AFP, I'd love to respond thoughtfully to your thoughtful post, but it's late where I am and I have to write six letters yet before I can sleep. Hopefully I'll get to you tomorrow, if I have some off time at work.

"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain--that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." --Lysander Spooner, 1867