{My apologies to Mr. Bushmills. This started as a comment on his excellent dispatch but quickly got out of control, ranting and growing like Topsy.}

We do live in separate realities; or at least we perceive reality differently than they do.

I still prefer Dr. Sowell’s model of the visions, ours the constrained, theirs the unconstrained. Without slap-dashing it too much, their side believes in the perfectibility of man and Utopia; our side (and I think the side of the Founders) thinks not, has a more tragic view of human nature and plans accordingly.

To extend a bit, since we see Man as imperfect, we need to create rules to keep folks in line, since we know they’ll stray and do their own thing if they can. Especially governments consisting of Men. This gives us the negative Constitutional rules ie: Congress will pass no law….

The other side figures they can push everyone into perfection, hence their approach to legislating: You WILL BUY Health Insurance…or as in the old SovUnion, whatever isn’t illegal, is mandatory!

Our side tends to believe in moral absolutes, right and wrong, often based upon Judeo-Christian thought and teachings. Also tradition. This provides a foundation for all that follows.

The other side, not so much. They rail against Biblical fairy tales about some sky-god, and insist on defining right and wrong. Problem is, it always changes with the times, so yesterday’s truth is today’s lie. Why not? If there is no foundational right and wrong, every day is a new day, yesterday’s in the past and no longer matters. ‘We have always been at war with Eastasia.’

The other thing they’ve artfully done is muddy the water where it comes to defining rights, needs and wants. I missed the part in the Constitution where anybody has a right to a college education or health care or a cell phone or to bargain collectively. In confusing needs and wants with rights, their side has become downright Spockian: ‘the needs of the many (give me stuff! © OWS) outweigh the needs of the few’ (leave mriggio’s property alone!). But what else would we expect from those who diminish the indivdual in favor of the (organized, and more easily controlled) collective.

So, of course they’re against the Constitution! It’s too restrictive and lacks any moral relativism; that’s why they want it to be a ‘living’ (meaning ever-changing and adaptable) Constitution. Since there is no absolute right or wrong, they have to make the Constitution say what they need it to say today, in order to do what they want to do today. Remember San Fran Nan when asked if the individual mandate was constitutional–“Are you kidding? Are you kidding?” Or my other buddy John Conyers and his ‘good and plenty welfare’ clause? Or the idiot ex-Congressman Phil Hare “I don’t worry about the Constitution”? We could all go on.

The only solution I see is an absolute electoral and legislative slash-and-burn, tear down the whole Progressive edifice and salt the ground where it once stood. I’m all for Perry’s plan to uproot and overhaul Washington and whittle it down to the size it’s supposed to be. So what if he couldn’t remember the third outfit he’d shut down; I can give him about 20 more if he needs a little reminder now and then.

mriggio