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Comment by latexr | Hacker News Reader

> And any change is seen as blasphemy against the will of the founding fathers.

Anyone who uses this reasoning (I understand you’re not doing so) should immediately be shut up by quoting the inscription on the southeast interior wall of the Jefferson Memorial:

> I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

That’s as clear as can be: to honour the founding fathers’ intention, laws must not remain static.

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I'd say exactly your argument is why it's hard to make changes.

The US has this pretty weird civil religion where the constitution is the holy text and the people that wrote the constitution are prophets.

Most other countries don't have that. A lot of democracies don't even have constitutions (UK, for example). The US constitution is an interesting historical document, but it's just a collection of laws. There are a lot of things democracies have figured out since it was written. Amendments are basically impossible at this point because the canon is closed and American politics have evolved to make it structurally impossible.

It should be possible to argue that laws should be fluid without appealing to the prophets of the civil religion. You could, you know, just talk about why it's a good idea. Shouldn't that be more powerful than trying to guess what someone who lived multiple centuries ago would have thought about it?

Your comment is confusing. It seemed like you were going to offer a rebuttal but then didn’t say anything that disagrees with my point.

I’m not saying laws should evolve because a founding father said so. I’m saying that people who invoke the founding fathers’ will as a reason to not change laws should be corrected that a founding father specifically said that laws should be fluid.

Yes, invoking the founding fathers is a stupid argument. And in addition to being stupid it’s also wrong. Meaning there’s zero reason to ever use that argument and people who do can be contradicted by their own logic.

I didn't disagree with your point, just the way you supported it.

Thank you for clarifying. In that case, I’ll address what I think is the relevant section.

> It should be possible to argue that laws should be fluid without appealing to the prophets of the civil religion. You could, you know, just talk about why it's a good idea. Shouldn't that be more powerful than trying to guess what someone who lived multiple centuries ago would have thought about it?

Yes, you are absolutely right that it should be possible to argue in that way and discussing the merit of the idea should be more powerful than invoking a bunch of dead guys. But unfortunately it’s not. The people who shout about the founding fathers are not the ones you can convince with reason alone. You’re lucky if they pay attention to your whole argument. Invoking the founding fathers is an emotional argument disguising itself as a rational one.

Which is precisely why I’m interested in seeing what would be the reply to “but the founding fathers which you are invoking disagree with the point you’re making”. Though I have no illusions that would fix the issue, people are able contort to into extra planes of existence to not cede their point. Watch Jordan Klepper’s “Fingers the Pulse” segments for examples.

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