[Urbane Guerrilla]

A good post, Richlevy. I differ with you on some points in it, but am just going to confine myself to commenting on one of them: shore up not only the First and Fourth Amendments, but the Second as well. An empowered electorate is an effective electorate, and an electorate with the power of life and death is the most effective of all. An electorate deprived of the power of life and death has fewer (some would say no -- at the end of the day, I fall into that camp) recourses to keep its government accountable for its governance, fewer means of keeping its government in its proper place as a provider of certain services, these being the sort that are agreed to be necessary, but are unprofitable in themselves. Such an electorate is on its way to being ruled by an oligarchy.