Letter to the Editor: Our fallible founding fathers were not gods

A few of your readers have written lengthy diatribes decrying the current state of politics in America. One of the disturbing aspects of these letters, to me, is the lengths to which these readers have gone to deify the founding fathers.

A recent example is Mr. Lewinsky’s letter which refers, glowingly, to both the “intent of the founding fathers” and “the principles embedded in our founding documents.”

An important thing to consider is that these men were not gods – far from it.

I do agree that many of the principles embedded in our founding documents are good – the Bill of Rights, in particular, seems to have been very positive! But these are also men that were quite content with the institution of slavery – in fact, many of them owned slaves themselves! And they seemed to have no desire to treat women as equals to men.

Clearly, the “principles embedded in our founding documents” could use some revising. These “founding documents” are pretty clear that women and non-whites are inferior.

That is wrong. Our founding fathers were not gods; they were men who weren’t perfect.

Striving to make our society conform to their beliefs is silly and regressive – does anyone today really think that black people should be treated as property? Does anyone today think that women should be denied the right to vote? (I hope that the answer to these questions is a resounding,”No!”)

I think we’d be better off if we didn’t worry about gaining the political approval of some long-gone white dudes from the 18th century who thought that slavery was okay.

Is that who you want to revere? I certainly don’t!

Mike Mundy
Ferdinand, Ind.