America!

How the Founding Fathers Would Feel About Modern America

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At least once a week someone boldly claims that the Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw America today. That they wouldn’t recognize the country of their vision in what America has become.

Now, I don’t often give much weight to the musings of — I don’t know —Vivian Gunderson or Bill McDonald from Anywhere, USA. I’ve just heard so much of these things lately I’m inclined to entertain their perspectives more readily than I have in the past.

These insights are often brief, leaving it up to the rest of us to piece together the nuance. Perhaps their point is the modern American no longer thinks of themselves as part of a greater whole. That Americans have abdicated concern for the common good to government, whom they then attack for doing what we’ve tasked them to do. That Americans are hyper-focused on the rights and entitlements of the individual, rather than the responsibilities of the individual.

Perhaps — but probably not.

It’s hard to say how the Founding Fathers would feel about America. A lot has changed since the country’s birth. Imagine building a time machine and bringing Ben Franklin to modern…