We still have the Constitution, which can still be amended by the original process.Tell me just how Shays-Meehan complies with the First Amendment's absolute prohibition of any federal law abridging free speech, and which Amendment superceded the First.
I don't think it's even a question of whether or not the Constitution is tested, violated, ignored, whatever you want to call it. I can't imagine that that was ever a question. Else, why go to the trouble to set up all the weights and counterweights and superfluities that are designed to keep things in check?
Some of these systems have repeatedly failed. The people, in their role as safeguards of liberty, have proven to be disappointing performers. Certainly not Six Sigma quality output (99% defect-free). The Supreme Court has been an occasional menace. So has the Congress. But who do we have to blame for it?
I say ourselves. The reason why we don't ever "clean up Washington" or "restore America" is because we as a people are incapable of it. The tools are all there. But there are no Jeffersons and Madisons and Adamses around today.