>We're on the grounds of a secular religion here.
Oh aye? Well, that should certainly be a familiar feeling to all academic Marxists! :-) I see plenty discussions in here that remind me of nothing so much as the mediaeval scholastic debates about dancing angels and pinheads.
>If the U.S. Constitution
>is such a groovy thing, why do we jail more of our citizens than does any
>country aside from Russia and a few of its neighbor alumni of the USSR? Why
>do we have some of the most underdeveloped politics and the dumbest, most
>conformist media practically anywhere on earth? Why does money rule
>politics to the exclusion of almost every other influence? In the case of
>imprisonment, the Constitution does a piss-poor job in guarding against
>repressive legislation; in the case of underdeveloped politics,
But just think, Doug: If the wealthy and powerful are able to be so predatory in the face of such a powerful and egalitarian document, what might they be able to do in its absence? I shudder.
For all that folk can carp about how it was imperfect, there was a time when life was 'more leftie' in a great many ways. We still enjoy remnants of those laws and programs, though they are now under relentless threat.
I maintain that it's all down to the Supreme Court, and of course the composition of that Court is down largely to the person we select as President. I would much rather have an FDR in place than a Clinton, and I would even rather a Clinton than a Bush, a Reagan, or, Goddess forfend, a Forbes, Gingrich, Lott, or Buchanan.
>the
>Constitution has done a masterful job in limiting democracy, thanks to the
>Senate and all the other checks-and-balances.
I don't see how that can be laid at the door of the C. You'll have to expand on that, some.
>And we know what was supposed
>to be checked and balanced - the power of the masses to infringe on the
>most sacred right of all, the right of private property.
Oh aye...which is why the Bill Of Rights are Amendments rather than within the body of the document.
But the Bill Of Rights _is_ there. It didn't get left out.
I'll maintain to my last breath that it's mindless of the left 'intelligentsiya' to take the position that anything less than socialist perfection is worth nothing. It's self-destructive. Suspicious besom that I am, I have to wonder if it isn't a way to avoid doing the hard work of actually *building* socialism. A political 'Wooden Leg', as it were.