us realpolitik vs us virtue claims.
i agree. those two things operate in conflicting ways. i have said so since first encountering the folks who tell one another repeatedly that the usa is the greatest country on earth. that in fact it is much like other democracies.
it is unique in having been founded on a set of ideals. but it has also confronted issues, just like everyone else. the first of these involved expansion into native american territories. the second involved the treatment of slaves. nowadays, of course there are pressures on the constitutional structure. of course there are people pulling in different directions.
the interesting issue isn't whether such people exist as whether the structure will absorb their influence in a way that works for the majority and doesn't damage minorities. and whether the structure can operate and adapt to the current environment.
if you spend some time reading my posts, you will see that i think the us constitution is creaking. it is creaking because it is failing to adapt quickly enough to the environment that us people inhabit.
my solution to the problems you talk about is to redraw the constitution with the harm principle as its central philosophy. abandon the idea of freedom as an unrestrained set of rights. embrace the harm principle which sets the limits on freedom where they ought to be. your freedom extends only so far as it causes no harm to me.
this is a far more radical and aggressive model than yours. you are bringing a pea shooter to a gunfight. if you want to fix the world, you have to bring some solution to the conversation. not some common idea of dark forces swirling around that somehow control everything. everyone is the same. blah blah blah.
you talk about human nature as if it is a new problem. but democracy and the rule of law emerged as the best solution we have to the problem of human nature. not perfect. but better than the alternatives. human beings are imperfect. you don't get anywhere by assuming we are always unselfish. but you can deliver a kinder, more altruistic model if you can restructure the scaffolding within which we live.
throw in a darwinian understanding of the need to change in order to survive and maybe we will have something. jefferson lived before darwin. that is the main problem here.
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