hippo]

I can't even imagine how the Founders would react to things like the PATRIOT Act.

I can't even take this seriously. These are the same folks that kept people as property. Didn't make sure everyone could vote (male land owners only). They founded the country on land stolen from folks already living here. It isn't like the founders were really beacons of freedom, at least not if you use today's standards and honestly, they'd not even have a grasp of the events leading up to it. Perhaps they'd back it up considering how glaringly the world has changed since then.

I'm sure it is supposed to make folks think the country is straying from its foundations, but look around: People that aren't straight, white land owners are walking around with all these rights and freedom and stuff. That's already happened long ago. Maybe straying is a really good thing.

[bliteben]

Imagine being born into several flawed systems, risking everything, and many had a lot to risk to fix one aspect of a system and being judged because you didn't fix everything. You act like the founding fathers created slavery on their own. The freedom given to the world by the US and by extension Napoleon was not some inevitable thing and its not something that will necessarily persist either as we can easily judge from mankind's very limited written history.

[Breza]

Well said. Judging historical figures by modern standards isn't fair. We should look at each person as a flawed human being and take away lessons from what they did right and what they did wrong.

[Broken_Hippo]

It is fair when folks are speculating what the people from the past would say about modern problems - which is what this started out as. If one is wrong but not the other, some folks aren't arguing in good faith.

[Breza]

"I can't even imagine how the Founders would react to things like the PATRIOT Act."

That might not be the best argument. Remember that the First Amendment passed only a few years before the awful Sedition Act, which would never pass modern judicial review.