[Domenic_S]

"By the people, of the people, and for the people" is a description, not a prescription.

Take a look around -- that movement away from self-restraint is evident everywhere, in public and in private, in business and in government. You can even see it in people's bodies, from eating too much to working out too much.

By the people: a description. If as a society we don't restrain ourselves, it is not a great leap in logic to predict that government will do the same. We are a society obsessed with loopholes & me-first attitudes and we glorify rampant consumerism and pretty people that consume rampantly. Our companies publicly claim to "do no evil" and privately do what they want.

The surprising truth should be that the government is a mirror on ourselves. If we don't like the government, we have a much more sinister problem.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

[newbie12]

It is a human condition to have endless wants. The genius of the American experiment was that the Founders understood this, and created institutional checks on the size and power of government-- after all, governments are made up of people. The problem is that these institutional checks are crumbling under the twin weight of the military industrial complex and the entitlement state.