Apologies for all the typos by the way. Trying to get these written during breaks/downtime, and Autocorrect is making life interesting.

>You never answered my question, "How would you define the ability to vote, as only going to select white men?"

I actually did, but the typos may have minced it. You say they created a System where the vote only went to "certain white men". You're not really appreciating how wide that swath was. I offered the example of the House of Lords (peopled by actual aristocrats) as a contrast point.

The Peerage and Nobility is intrinsically woven into the concept and definition of English social and civic life. There is no 1:1 mapping of that same characteristic in the United States. There is no Aristocracy.

You look at "only landed white men" could vote, and don't realize how drastically that diverged from the European cultural baseline.

These landed white men didn't even have recognized and venerated and chronicled names. That was a revolutionary disbursement of power at the time. Johnny sets up a homestead, he gets to vote. Lack of suffrage for everyone else wasn't even mainly an issue of "Everyone without it is inferior;". It was chosen for it's uncontroversial nature amongst the founders and their contemporaries. They were building a Nation, remember, and the seed of Unity had to start somewhere. It's an example of incremental value delivery.

They needed some edifice capable of doing the things Governments was expected to do, which means they needed to start building that kernel of "get things done" that people could buy into and go with. So that's what they did. Amongst themselves they built the most revolutionary, egalitarian government they could at the time. They also built in the measures whereby all the assumptions and policies they enacted to create unity at that time could be modified by popular consensus as times progressed. Just as a plant starts with a Seed, so too did the Nation in that group of upper class white men, who wasted no remarkably little time on the Nation State scale of time expanding suffrage. voluntarily, I might add.

As to Senators being appointed by State legislatures, that was due to fundamental changes in what the role of the Senate is. The Senate was not intended to be reflective of "the People" at all. It was meant to represent the interest of The State's themselves where "The State" here is defined as the respective government apparat put in place by the People of each State.

Each State determined how voting for State Senators was done, and to my knowledge, at the State level, it is still direct election by the voting population at large. So you had that level of people expressing their confidence in someone to take on the mantle of overseer of the fundamental architecture of government. However, when it came to the Federal level, it was delegated to the State apparatus to choose the ones among their number most well-versed and capable of not only representing their State's interests, but balancing them against the competing interests of other States.

Without mass media, this arrangement made sense. You wouldn't know a Senatorial candidate from the other side of the State from Adam, but other State Senators would.

If you look at the patterns the Founders favored, it was always balances. Everyone gets to weigh in on overall direction, but the nagging details get handled by a smaller more deeply versed group with longer tenures/more experience because the devil is in the details. Start with the widest workable suffrage everyone could agree on, landed men who could show up and weren't deemed impossible to accommodate by the culture of the time, and have faith that men's good nature would see that spread wide in short-order; with a hedge against men's worse vices through deemphasis and deglorification of public service.

It was a different world back then. Just as kids growing up today will seemingly never know a U.S. before 9/11 screwed everything up, so too was the Overton window different back then.

Human beings are as much victims of the constraints imposed by the physical, economic, and social environments of the Times they Live In. The accomplishment, and great Humanitarian Gift of the Founders, was the Founding of a Nation whereby with Unity would come prosperity, safety, good fortune and freedom for all if only men endeavored to keep it so, and drive it in that direction.

History is full of the stories of how things didn't go to plan, but it is also full of examples of a Great Nation giving rise to Great People to do Great things, even from humble origins.

The Electoral College arose out of the Founders dedication to bicamerality. They trusted the population with Candidate selection, but once again, the work of figuring out who amongst the candidates was best was reserved for a small group of directly elected Electors. To them, under assumption of good nature, was entrusted the final responsibility of Conscience and wisdom into which candidate was most trustworthy to hold office. A decision best confined to smaller groups, away from the crowds. If it's a good fit, the extra step of the Electors wouldn't make a lick of difference. If it was a bad fit, but they could work a crowd, the Electors should weed out the unfit candidate. Check the Federalist papers on that one.

That went sideways when national political parties came about, but that's life.

The lifetime SCOTUS appointment was a concession toward attempting to keep the judiciary independent from the political arena and at least constrain the politics to appointment time. Even then, most nominations are encouraged to be of a fundamentally balanced nature, with track records that also encompass going across the aisle, and not taking undue liberty with interpretation of the law. Again, not perfect, but it mostly worked. It got us to the point where you and I are having a reasonable discussion over whether or not there was foul play at the heart of architecting things such that one or another group is kept at a severe disadvantage; which in all my research I haven't found clear evidence of. The emphasis has always been maintaining a governmental edifice that works, and changes with the mores of the time.

There have been undeniable bad calls by the government in history to be sure, but those weren't "all according to plan". They were emergent reflections of society at the time, just as the chaos we're experiencing now almost assuredly is. I never in my life dreamed the American System and way-of-life could end up in the painful straits we're in, but neither did any of my forefathers when they had their civic faith tested.

I shed a tear everyday, because at a minimum, the change we're experiencing is the system working as intended. Assumptions long unquestioned getting their due attention. This is it. This is the Legacy of the Founders, the marvelous machine they built, for the good or ill of their descendants. The winds o

You can credibly say that it sure smells like an aristocracy nowadays, and I won't argue. Back then though? Absolutely not, and never with a clear premeditation to create an underclass, a characteristic of Greek civics they despised as I recall.

>You said: The Peerage and Nobility is intrinsically woven into the concept and definition of English social and civic life. There is no 1:1 mapping of that same characteristic in the United States. There is no Aristocracy.

>> I said this: I'm not sure how you quantify (facts/evidence) your statement that "That is the exact opposite of Aristocratic". As this would be considered historic revisionism. Aristocratic might not be the most precise word (elitism goes too extreme) but it gets close enough to the vein of truth to understand my point. Selected few men, rule over the masses, by design. [1]

I'm not sure why you went on multiple different tangents but my main point is above and hasn't been refuted. It's almost as if you don't understand the definition of aristocratic (addressed later).

>You said: You can credibly say that it sure smells like an aristocracy nowadays, and I won't argue. Back then though? Absolutely not.

No. It was aristocratic then. It wasn't British aristocratic then but it was aristocratic, nonetheless. Yes, it was by design or else there wouldn't be a Republic. I'm not deeply a scholar of the time period therefore I can't say whether it was malevolent or not.

> Wiki says: Aristocracy (Greek ἀριστοκρατία aristokratía, from ἄριστος aristos 'excellent', and κράτος, kratos 'rule') is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning 'rule of the best'. [2]

The founders didn't merit their land ownership nor the ability to read/write nor merit being white nor merit being male nor merit many other factors. It was circumstantial, largely through no agency of their own, which is privileged. They did use that privilege to attempt something new which was more Democratic than most forms of govts. Regardless, they were aristocrats. /end for me.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24361561

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy

(edited for formatting)

Noted. Good for you. If you're going to twist the meaning of aristocracy away from what it has historically been, that's all on you. Republics != Aristocracies. Just because some people have authority delegated to them, the essence of representative democracy, it does not make them Aristocrats. It makes the person nominated or elected a civil servant, a social position in the United States that actually renders you vulnerable a position to have to put up with more abuse than would normally be tolerated in everyday life. By the way you're defining it, even a nuclear family is an Aristocracy, an assertion most reasonable people would laugh at, and no number of Wikipedia links will change that.

Furthermore, you missed the nuance of the Greek way of life vs. the reality of the American System. Which is that anyone can run and hold office. You have to campaign well, but there is no privileged class you must be a member of. You need only be the bearer of the right ideas at the right time.

That now, it may be woefully out of reach for those who have to hold down a full time job, and is really only attainable once you've gotten yourself to the point you've got a decent social and support network, still doesn't make the American System an Aristocracy. Just a pain to get ahead in, and much more likely to be participated in by those who aspire to politics.

The other "tangents" were refutations of your assertion that various aspects of the architecture of the early American government were specifically attempts to create an aristocratic class. They most certainly were not and even a cursory reading of the Federalist papers demonstrates that while there were some Founders who were favorable toward the idea there were just as many against it. Following any of the historical literature of the time will demonstrate that while there was an appreciation for the well to do, there was just as much for those of more humble origin that found their own way into the political limelight.

You seem to have your mind made up, so that's cool. You do you. However, if you're looking to get taken seriously by anyone who doesn't already agree with you, you may want to consider getting a better appreciation for the historical context of the time in question, and open yourself to the fact that societies evolve over time. Your protests that the Founders were Aristocrats from your privileged position here and now would be laughed at as grim humor or insanity in their time. They were traitors. Treasonous currs and usurpers to the loyalust. They were heroes, patriots, and paragons to the oppressed, and liberty starved of the time. The Dream and ambitious ideal they chased, of a Country of the Free, of, by, and for the People it served at the consent of; bound explicitly from assuming a place as Supreme Arbiter or Granter of Freedoms through the Constitutional foundation laid out in simple language, and left open ended for revision by those that came after. To them, better men and women than any of them could ever hope to be, and underpinned by their single greatest gesture against the established powers of the time: namely their Declaration that started it all.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So if you're set in your ways, if you truly believe what they built is worthy of ridicule, scorn, and abandonment, know that you are walking in the very shoes they did all those years ago, and take care that you not repeat their mistakes, and that you put at least as much effort, forethought, and sacrifice into that which you're set on hewing from the corpulent mass of the society you seem to have come to despise.

On the other hand, if you're just looking to change things for the better, you're in good company; the trick is to beat the establishments it's own game.