01-13-2017, 08:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-13-2017, 08:46 AM by David Horn.)
(01-12-2017, 12:10 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: My fear all along is not so much Trump the man, but the Trumpism that may survive him. After all, McCarthyism has reared its head now and again, long after that disgraced senator from Wisconsin passed from the scene. Once we allow any space at all for political leaders-- above all, our presidents--to defy the Constitution or international law, we set ourselves on a very dangerous path...
Which brings us to Thomas Jefferson and his quip about a little revolution from time to time. I not so sure that the Constitution isn't part of the problem. It was created to solve the problems of the time, using the tools of the time. Neither have been fully applicable for a long time. We applied some band-aids after the ACW, and fixed the funding problem in 1913. Other than that, the structure remains as it was in the beginning. The institutions it created are becoming more and more sclerotic, and they simply don't resonate with anyone not already a political junkie. The last 8 years have shown that they can made ineffectual by a small but vociferous minority. Fixing it as a general case would involve the never-used Constitutional Convention, which I think we can all agree is not going to happen. So we're stuck, at least for now.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.