if you look at the *ideology* of the founding fathers -- not what they actually *believed* -- but at the doctrines that they professed, which is something quite different, they were opposed to centers of power and authority. In the 18th century that meant they were opposed to the feudal system, and the absolutist state and the church and so on.
Now those *very* same doctrines apply to the 19th century and the 20th century and they *should*, if we take them seriously, make *us* opposed to the patterns of authority and domination that exist *now* -- like for example *corporate capitalism*, which is a system of authoritarian control that Jefferson never *dreamt* of. Or the powerful 20th century state *linked* to the corporate elite, which, again, is a system of power and domination on a scale that, say, Jefferson couldn't have *imagined*. But the same *principles* would lead us to be opposed to *them*.
-- Noam Chomsky