[rayiner]

> Just that those making the constitution weren't that good at it.

They were exceedingly good at it. In my country’s constitution we have all sorts of things from the american constitution, like due process, because we literally have no indigenous words for these concepts.

[bryanrasmussen]

They were extremely good, but they were not near angelic geniuses gathered together and possessed of greater wisdom and capacity by virtue of that gathering than any people ever before or since, which is what many people who like to talk up the founding fathers would have.

[rayiner]

They wrote the most influential constitution in the world which has governed the longest-lived extant republic. Most who claim to be smarter have offered mere ideas, never implemented in a real country. Such academic notions often self-destruct when confronted with reality. (I’m reminded of Ashraf Ghani, the professor who “wrote the book” on “Fixing Failed States.” When he was elected President of Afghanistan to actually put his ideas into practice, it was a disaster and resulted in the Taliban reconquering the country. Ideas without implementation are worth nothing.)

[coldtea]

And some other country might be liking those Founding Fathers concepts' even more.

So? Doesn't change the fact that they weren't very good with not letting class/race/gender/etc position influence their policy making.

And that's the claim we're discussing whether they've been good at, not whether they came up with some good new concepts like "due process" and "the right to free speech".

They had "due process" but they also had slavery.

They had "equal rights" and voting but not for poor not land-owning plebes or women.

They had "free speech" but also McCarthyism.

Their constitution didn't prevent laws describing how e.g. blacks can't sleep in the same hotels or go to the same schools as whites to be applied and be considered compatible with it.

And didn't prevent a globally huge per capita prison system, primarily targeting blacks, even today.