[Mark Bahner]

"But clearly even a restrictive written constitution is not enough to stop the tyranny of government." It was, right up to WWI in the United States. That's over 100 years of experience in limited government. What stops the tyranny of government is what the citizens will allow. If ALL Republicans demanded that their Republican elected officials return at once to government according to the Constitution, we'd have government according to the Constitution. What is preventing that is that, clearly, not all Republican citizens want government according to the Constitution.

[verboten]

It was, right up to WWI in the United States

Up to the War for Southern Independance it was. The use of military force on the Southern Nation foretold of the force the federal government was going to exert on its people everywhere. A study of the War and Reconstruction where the Union abolished the sovereign governements of the South and exerted its powers over these once free people reveals that the US lost its proscribed restrictions once the sovereign states could no longer quit the Union. Like a gang, the US government asserted, contrary to the Declaration, that once in the US, always in the US. Ever since then power has been accumulating in the Federal capital.

Prior to WWI I'll agree that the Union was not a socialist country. WWI ended that. But, the groundwork for that days tryanny had been laid long before.