I've long thought that there is a linear course of history. It just depends on the time frame under consideration. I've successfully buttressed myself and others on the precipice of despair that in a macro view, freedom is a boulder rolling down the mountain.

There's an ingrained tendency to believe that we have evolved in the last few thousand years. Even non-evolutionists believe this! It's tribalism over the landscape of time.

I think the positive progression of humankind is something to behold.

It's all arrogance, perhaps.

I wish that I could just make this a facetious post about the shallowness of American culture and leave it at that, but we are way past that point. There really is not much of a national character to speak of, anymore. There is not a common, shared sense of what it means to be American. There is a group of angry, proudly ignorant individuals who think that drinking beer, watching television, making fun of sissies, mocking the weak, etc. is what defines the country and there is another group that thinks that needs to change, but don't really provide much of an alternative. No sense of courage, vision or sacrifice exists. Art and entertainment have been replaced with fame. The fame, however, is randomly thrust on talentless and vapid individuals who have earned none of it. Politics can only be a whisper before the masses flee from it. Most Americans, I think, are just fine with torture. They consider those who oppose it to be the "radicals."

America is essentially dead. Sure, the Grand Canyon still exists and the there are still some Redwood forests (although we did lose a city), but that is just the corpse. Maybe it's for the best. Nationalism, patriotism and all the rest of it seems to create war, xenophobia and little of positive value. We are about to attack Iran, very possibly with nuclear weapons, and the subject is not even being talked about. That's a good enough sign that the American experiment is basically over.

I just don't get what else there is to do besides writing and calling my representatives to complain at every step that is taken toward expanding executive power. This is Bush/Cheney we are talking about who have abused every power given to them. Even pointing out the political ramifications of each vote. It is my feeling that like most of my friends we have been ignored and even abandoned by those we elected to stop the Bush regime. We do not accept what is happening and we will never give in to it (Patriot act, MCA, FISA protect America Act, Kyl-Lieberman's disguised AUMF against Iran etc.). We are America according to the polls and we keep pressuring our reps to stop Bush's drive to the all powerful unitary executive. We accept nothing nor do we compromise with this activity and we are in the majority but our whole government seems to be 2 faces of the DoD and the corporate Pentagon. This is the moment of truth to take a stand against fascism in America which has come wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross as predicted...but our lines are being compromised by our own party and the very people we have elected to stand for and with us...and you know who they are. But we will never give up and I believe that the universe will step in with a host of events that cannot be planned for that will change the balance of executive power in this country. Bush's regime has motivated the country to become more involved in the political process out of necessity to protect ourselves not from terrorists but from our own government corruption. The war has brought a sense of urgency to the situation resulting in a strong desire to become more involved in protecting our constitution from the very ones who swore to defend it. Like Michael in the "Godfather"...the hospital scene where the Godfather is all alone and Michael is moving him to another room. Michael grabs his fathers hand and says, "I'm here pop...I'm with you now...I'm with you now pop". This is how the citizens feel about America. We are here...we are with you now. We are going to stop this.

"And I am an equally passionate believer in the system of government the Founders created. Their principal objective was

...to create a government powerful enough to maintain a decent bond rating. Oh, and to make sure nobody messed with slavery.

Sorry, I interrupted:

"Their principal objective was to find a way to bestow it with enough core strength and endurance so that it could

...resist the pressure for mass democracy that they probably sensed was just around the corner. And which, like all other political leaders of the late 18th century, the Founders didin't believe in. Oops, there I go again.

"could outlast even the most corrupted and tyrannical political factions in control. Our history has shown just how

...questionable a system this really is for governing a modern, industrial, mass democracy.

"how resillient that system is, and when in doubt, I'll err on the side of keeping faith in the ability of that system -- to provide solutions by working within it. I think our political system has earned the benefit of that doubt."

Whatever.

I don't know, this is first time in six months of reading this blog daily that I've been disappointed. In the spirit of giving benefits of the doubt, I'm really hoping that like everything else Glenn writes, these remarks are the result of careful, empirical reflection on actual political realities and outcomes. Unfortunately, they sound more like the kind of reflexive conventional piety that stifles serious analysis -- in much the same way as the Beltway conventional wisdom of which Glenn is such an acute critic. If I were Glenn, I'd be tempted to use some capitalized words to spoof the idea that no matter how obviously wrong it is, we must never deny that America has the Bestest, Most Wonderfullest Political System in Human History.

Seriously, is it just coincidence that the one constitution in the democratic West that still relies on the ancient theories of Montesquieu, the only one that hasn't been seriously modernized or re-thought since the great reform movements of the 19th century that gave us mass suffrage, also happens to be producing the most retrograde policies? I've often wondered, watching the Bush scandals, how many of them would even have been possible in a modern parliamentary system -- where, for instance, the leader and his cabinet ministers would have to face regular questioning from their political "shadows" (whose careers would rise or fall largely on how aggressively they conducted that questioning), and where the "government of the day," as the British call it, could be tossed out of office in a number of ways between elections if it was clearly failing (by no-confidence vote, leadership challenge, breakaway coalition partner, etc.).

Sure, any system can be corrupted, and a lot of America's problems arise from conditions peculiar to its political culture that would still be there even under different constitutional arrangements. But if we're going to consider what's gone wrong and what can be done to fix it, is there some reason that constitutional reforms should be off the table? To put it another way, how long a string of horrors should it take to throw our "passionate belief" in the Founders' system into question, or to get us wondering whether that system's "resilience" is precisely part of the problem here?