On the other hand, I don’t know how much of the blame the original Constititution deserves. Once the spirit of Abolition took hold of the North - and the spirit of Slavery Forever and Stretched Further swept much of the South - it may have been only a question of time until all hell broke loose.

I still think it would have been far preferable that, instead of having a national civil war, South Carolina and Massachusetts could have duked it out. Those states were among the most extreme on both sides - with enough noxious notions to deluge the continent.

And finally, in your opinion, would the Articles of Confederation have been better than the Constitution? My reading says yes, and by leaps and bounds. Just curios about your opinion.

It seems to have been amply demonstrated that an increasing percentage of modern life bears little, if any relationship to reality. The average Mexican
Soap Opera has a higher degree of authenticity than most this yuppie consumerist blightage.

I doubt the individuals involved are any better or worse than they have ever been , it’s just the vaunted social construct that has been erected should make any sane and distracted observer seriously alarmed.

I spent a couple weeks with the native muleteers and fisherman in a remote Pacific Coastvillage in Jalisco, Mexico along with a weekend up in the mountains @ a Spanish Colonial Hacienda lit by kerosene lamps and the first day back in the States was comprised of waiting out the storm in the debauched airports whilst listening to
the breathless ejaculations spewing from the
television and I have to tell you that after 14 days
out of this practical joke, one begins to lose one’s
blithe acceptance of it. We really do appear to have a political system and social construct we deserve.
85% artificial flavoring and colors.

I have to quibble with you on this one minor point:

“Are citizens merely choosing whose vassal they will be?”

On this I believe it is less a case of whose vassal we will be, but more of which vassal we rubber stamp as “our new leader”.

I’ve observed over the years that the quality of the candidates, like those of the “debates”, has declined in a noticable way. Other than Ron Paul, the rest of these clowns strike me as mere figureheads for other people working behind the scenes.

Other than this, a fine article.
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Tom Blanton,

That dream you have is my nightmare realized. I not only get to work the polls this November, but also in July. This after working them last February and seeing a dismal return that leaves me to believe the election process is being violated.

Your disgust is mine as well, for I almost think the election is over for all pratical purposes.

I think it was Peter Peterson who hired away the head of GAO. Funny story in the papers a few days ago about how he benefited big time from a tax break… It was unclear whether his tax break was consistent with his philosophy…

I have never been a fan of the first Adams presidency - him and his Federalists were damn rascals.

We’ve taken it as an article of faith that this Bureaucracy is needed in a modern society and so all we get is tepid efforts at reform. In Garet Garrett’s “Peoples Pottage”, he details the FDR Administrations methodical plan to create a huge Federal slush fund by abandoning the Gold Standard, confiscating Gold and then inflating the price of gold . His treasury Secretary Morganthau wrote in his diary about the bedside chats he and FDR had for a period when they were arbitrarily setting the price of gold. One morning, the President blithely decreed that the increase would be 21 cents because it is “a lucky number, three times seven”. FDR fancied himself to be an architect too. Good thing he only built a cottage at Hyde Park.

All these folks have the best of intentions usually, some more than others of course but the bottom line is that the base line for all activities starts from the precept that government is a force of good a means to advancing society. We once had at least a vocal wing that disputed this idea effectively but with the GOP lost down a power-jag rathole scabbed over by social conservatism, we have big government “liberals” and big government “conservatives” all engaged in setting policy and growing govrnment reach on little more than the idea that “21 is a lucky number because it is 3 times 7″.
At this juncture, I’d trust chicken entrails more….a lot more.

I noted that upon Castro’s resignation this week, Bush’s comments were something to the effect of “now democracy can take hold in Cuba” as if the problem with Castro was that he was not democratically elected. I guess that means the regimes of Chavez, Lula, Kirchner, Putin, etc, etc are legitimate because the autocrat in question came to power in an election?

Ed Crane has the right idea on this. At an individual level, the act of voting only serves to endorse the false legitimacy these scoundrals assume.

—Josef Stalin