Reply #5: Reinventing

[izquierdista]

America hasn't had to be reinvented. Italy on the other hand, has been reinvented numerous times. There was the pre-Roman Etruscan civilization, the Romans, the city states of Venice and Genoa, the Papal states, the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, Garibaldi's unification, the Fascist era, and they are still reinventing themselves as times change. The same thing with France and the monarchy and then revolution and then Napoleon and then the republics. The United States has had a fortunate run for over 200 years, but the Repubs tried their best to ruin it, shipping all the industry to lower wage countries and playing casino games with the money. Despite Obama's efforts, they may still succeed in tearing it apart, to the point that the whole mess has to be reorganized on the Italian model.

One thing they have done is to keep the better aspects of the old, while trying to put together something that works. The system of law can still be traced back to the Romans, and the trains run mostly on time, without the brutality of Mussolini. Americans are full of themselves if they think their government and institutions can last forever. It's already apparent that elections by the calendar are not as responsive as elections whenever there is a vote of "no confidence".

I'm afraid though, that the situation will have to get far worse before the call comes for a second Constitutional convention to reorganize the nation. Big changes in governments occurred in 1918 and 1945, along with a lot of refugees and starvation, and so far, most Americans are still pretty well fed and only a fraction have been foreclosed out of their homes.