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Do you think they are perfect in every particular? Real question. I never heard anybody express that opinion.

They are WAY ahead of any other earthly answer - a quantum level ahead. In particular a government bound to the people as a servant to many masters is what I consider a main aspect of "American exceptionalism." Almost everywhere else the government is like a king. Here it is (or was) like a governmental minister and WE are the kings.

But I think reasonable and -patriotic people can discuss whether the "rights" concept is absolutely best, or whether, for example, a sense of "due" and "duty" would be better. I can see arguments both ways, and my latest alleged thought is that in our private dealings we should think of what is 'due' to the person we encounter. But the most successful way to do a government is the "rights" model -- and when the Progressives started with things like "Freedom from want" they were using the "Duty" model to make the government more like a king and less like a servant while they also vitiated the initiative of the people.

Anyway, John Adams pointed out the weakness (if that's what it is) of our system: it depends on a religious and moral people. We were given a VERY workable system, even if the dream of the founders that there would not be a real party system didn't work out. It is, IMHO, not the founding but we the people who are chiefly to blame for our current fix.

Jefferson was a student of history and didn't buy into the arguments about about which group had the most blood on their hands. He knew, as anyone who really studies history knows, that 98% of the "religious" murders and wars were instigated by nobles or governments to attain their own goals. Common folks didn't have the means to carry out what people now like to argue over and point fingers at one another over. Common folks mostly did what they always do when their government or ruler goes to war, the suffering and dying. Only very recently in history have people been able to tell what the war they fought in was really about and even now that's sometimes tough to figure out until long after the war. Jefferson also realized, as so many people apparetly don't realize, it was the nobles and the kings who were appointing the vast majority of the Clergy in almost all Catholic and Protestant countries.

He knew full well that the English Crown had sent troops to fight Calvinists and Lutherans as well as Catholics. In every case, they told the rank and file they were fighting for Christianity (the Anglican Church) against either evil Catholics or evil Heretics. He also knoew the "Catholic" French helped Lutherans revolt against the Hapsburgs because the French King fought the Hapsburgs every chance he got up to and including selling cannon to the Ottoman Turks.

Jefferson's take on history was that not permitting the establishment of a State Religion solved most problems he saw with religion and that enshrining freedom of religion right in the First Amendment solved the rest. So far his solution has worked better than anything else I've seen in history including the Peace of Augsburg that recognized specific religions but didn't outlaw the mixing of Church and State.

People who want to split hairs over theology in a civilized manner are one thing. People who love attacking others who agree that Jesus Christ is King of King and Lord of Lords who suffered and died for our sins should find a new pass time. They'd be far better off working to get rid of the secular liberal scum in elected offices no matter what such scum pretend they believe or which church the scum pretend to be a part of.

JMHO