General Discussion

that could avoid or combat the problems Europe had experienced for centuries and with which they were very familiar, especially religious wars, autocratic monarchs, class structures and the effects of feudalism. England was still recovering from the civil wars of the 17th century and its revolving-door monarchy, which by 1776 was controlled by a king who was certifiably nuts. If you'd ever actually read the Federalist Papers you'd know that these were not stupid people. But they were dealing with issues pertinent to the times they knew of and were living in. If it were possible for the smartest among us to start from scratch now and design a new system that works for our time, it would certainly be different. But 250 years from now, would that system and its designers also be considered stupid if the system couldn't deal effectively with whatever had transpired since it was created?