What the Founding Fathers Probably Meant: Part 1

Here in America over the last decade or so, we’ve become very fond of expounding on exactly what it is that our founding fathers meant when they laid out some pretty basic tenets that they figured we ought to use to run the country.  The interpretation of our Bill of Rights has become, in this incredibly heated political climate, a source of great divide amongst the citizens of this great nation.

There are those who believe that, when it suits them, it ought to be followed to the absolute letter with the kind of sacred fervor that many religious folks attach to their holy doctrines.  It should never be changed, nor can those rights be taken away by those in power, as the benevolent, omniscient beings that were our mythical progenitors knew exactly what it took to make a perfect country back in the late 18^th century.

On the other, we have the people who say that it was meant to be followed in spirit, rather than exactly as laid out, which opens an entirely different can of worms.  While I’m much more inclined to be in line with these people, it does allow for some truly terrifying interpretations and presents the key problem of whose is more right, the guy who thinks that freedom of expression means he ought to be able to crap on the courthouse steps as an act of protest to the guy who thinks that the right to bear arms means he can shoot said person for being anti-American.

What people seem to fail to realize is that the guys who drafted The Constitution were completely and totally aware that they couldn’t build a perfect nation, now or ever, because times and circumstances change.  They were laying out guidelines for our nation at its inception, taking into account what they knew and had witnessed in their lifetimes.  That’s why they gave us the ability to change it as we went, something we seem grossly unwilling to do these days.

So, starting tomorrow, in an attempt to muddle through these various viewpoints, I’d like to put forth a contemporary interpretation, in ten parts, using sound logic and basic reasoning (and probably a bunch more jokes of the gaseous variety) to take a look at what our noble forefathers said, what they meant and what they could not have possibly seen coming. 

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