Were the founding fathers democratic reformers?

After reading both view points of John P. Roche and Howard Zinn, I felt like there were more things to back up the arguments made by Zinn, which is one of the reasons why I think that the founding fathers were not in fact democratic reformers. First off, many of the founding fathers were wealthy, came from good families and were well educated. Howard Zinn states that the founding fathers based the Constitution off of their own personal experiences without considering the past experiences of the average citizen. That does not mean that they were completely selfish and based the whole Constitution around them, it just means that many of their economic interests were reflected in the Constitution itself. He goes on about how economic interests were seen in the clauses of the Constitution and the founding fathers had a direct economic interest in forming a strong central government. According to Zinn, the founding fathers thought factions came from inequalities in wealth. Further into the reading he said that the Constitution was meerly the work of certain groups trying to maintain their privilages while giving enough rights and reason to the people to get a majority to support them.

I think that Zinn's arguments were backed up very well with information or logistic examples. I think that the founding fathers were democratic reformers to a certain extent but in the Constitution, minorities such as slaves, indentured servants, women and men without property were not really mentioned which kind of shows that the Constitution was aimed for more of the elite class, usually all who had plenty of wealth and heald a good social status. I feel like the Constitution wasn't written to all types of citizens of America and that economics were the foundation of the Constitution. Zinn's arguments did show that Shay's Rebellion was a call for a stronger government. Since the central government was so weak, the founding fathers realized a change had to be made. Zinn also states that the Constitution was a compromise between various disputes but its real purpose was to unite the states to create a great market for commerce.

President's Adrress to Congress on Health Care Reform

On Wednesday, September 9, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress, something that has only been done 15 times since 1952. The motive of this speech was to explain his new idea of a health care reform to Congress as well as the American people. This proposed bill is expected to improve our health care system and give Americans that can't afford health care the opportunity to have reliable coverage. The health care reform is supposedly going to create a new insurance exchange. While insurance companies compete for customers, customers will be able to negotiate with insurance companies for reasonable prices. Individuals would then have to be required to carry health insurance and employers would either have to provide health insurance or help chip in so their employees can get health insurance. The reform is expected to end insurance companies abuse towards their customers. During his speech, Obama stated that the reform won't add money to the deficit. Instead it will be paid by the money that is in the current health care system. The reform is expected to cost $900 billion throughout the next ten years.

I think this reform is a good idea. Health care is a very important thing to have and I think it's unfair that people have to pay for the health care of the people that can't afford it through their taxes. I think every American should be able to recieve health care and the wealthy shouldn't have any kind of advantage. Obama's plan really seems that it would work. It would be fair to everyone, including seniors because the money from medicare won't be used to pay for the reform. It will provide everyone with security and stability so no one will have to worry about being dropped by their insurance company. I fully support Obama's plan and I think that it will be the next step in improving our country.

9/11

I think I might have heard it on the news beforehand but I remember I was in 3rd grade and we were having our classroom discussion time on the carpet and the teacher asked us if we heard what had happened. Only a couple kids had heard about it and I was really confused. I didn't know what "terrorist attack" ment. Once I got home I watched the news and my parents ended up explaining it to me.