Will Iowa have a Tribute/Protest vote?

[NNadir]

13. Yes I know. And there was nothing we could do about slavery either, and nothing we could do...

...about Jim Crow regulations in the South.

Sorry.

I'm not a "there's nothing we can do" sort of person.

The American Constitution is dying. I'm not sure I know what should replace it or if anyone knows how to do it. Nevertheless the alternative is to let our society and our culture die with its constitution.

You know, in 1787, powerful but flawed Americans - sequestered themselves in a relatively small room in Philadelphia, ostensibly to modify the Articles of Confederation to make them function better. I've seen the room. It's amazing how small it was.

Many of the people who emerged from that room after throwing the Articles of Confederation completely away and substituting something else for it, recognized the powerful flaws in the replacement document, flaws that tore the country apart less than a century later, almost destroying it. They questioned whether their new document would work, which was a good thing, since they were invested in rationality, despite holding some opinions we would find abhorrent today.

Those authors - and they didn't see themselves as oracular or saintly - did not anticipate instantaneous communication, mass media, the ability to travel across the globe in hours, not months or years, political parties, propaganda, or even the idea that "all humans are created equal" even though some had famously signed a document that approached that ideal. They lived in a time of rising enlightenment, not in a time of the codification and worship of fear and ignorance.

Their document worked surprisingly well - I think they'd be surprised at how well - despite their misgivings, and the flaw that lead to 600,000 Americans killed by other Americans between 1861 and 1865 - in the 18th century (briefly), the 19th century, despite the Civil War, and the 20th century.

Their document isn't working in the 21st. The people of Kansas voted to destroy their school system. Is there some reason that their voice should be as powerful as the voice of the people of Massachusetts, who didn't vote to do that and who outnumber the citizens of Kansas by a factor of 3?

Is it really true that "nothing can be done?"

This may be an "out there" idea, but lots of ideas that turn out to be "out there" actually turn out to be accurate statements of reality.