General Discussion

If anything made the USA exceptional to some extent, it is the highest ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence which was codified in the US Constitution to create a nation governed by the rule of law, not by rulers.

Neither our Constitution, nor our nation's Founders, were without flaws. Men and their works can seldom if ever be. But we can learn and grow, and our Constitution was provisioned with tools for Amendment to facilitate such growth.

Some of our Founders were slave holders. Compromises were necessary to unite the colonies as One Nation, such as counting slaves as 3/5 of a person for the apportionment of seats in Congress. Nevertheless, as men of the Enlightenment they were ahead of their time in structuring a government by the people, not a tyrant.

But human nature always asserts itself. If we are to be judged by how well we embody the highest ideals of our nation's Founding, our worst impulses have only partially been constrained by the Rule of Law.

And now, 199 years since our Declaration of Independence, we are by the volition of a voting citizenry in their elected representatives and president, becoming a nation ruled by a tyrant.

For the great American experiment in democracy to survive we need an Enlightenment of the 21st century.

Or at least a citizenry up to the task of saving us from ourselves.