I am always dismayed and frightened by writers who appropriate the Founding Fathers to bolster their own political agenda. Having read most of what the founders wrote, I can't see how either the far left or the far right can legitimately claim them for their own. While they were definitely some of the most radical and progressive thinkers of their day, that does not mean they would be so today. And they were smart enough to realize they didn't have all the answers and couldn't see into the future, so they made the Constitution amendable. I think the Founding Fathers would be like the vast majority of today's U.S. citizens — the 55 percent to 75 percent who are moderates. They would be conservative on some issues and liberal on others. The 20 percent of extremists on the slavery issue brought about the Civil War.

Do we need or want to go down that same road again?

Charles E. Harlow III

Kearns