I'm going to write the following with the caveat that there are plenty of idiots who like to put words in the founding father's mouth, not realizing how divided they actually were post revolution:
Our Constitution is fundamentally built on the belief of individual freedom and equality of man in a "state of nature" (John Locke) and that the Bill of Rights builds on Locke's theories as to how the government should protect property and create Justice (The preamble to the Constitution, which also throws back to the Declaration).
The whole argument between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans was about the balance of natural freedoms and government impediment of those freedoms. The culmination of these arguments (an argument which eventually led to the Civil War) boiled into the supreme court and led to the concept of judicial review, which lays the ground work for legal precedent.
So, we're obsessed with precedent and the founding fathers not necessarily because of what we think they wanted, but because every legal argument stems from the belief that man is, and of right ought to be, free and independent. The Constitution forms the basis of the social contract of free and independent people. The Constitution can be changed and we have done so some 27 times. However, every argument fundamentally stems from the original point of view that all men are created equal.
It's not about interpreting the words of "a couple of guys" from 200 years ago. It's about whether or not our government has broken the social contract. The idea of "equality" itself has been a moving target in America, from land-owners to the Civil Rights movement. We are a country born out of tyranny, you know... It's fair to say that fear of tyranny is embedded in our culture and our laws.
Our Constitution is fundamentally built on the belief of individual freedom and equality of man in a "state of nature" (John Locke) and that the Bill of Rights builds on Locke's theories as to how the government should protect property and create Justice (The preamble to the Constitution, which also throws back to the Declaration).
The whole argument between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans was about the balance of natural freedoms and government impediment of those freedoms. The culmination of these arguments (an argument which eventually led to the Civil War) boiled into the supreme court and led to the concept of judicial review, which lays the ground work for legal precedent.
So, we're obsessed with precedent and the founding fathers not necessarily because of what we think they wanted, but because every legal argument stems from the belief that man is, and of right ought to be, free and independent. The Constitution forms the basis of the social contract of free and independent people. The Constitution can be changed and we have done so some 27 times. However, every argument fundamentally stems from the original point of view that all men are created equal.
It's not about interpreting the words of "a couple of guys" from 200 years ago. It's about whether or not our government has broken the social contract. The idea of "equality" itself has been a moving target in America, from land-owners to the Civil Rights movement. We are a country born out of tyranny, you know... It's fair to say that fear of tyranny is embedded in our culture and our laws.