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Comment by lukeasrodgers | Hacker News Reader

It is hard to see this as anything other than pure American ideology. There is no critical thought in this essay, it's like a high school "why was the constitution cool and stuff" exercise.

> The American founders put Cicero’s framework into practice, and they created the most successful mixed constitution in history, whereby the people would frequently elect representatives from among themselves to the House of Representatives.

By "the people" you mean the leaving aside the ~600,000 enslaved along with all the women and native people who could not vote.

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Yes, if we take the premise seriously, surely a strength of our time as opposed to the founding is that a natural aristocracy now could elevate women and black and indigenous people with merit?

Personally, I am skeptical of the “natural aristocracy” idea, but I think advocates of such a system have to reckon with the systematic biases present at the time that lead people like Jefferson to perpetuate slavery and genocide despite their personal merits.

You seem to be ignoring political realities on the ground by framing it this way. I am not certain it helps the discussion.

I don’t believe I am ignoring the political realities. The way I see it, slavery was a hotly contested political issue in America at the time. In another comment of yours in this thread you mention “the exclusions that were made with defaults” but I see no evidence that these were truly the defaults in the way that, eg slavery in ancient Greece (my knowledge of Ancient Rome is fairly basic so I can’t comment on that) was a default that few if any members of the polis questioned. The framers of the constitution absolutely inhabited a moral world in which it was possible to denounce slavery for the abomination it was.

> You seem to be ignoring political realities on the ground by framing it this way.

Could you expand on what you mean here, particularly as regards the comment you're responding to?

<< By "the people" you mean the leaving aside the ~600,000 enslaved along with all the women and native people who could not vote.

On cell so I don't really want to write a whole essay.

The poster focused exclusively on the excluded without considering that the exclusions that were made with defaults that do not align with today's values. It is almost like complaining about Romans severely puniahing their slaves for disobedience. It completely ignores the reality of the world the person lives in and judges them based on today's expectations.

The 600k op mentioned were not relevant to his 'constituency' or one he seemed to speak for, and, arguably, Jeffeson himself.

From his perspective, they were not more capable set of men.

Jefferson advocated for the gradual emancipation of all slaves in the United States. He very well knew slavery was an abomination. Nevertheless, he enjoyed its fruits.

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