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I find the rightwing worship of the Founding Fathers to be somewhat hilarious since the Founding Fathers were generally high born or middle class, highly educated, bourgeois, cultured, multi-lingual, often religious skeptics, libertine and francophiles. Essentially everything the right would profess to hate.
Some of the founders, Franklin and Jefferson in particular, would meet some of your criteria. Washington, Hamilton, and the other Federalists were definitely not francophiles. Arguably John Adams too. Although he spent a lot of time in France and generally liked it, he was very disturbed over the French revolution, and predicted it would end in some form of tyranny, which it did.
The only libertines, as far as I know, were Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin.
The difference is we used to celebrate the melting pot instead of multiculturalism. That’s why Italian and Irish slums no longer exist. Those two groups melted in.
I find the rightwing worship of the Founding Fathers to be somewhat hilarious since the Founding Fathers were generally high born or middle class, highly educated, bourgeois, cultured, multi-lingual, often religious skeptics, libertine and francophiles. Essentially everything the right would profess to hate.
Since when is "high born" and "middle class" something that the Right hates, with the exception of in the minds of those in the liberal media bubble?
Monarchy was the most Right Wing form of traditional government, and we had it for most of historical human civilization. The "high born" noblity came from rural agriculturalist landholders, which is the exact demographic of the most staunch right wing states. In England, you know the place that literally defines Western social rank, this economic mode is from where they still come.
In fact, the "bourgeoisie" mercantilists that drove the anti-monarchical revolutions that overthrew monarchies across Europe were consistently without social rank. You are seriously deluding yourself if you think that these people and their descendants qualify as "high born" in any historically accurate way. Their origins are, by definition, low born. In fact, its still taboo for anyone of an upper rank to have any income from mercantilism in England today. The USA is the definition of low class. There is no "high born" here. There is only money and an approximation of rank in people who generally live and earn like the traditional gentry. Which is the exact opposite of the urban liberal mercantile "bourgeoisie" class. Which is why they detest monarchy and defend their "freedom" to do everything in their power to fight its traditional forms down through the traditional nobility.
In fact, not knowing any of this, while having the pretentiousness to guffaw in regard to your right wing 'inferiors', is "hilariously" ironic on ironically reveals a low social class. Knowledge of how rank works is crucial when discussing it. Or do you generally discuss things that you have no knowledge of?
French was the second language of the English nobility, not the merchants. When the merchant class pretends to be "Francophile", they are imitating the culture of the Right Wing English Monarchy. But you didn't know that either. How much French have you taken?
Libertinism is a form of social rebellion for low rank bourgeoisie merchants who detest paying taxes to their superiors. The same goes with "religious skepticism", which is merely a form of anti-monarchy rebellion. The King having originally been a symbol of the ultimate non-subjective truth, or God on Earth.
This entire conversation is leagues above your head.
No, people have always come to the US from pretty much everywhere. The difference from them to now is this. It used to be that people came to the US to largely to become American. Remember E Pluribus Unum?
Now more often than not, they want to keep their foreign culture, language, etc., not assimilate, but use America to be economically successful. And in many cases they want to impose their culture, religious values, etc. on the rest of us.
This has always been the case. Immigrants in the 19th and 20th century often did not assimilate quickly or did so by the 2nd or 3rd generation. They often lived in their own communities and neighborhoods where they mostly mixed with their own people. We have neighborhoods that were exclusively Jewish, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Polish, German, etc....
As for imposing their culture on the mainstream, again this was always the case. Think of all the foods, holidays, music, customs, traditions that have been impacted on the mainstream by foreigners who refused to give up their old ways.
...In general, people of color (non-whites) where considered to be vastly inferior to Europeans, from the European perspective.
This is generally true but not always, at least by the late 18th cent. Hamilton was from a Caribbean island where there were lots of African slaves. He believed that Africans were not inferior to whites.
John Adams, who was from Massachusetts, tended to agree with that. Abigail Adams left the family home in the care of a free black couple when overseas. She said that there was no one else whom she trusted more to handle it. Abigail also once gained entrance to a local school for a free black boy who had done farm work for her. The school barred him due to race, but she got that overturned.
The difference is we used to celebrate the melting pot instead of multiculturalism. That’s why Italian and Irish slums no longer exist. Those two groups melted in.
I'd offer that most of these people have moved onto suburban white collar living.
Where they haven't, the slums more or less still exist. See Philadelphia for one. And Boston, too, I'd imagine. Though, I'll grant you that there is still a little more inter-mixing than there used to be.
I grew up in the 50s. The nuclear family was a total myth.
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