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Vive la guillotine
ER — (archived)

If we had actually been privy to the founding fathers at work, we wouldn't have seen any lofty principles, we would have witnessed a bunch of hard-nosed planters and merchants and lawyers hammering out the best possible compromise they could, one that probably satisfied none of them, but one that they could all live with and which would cover their own personal financial interests and political committments as well as possible. It was all compromise and debate and conflict, probably with a lot of horse-trading and back-stabbing going on as well. This wasn't Junior Achievement playing at civics, or the Boy Scout Entrepreneur Merit Badge Pageant, these were businessmen who had just fought a war and cheated the hangman. They knew how to look out for number one. And we know for a fact that everyone who wasn't in those rooms dealing and arguing with them came up short.

That's exactly how politics is done today. And we're lucky. If you want to see what happens when principles and philosophy and zealots take over, look at the French Revolution.

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