the constitution is the counter-revolution

the constitution is about limiting rights, not guaranteeing them…the framers of the document were, in the end, frightened by the polity’s internalization of the jeffersonian ideals of the declaration of independence and the spirit of radical democracy that was abroad…shay’s rebellion was a focus for them…not so much the rebellion itself which was easily suppressed but the aftermath in which the farmers of massachucetts sent their own representatives to the legislature and enacted debt forgiveness and began printing paper money…hamilton was outraged and had a tendency to drone on about it by name in the federalist papers…madison was more circumspect, however, when he speaks of protecting the rights of the minority ( read elite ) from “an interested and overbearing majority”, shay’s was on his mind…so how did they go about limiting the polity’s actual influence? they created a government of and by special interest in which the individual was scarcely recognized with the government as an allegedly neutral umpire…that may have been the intention, however, since wealth is power and power has always controlled the government the government has almost always ( let’s call the social legislation in the wake of the great depression an anomaly) made decisions that favored wealth…nothing too complex to grasp in that…the system reaps two fundamental benefits from this system ( and makes refinements as they go ) first, since the only way the individual can find a hearing on issues that are of import to them is through belonging to an interest group much of the time and energy that they might utilize in resistance to the systemic structures as a whole is expended in the internecine debates over what the “special interest” any given group actually is and how it should be presented to the government and to public opinion at large…after wearying battles over whether migrants should be termed “illegal aliens” or “undocumented workers” there is little energy left to question why we are having this debate in the first place…secondly, this leaves special interest groups “branded” …sugar tax vs. nanny state…prochoice/prolife…gun control/nra…coke/pepsi…ford/chevy…and struggling with one another for both public approval and for government attention ( which boils down to who gives them the most money usually )…more energy and animus that might be aimed at the system as a concept used in dividing ourselves to their benefit…alas humans are tribal…we like to be with people who look ;like us…talk like us…eat the same sorts of foods…call it culture…i doubt we will ever reach an easy, comfortable consensus…realistically we could aim for some tolerance…understanding that the tribal ways of others are as important to them as ours are to ourselves…get to know someone from a different tribe…you might find that human nature has at least as many universals as differences ( do they love their children? bet most do) and once we accomplish that difficult but rewarding task just maybe we can begin to see we’ve been played and that things don’t really have to be as they are.