Throwaway

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Very good essay, thank you!

How easily we all forget that the Constitution was designed to account for the fact that, as you quote,

‘Sit he on never so high a throne, a man still sits on his own bottom.’

We are all just people, with our vanities and foibles, even Washington, Lincoln and FDR. Our Constitution is designed to blunt our inevitable mortal failings, and it has done well to date. For 200+ years we have mostly prospered, and often led the way on human progress and human rights thanks in large part to this document.

But for how much longer can it guide us when our current crop of Great Men casts it aside?

This is what troubles me above all else with regard to the current fashion of secret killings, torture, and the like - they are bad acts n themselves, but even worse they erode the laws which keep us in the right when our passions sometimes want to lead us to bad places.