REMEMBER, whatever they called them, that the founders had Classical educations (look up homeschooling curriculum of this type for a quick rundown, and you can buy the books for yourselves!). Essentially, great civilizations and great thinkers. And even Ancient Greece had relativists and abolish-private-property people shouting in the square.
Imagine they already had STUDIED how heathens and atheists thought, how tyrants ruled and despots plundered under the guise of authority. Heck, Robin Hood was an old story then! Don't be time snobs- we're not more intelligent today than people in ancient Greece or our founding fathers, geniuses and patriots were and are the architects of greatness.
Their Great Experiment is us, the USA- the first country to plan for peaceful transitions of power among unrelated people according to a representative expression of the people's will. We won't need to amend more, we will need to go back to the original! Only those citizens with a stake in the game (payers!) should have votes. Though I would add a civics quiz, because if you don't have even a basic understanding of your govt and who your leaders are, you really should not be voting.
Levellers didn't call themselves levellers initially, that was a pejorative term assigned to them by their political opponents which they eventually adopted because more people knew them by that name than their original name "Agitators."
Levellers were populists who opposed common ownership of property and originally called for freedom of religion and equality for all under the law. Later they called for excluding anyone that didn't own land from the electorate.
The communistic faction during that time period were called the "Diggers" who advocated the abolition of private ownership of land.
They put forward a program of economic reform in the interests of small property holders—complete equality before the law, the abolition of trading monopolies, the reopening of enclosed land, security of land tenure for copyholders, no conscription (impressment) or billeting, drastic law reform, the abolition of tithes (and so of a state church), and complete freedom of religious worship and organization.
Yeah. You might be right. The socialists claim them though so I think that's where I got it confused. The movement was definitely the seeds of both modern day egalitarianism and socialism. Two different extremes.
I guess my misunderstanding was I thought the founding fathers criticized them instead of embraced them. I'm not sure that they really directly wrote about them.
Strange and interesting that the BEST and the WORST political ideologies ever possibly stem from the same short-lived movement in England nearly 400 years ago.
They called commies “levelers” back in the day. Since their goal was to artificially “level the playing field.
May be a good avenue of research.
REMEMBER, whatever they called them, that the founders had Classical educations (look up homeschooling curriculum of this type for a quick rundown, and you can buy the books for yourselves!). Essentially, great civilizations and great thinkers. And even Ancient Greece had relativists and abolish-private-property people shouting in the square.
Imagine they already had STUDIED how heathens and atheists thought, how tyrants ruled and despots plundered under the guise of authority. Heck, Robin Hood was an old story then! Don't be time snobs- we're not more intelligent today than people in ancient Greece or our founding fathers, geniuses and patriots were and are the architects of greatness.
Their Great Experiment is us, the USA- the first country to plan for peaceful transitions of power among unrelated people according to a representative expression of the people's will. We won't need to amend more, we will need to go back to the original! Only those citizens with a stake in the game (payers!) should have votes. Though I would add a civics quiz, because if you don't have even a basic understanding of your govt and who your leaders are, you really should not be voting.
wow, gave me goosebumps to read that and think about that
No, this is not correct.
Levellers didn't call themselves levellers initially, that was a pejorative term assigned to them by their political opponents which they eventually adopted because more people knew them by that name than their original name "Agitators."
Levellers were populists who opposed common ownership of property and originally called for freedom of religion and equality for all under the law. Later they called for excluding anyone that didn't own land from the electorate.
The communistic faction during that time period were called the "Diggers" who advocated the abolition of private ownership of land.
This is an interesting take on it. Diggers called themselves the "True Levellers."
Thanks for the clarifications.
http://bcw-project.org/church-and-state/sects-and-factions/diggers
Diggers! Ok. Guess I got confused.
You don't seem to know your history: https://www.britannica.com/event/Leveler-English-history
Yeah. You might be right. The socialists claim them though so I think that's where I got it confused. The movement was definitely the seeds of both modern day egalitarianism and socialism. Two different extremes.
I guess my misunderstanding was I thought the founding fathers criticized them instead of embraced them. I'm not sure that they really directly wrote about them.
There were "Diggers" also, maybe that's who you were thinking about.
This is an interesting take on it. Diggers called themselves the "True Levellers."
Somebody else mentioned the diggers. Found this and figured I might as well pass it on.
http://bcw-project.org/church-and-state/sects-and-factions/diggers
Yes. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
The history of these ideas development is a pretty fascinating subject if you look at it from the perspective of humanity's collective consciousness.
Strange and interesting that the BEST and the WORST political ideologies ever possibly stem from the same short-lived movement in England nearly 400 years ago.