Civics 101

For those who don't remember high school history class, the US Constitution wasn't our first rulebook. During the war to break from England, our lauded Founding Fathers drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777. After the war was won, they discovered that the loose rules, leaving too much up to individual states and not authorizing enough power to the central government...didn't quite work.

So they went back to the drawing board in 1789 and created the US Constitution, the amazing document that, much like the Bible, is constantly referred to but seldom read and even less understood.

I would like to remind everyone that IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REPLACED! We do not need a revolution, Bernie. We do not need to blow up the system, Reince.

The Constitutional Convention members designed a government in such a way as to dilute the power of any one person or group and to prevent rapid changes in power. It is an excellent idea that keeps the government centrist and stable. No demagogue can come along and seize power. No party can sweep in and radically shift the direction of the country in a single election. The decidedly cautious revolutionaries created an awesome framework for preventing a fickle electorate from swinging wildly from one ideological position to another. Yes, it means that change is slow. That's the point! (Now THAT is intelligent design I can get behind.)

If there is a flaw in their excellent planning it is that I doubt they expected the modern Republican party to act like toddlers who will ensure that if they can't win, nobody can. The "broken" government that everyone keeps talking about is the result of a refusal to compromise, which has resulted in literal government shutdown. But that is NOT the fault of the system, which, for all its brilliance, cannot force politicians or the electorate to act like fucking adults and work together to solve the nation's problems.