No one is paying any attention to you anymore, since you are a moron. Oh, and as far as thanking a Frenchman, you got it. Thank you Frenchman, for nothing!

Montesquieu was born in 1689 and died in 1755. He devised our system of “checks and balances”, the very system that we are debating about in this thread!

All of you dear ladies and gentlemen that argue about “activist judges” should read up about the separation of powers in the United States: Legislative Power, Executive Power, & Judicial Power.

You can thank a Frenchman for this.

I never claimed The French Revolution was inspired by our revolution. I said the French influenced us. I said John Locke’s influence was more important to the foundation of our country than the Puritans. I should have qualified that by saying John Locke and other Enlightenment writers. I was also thinking of the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a name that is synonymous with the Enlightenment. I believe the framers of our constitution were familiar with Rousseau’s work. Therefore, many of the postulations and philosophies behind our constitution are French ideas. I made no stipulation whatsoever about our influence upon the French.

Some of these children never grow up. Some of these children want to live in a “World Before Columbus”. They claim that the constitution is not a living document despite its 27 Amendments! Some of these children forget that the French were our ally during the Revolution. At a distance these children are comedic, but up close they are dangerous. Some of these poor brain-washed children grow up so pumped up with patriotic zealously they do not see what’s wrong with being chauvinistic! As a matter of fact they are actually proud of it!!!

Well, that is their right I suppose. At least they’ve resorted to using words like “moron”. I mean, how can you switch the vowels around with a word like that?

They did not. The US Constitution was finalized in 1787 and ratified by the requisite states in 1789. The first 10 Amendments were, written before the French Constitution of September 1791 was adopted. All but five of the original states (VT, VA, MA, GA, CT) ratified them before the French Constitution of September 1791 was adopted.

Most post-1791 amendments have also nothing to do with the French revolution.

I don’t have time for you anymore you moron. Believe what ever you want about the French, they do. Believe what ever you want about yourself, your alter ego does.

As far as being an “unabashed American Chauvinist”, you can bet your sweet ass on that one dude!

The guillotine of “Liberty, Fraternity and Equality” that was the French Revolution was not inspired by the freedom at the heart of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” which was the American Revolution. Nor did it precede the American Revolution intellectually. The bloodshed of the Reign of Terror has no analogue in the American Revolution nor in American history generally.

Furthermore and relatedly, the Native American populations were savages that murdered each other not to mention the American colonists that settled here. The Native Americans had no *right* to expect better treatment from the European settlers than they treated each other. In fact, “rights” are a creation of Western culture (deriving specifically from John Locke and some others of the English and Scottish Enlightenments – witness the savagery of the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror) and did not exist at all in Native American culture. Thus, to speak of the “rights” of Native Americans in an American context is a contradiction in terms. The American colonists did not violate the rights of Native American peoples because such rights did not exist. Rights exist only within a certain context, and that context is a civilized society. (This is also why speaking of the “rights” of criminals is mostly a contradiction also).

What happened to the Native American peoples was too bad and I would prefer it to have not happened. But it was not a disgrace nor was it wrong. America owes no apology to Native Americans, to whom we introduced the concept of rights – not to mention science and reason as replacements for mysticism. Thanks to those settlers, those Native Americans have running water, irrigation and dams – instead of rain dances praying for rain.