[KC Burke]

you might get a kick out of this one

[betty boop]

Suffused throughout Madison's Federalist essays is the argument that the elaborate constitutional structure provided a series of filters that would sift out the undeserving, so that none but the most virtuous would reach the top.

Well, gee... that little "pipe dream" didn't seem to work out too well, did it, KC? Funny how "theory" succumbs to reality sooner or later, and probably sooner, in the degree that the theorist regards actual experience -- personal, social, and historical -- as outmoded and therefore "irrelevant" to his theoretical problems.

Our modernist and post-modernist ideologues are seemingly united in believing that the only way to make anything "new" (e.g., a "perfect society") is to simply clear the decks of everything "old." But this never works in the long run: Reality is just too stubborn.

Thanks for the heads-up to this "meaty" essay, KC Burke. Bookmarked for later study. best, bb.