re: Would our founding fathers be proud of America as it is today?

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They weren’t building a government to be a beacon of light for 250 years,

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Yes they were....

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they just didn’t want to be told what to do by the British anymore

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You must have got an "F" in history in high school...………….

I think they would be most horrified by how vulgar and twisted everything has become. I don't think they'd get over that long enough to discuss any other issue with them.

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I almost didn’t say Lincoln because I didn’t want the whole slave thing to come up, but Lincoln was one of, if not the, closest presidents we’ve had to a dictatorship. He suspended habeas corpus and hung journalist who spoke against him. If that isn’t against everything in the Bill of Rights, nothing is.

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Ignorant people, and/or people with an agenda are going to make silly arguments, but I knew exactly what you meant, and you’re right. I think Jefferson would object even more so to Lincoln mustering troops to invade the south and completely ignoring the right to self determination which founded this country.

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Ha not even close. I was just making a point. They weren’t building a government to be a beacon of light for 250 years, they just didn’t want to be told what to do by the British anymore

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And i agree with that. It goes a little deeper than they were all for the status quo. There were several opposed to slavery but knew the whole fricking thing would fall apart if outlawed. Call it a nessesarry evil if you wish. But it wasnt like all those men were out for themselves.

"Self-interest"? If by "self-interest" you mean freedom from tyranny, then okay, but otherwise their decision to declare independence was a decision more dangerous than you can imagine, as it was treason. It was, in many respects, contrary to their self-interests. In those days it was difficult to tell whether your neighbor subscribed to your views or was a loyalist who would turn you in to the Crown. "We must all hang together or, most certainly, we shall hang separately," was the quote, I believe. And holding the state delegations together to vote to declare independence was hardly a sure thing. They were not a monolithic voting block.
They had widely varying interests, including slavery in the South. Slavery was not pressed in the discussion of declaring independence from Britain because the already-tenuous coalition to declare independence would have fallen apart. I suggest reading Founding Brothers and John Adams.

Jefferson would not like how the civil war turned out. Washington and Hamilton would be okay with it.

But let’s be honest, they wouldn’t be able to process life in modern day America. The fact that there are cars, telephones, microwaves, televisions, 50 states from coast to coast, cell phones, the internet, airplanes, air conditioning, electricity, sanitation, space travel, indoor plumbing, etc. etc. etc. would blow their minds. And they’d be all for people protesting as they did plenty of that back then. They would probably be proud of how far we’ve come with technology and human rights. Ben Franklin would love all the technology, especially birth control and penicillin.

That’s if we’re being honest and not a bunch of snowflakes.

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Well I have a degree in history and have been teaching it for 11 years so.....

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Then along with whatever history books you read you might want to try reading the Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers, and the various correspondence between the founding fathers.

Because in all those documents, the founders were pretty clear on what they were doing, and why, to include the various philosophers of the time who influenced their views.

Yes. One could argue they saw just the same

Yes, pretty much. They felt like they should rule themselves. Are you arguing that?