I know you're such a good Poker player, that you'd win most of the pots.

You're SO GOOD, in fact, that the other players at the table will start to cry foul (or fowl if the chicken tenders are gone). No fair, they will say. You grew up with a Poker playing mama as a mama, and your birth circumstances gives you an unfair advantage.

Since I've played Poker with this crowd before, I know they'll try to make the game more "fair" for other players ("fair" will be their word, not yours) - you know, for those players who weren't born with a silver Poker Chip in their hands. They like to vote, so be forewarned.

I was once sitting pretty with trip tens, and they "voted" to make two pair, if they were all face cards, BEAT three of a kind. How do you like that? They voted to change the friggin' rules in midstream and I lost the friggin' hand!

They should have taken action to change the rules the proper way, you know, through the Poker Congress or whatever. But no, they just took a straw vote and I lost!

The constitution is the rules of the game, so to speak. It's why we DO NOT have a Democracy in America. The founders knew that a pure democracy would become just as tyrannical as a dictatorship - tyranny of the majority. That's why we have a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner. A Constitutional Republic compels them play by the rules and not eat the lamb - even if the lamb is a millionaire and the wolves are starving.

At one time, the federal government did not have the power to collect income tax. It took a Constitutional Amendment - changing the rules; adding to the power we give the government.

In theory, the federal government has no power except that which is specifically enumerated in the Constitution, either by article or amendment.

The CORRECT way to give power to the government of the United States IS NOT through a vote of the people (or through a vote in Congress), but rather through a change to the constitution - voting to amend the constitution, which takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress and two-thirds of the states' legislators.

Today, we have a government that IS NOT playing by the rules. Show me in the constitution, for example, the specific article or amendment (note I said "specific") which bestows upon the federal government the power to force citizens of the USA to buy a specific product (medical insurance). And unfortunately, we have an electorate who is either too ignorant and uninformed, or they feel so elitist, or others who feel so entitled, that they, too, will circumvent the Constitution at every turn. And the politicians play these voters like a fine tuned fiddle.

Generally speaking, most Americans don't fully understand our constitution, much less people from other countries. Everything ANSU has said in this discussion, for example, is dead wrong. He makes a silly assertion and treats it as truth. Kind of like a lot of Americans do.

And that is the problem. People don't want to play by the rules. They want to make up their own.

(And for those who might feel compelled to say something silly like, life is not a game, blah, blah, blah...... well, please spare us all.)

By the way, the constitution was not written for 18th Century society, as you've too often, and incorrectly, suggested. It was written for human nature. Societies might change, but human nature does not. It's a timeless challenge for which no perfect solution can be found, because those humans actually see the world through different colored glasses, they have different dreams and ambitions, they have different values and cultural considerations, religious beliefs, etc.

As such, it's not practical to try to find "common ground", so to speak, on which everyone can agree, but rather find a way to accommodate the differences. And in my opinion, the best effort in the history of mankind to accommodate such differences was initiated in 18th Century America. And it's a damn shame we have people who don't even understand it, but who are trying to destroy it. .