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We can spend a generation righting one wrong, and only then discover the unseen pitfall.

If you're right about that (and you certainly are!), then the best starting point is the study of history. Our nation's founders were avid students of history, and for the inheritance we've received from them we owe a great debt. If we can first learn from our forefathers and then improve upon their work as they would've wished, we will have fulfilled the duty to posterity which rests now upon our shoulders.

Just as constitutional does not equate with good and proper, so it is with popularity.

Very true. And IIRC, the federalists argued that the molasses-like Congress would by nature be a check on the whims of democracy. Not only that, but the short terms of the House would permit mistakes to be corrected reasonably quickly.

For some time I've wondered where the founders failed. Where is the flaw in the constitutional republic they bequeathed to us? For, what other explanation could there be for our present troubles?

"We don't follow the Constitution!" some will say. So...the founders didn't anticipate that, eh? But I think you and I have hit on the same answer: The people's power can only be checked by the people themselves. In the end, nothing can restrain the people's will forever. Tyrants come and tyrants go. But it's my opinion that force can never suppress the people for long without their consent.

The successful nations and empires of history possessed the consent of the majority of their citizens/subjects. The people may not have been happy with their lot, but they saw it as better than the alternatives before them. (Sparta's subjugation of the Helots - who far outnumbered them - was a rare exception, and faced revolt after bloody revolt.)

So it is with Americans today. The majority are more content, in general, with their circumstances than with the alternatives they can see. Until that changes, not much will change. Obama's gamble has been in proposing rapid innovation, and he might've both underestimated the opposition and overestimated his supporters.

Asset forfeiture as a primary mission needs to go.

I'll go a step or two further. Though nobody's ever agreed with me on this, I'm still convinced it's right:

No one should benefit from the punishment of crime. No one. Excluding fair wages for those employed in the criminal justice system, no one should benefit. No fines. No benefit from the labor of convicts. No property forfeiture. No community service. No organ donations from executions. Nothing. Crime should be a cost on society, with absolutely no mitigation.

The criminal should be punished, and that punishment should fit the crime squarely. Whatever "satisfaction" we demand from criminals should be in the form of punishment for them, not spoils for us.

I believe this to be just, and that's my sole reason for holding to it. There are, of course, some problems it would solve (that's to be expected from justice, right?) but they are secondary reasons for advocating this idea. Among others...

- The cost of crime, when it falls heavily on our shoulders, would cause us to turn all the more against crime and those who engage in it. (As a squad of soldiers who get repeatedly punished for the dereliction of a single rebel eventually brings that rebel in line, by hook or by crook.)

- There will be less incentive to misuse law to invent crimes, specifically those whose punishment is by fines.

- The people will be less inclined to support overbearing police systems because the immense budgets will come from their own pockets.

I'd be quite happy to see incremental de-escalation and trial of various decriminalization and legalization schemes over time

I'll still disagree with you that that would be wise, only because I view the risk as being so great. But in our present circumstances, it's possible we have more to gain from your proposal than we have to lose. It's an honest way of dealing with the issue, though - that's for certain.