In my psychology class, we recently learned about a fascinating experiment conducted by the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov in the early 20th century.

In the experiment, Pavlov would ring a bell before serving his dog dinner. At the sight of a juicy steak, the dog’s mouth would water. After hearing the bell and subsequently seeing the food over the course of several days, the dog began salivating merely at the sound of the bell.

Pavlov’s dog demonstrated what is now known as “classical conditioning”, the process of learning by association. Through repetition, Pavlov’s dog unconsciously learned a reaction – salivating – to a given stimulus – a bell ringing.

Pavlovian responses seem to have caught on in American politics. Thanks to 24-hour pundits and the 30-second sound bite, certain keywords elicit conditioned responses.

National debt? Bad! Free market principles? Salivate! Government regulation? Bad! Founding Fathers? Drool!

While knee-jerk reactions to each one of these ideas have been harmful to America, one is particularly irrational: the fetishization of the Founders.

This Founder worship is particularly rampant among Tea Partiers. It is evident not just in the name of the movement, but in leading Tea Partiers’ writings.

In Glenn Beck’s latest novel, for instance, the protagonist memorizes the works of the Founding Fathers and, by the end of the novel (spoiler alert!), is about to begin a revolt against the government to “restore” our founding principles.

In an op-ed last week, conservative thinker Peter Berkowitz, explaining “why liberals don’t get the Tea Party Movement,” wrote that American university system has failed to teach college students (who are, of course, all socialists) the founding principles of American constitutional government.

I think it’s time to clear up this misconception. The Founders were not always right. When they were right, the lessons quite often do not apply today.

First of all, the vast majority of the Founders were racist, misogynistic, slave-owners. If we really want to return to our founding principles, we would have to return to the days when not even the entire adult male population could vote.

On top of that, the Founding Fathers held policy beliefs that today would simply be incompatible with America’s current position as an international superpower with an economy nearly three times the size of our closest rival.

Washington and Jefferson warned against “entangling alliances”; even the most extreme Tea Party loyalists are not advocating American withdrawal from NATO.

Should Washington promote protectionism, as favored by Alexander Hamilton?

Would government censorship of the media, as carried out by John Adams, be acceptable today?

In short, using the Founders to condemn an opponent’s policies is not a valid avenue of attack. As our population ages and developing countries challenge American supremacy, we are at a turning point in our history.We need real debate, not shallow, fallacious criticism.