bkeske...My point is that the conditions and needs of the country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were much different than we face today in an industrialized country of roughly 330 million people. Certainly, many of the ideas expressed in the Constitution were based upon libertarian and liberal (small l) ideas. But the Constitution as written was far from a perfect document. Let's not forget that it was intentionally written to benefit wealthy landowners and relegated thousands of people at the time to status as a fraction of the value of whites. At the time, democracy was not something the founders were particularly interested in. For example, US Senators for many years were elected by state legislators. Women weren't allowed to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment (1929?). I could go on and on as to why we need to consider the Constitution as a living document. Times and needs have changed and the founding fathers had no way of knowing what it would be like in the 21st century. Say what you want. I'm leaving it at that. And unlike some people, I mean it.
