How do we reconcile the "genius" of our Constitution with Bush?

[Stevendsmith]

I mean, so much for the protection against "human imperfections."

Check and balances have been flushed down the shithole.

Why should I not see the existence of the Bush Administration as evidence of the failure of the American experiment?

[Selatius]

1. Not yet

If there is a failure to remove a sitting leader, then the experiment has truly failed beyond any question. Then you just have a dictatorship.

I would say though that the gang of people who want power in this country are smarter than before. They can give up Bush in 2008 in order to maintain the illusion of democracy. Meanwhile, they, with their huge bankrolls, will put forth a new candidate willing to talk sweet words to the people yet do the bidding of big business instead.

[Lindacooks]

2. It's not quite the failure of the American experiment.

It's the failure of Americans to educate themselves. Election 2000 should never, EVER have happened. Too many Democrats just folded. The existence of the Bush administration is evidence of years of planning and fighting and dirty tricks on the part of PNAC and the BFEE.

[StClone]

4. A powerful force

Professional hucksters are taking advantage of American mentality dumbed down or not. If you can sell countless >18 MPG SUVs in the last decade of Peak Oil to the rich, and unhealthy McBurgers en masse to the poor, it may show more experts using our nature against us than just ignorance. But definitely a little rational thinking using the real and true couldn't hurt.

[teach1st]

3. Today in my class...

...we began talking about checks and balances as part of a running unit on the Constitution that will take months to complete. I did have a bit of hard time getting through the lesson and discussion, because as I was explaining the reasoning our founders built the three branches of government into our system, I kept thinking to myself that the checks and balances have been breeched. Still, I was impartial.

My fifth grade class is immature as a whole, so I kept it simple - "we don't want to risk bad people taking over one branch."

A student finally did ask, "What happens if bad people take over all the branches?" I didn't have an answer. I told him we'd talk about that later in the year.

[melody]

5. The American experiment is still ongoing

It is no worse or better than the European experiment, the Asian experiment, and/or the African experiment from which the American experiment stems. It is an ongoing process. And what gives it value is it is *our* experiment, not "theirs".

Incidentally, much of world history has been changed by our own Revolution.

[Cats Against Frist]

6. You reconcile it by realizing that so many of your fellow Americans

are resigned to the destruction of the Constitution. This is the real damage that is done by the lunkheaded-ness of the freepers. It doesn't matter what taxes Bush cuts, or if gays can't get married, or if he disses social security, etc. We're talking about this government doing things like The FUCKING Patriot Act. Mass classifications of anything damning to the administration, in the interest of "national security." Doling out the spoils to Dick Cheney's golfing buddies, behind closed doors. Foreign entanglements, based on really shitty information and planning. Passing our tax dollars to the Mossad and mercenaries out the back of a supply truck, in Iraq. Continuing to purposely divide the country, in the interest of power. Letting the Israel lobby run our foreign policy. MASS disenfranchisement of voters (proven) and possibly election-rigging (speculation).

These are not simply "politics." These aren't even "issues." These are crimes, cronyism, and even treason -- and the fact that our fellow citizens let it happen, is very discouraging. The liberal, elitist, French-loving intellectuals who came up with the Constitution tried their best. Both parties have let them down. The American people -- and not just greedy corporations and the rich -- have let them down. We were to STEWARD. We did not steward. We watched "Survivor," and handed it over to people who want nothing to do with liberty, open government, democracy, nor the "just society," and inalienable rights that our founders tried to create. Just as, however, they suffered from their own "times," we suffer from ours.

From the very beginning, I believe that the Constitution was never immune to the worst of possible outcomes -- which is something like what we have, now. She wasn't meant to take this much strain. She was to rely on good and honest and faithful citizens and stewards, not scared, fearful sheep that gurgle Hannity's shit, and believe in flying spaghetti monsters, over self-determinism and reason. She was meant to be only as strong as we are.

[Cats Against Frist]

7. I wanted to add something about the civil war

which was the prime example of the union not holding together, so well. The incongruence in the liberal ideas of founders, and slavery provided another rift that the Constitution, with its basis in reason, could not mend. There is too much incongruence, now, as well. The people in control pay lip service to "liberty," while creating a more ever-powerful government, with designs on empire, that have stripped away many of our civil liberties. It makes no sense.