heretic888 said:
And you would know who the founding fathers envisioned as 'fit to lead'.... how??
I would seriously question the source of the "your highness" reference.
No offense, Loki, but doing the opposite isn't productive either.
Laterz.
* I would not 'know' but I can conclude from the criteria for eligibility:
First you had to be a fully empowered citizen, therefore white male. After that:
1. someone rich or connected enough to be able to run and fund a campaign. Therefore wealthy land owners in general during an agriculturally based economy of the day.
2. someone rich or connected enough to be able to leave his life work/earnings to participate in a campaign. Again, most likely landed white males.
3. Someone who is articulate, educated enough to read, write, listen and speak effectively enough to potentially win friends and influence people and be administratively affective if elected. Generally that means a person with opportunity/money to participate in higher education (since most of them were from England/Connected to English middle class or nobility that classic education model was the vision.)
That adds up to "white, land owning, wealthy male" to me. That was not a slam, we do the same thing now. We have a vision of 'hero' or 'leader' or what ever based/or as a reaction to how we were educated, raised or learned vicariously or directly. That is what they did.
*I always hate mentioning information when I can't remember the exact source data, but it came from the History Channel website after watching the series "Founding Brothers" so I tend to consider it credible.
*I am not going to the other extreme, just trying to keep it in context. "They" didn't envision many things, didn't have the same vision of 'liberty' that we do (look at the slave issue), nor did they have the same social values about gender or economic/social class.
This is really ironic considering that I was called naive and idealistic during the pre-election Bush/Kerry discussions at times.