PRE-FVCKING-CISELY!

Den Beste (I'm getting repetitive, I know) comments on our two-party system and the stability it lends in this piece, (and as always, RTWT) but here is the kicker quote that current high-school graduates and almost anyone who call themselves liberals just don't get:

In general, we tolerate a great deal which in Europe would be suppressed as "hate speech". We let Holocaust Deniers make their case, which is also illegal in much of Europe. There's no benefit in letting them exist, but there's a huge benefit in not having the government decide what is and is not "acceptable" political speech (including "hate speech"), since there's such a huge potential for abuse if it has that power.

That's the founding concept behind the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - restriction of government power because of the huge potential for abuse.

Every single law that is passed has a potential for abuse. Each new law confers a new or greater power to government, thus increasing the risk of future abuse. And it's, if not a logarithmic, at least a geometrically increasing expansion. I wrote a long time ago (Bloggers archives seem to be screwed at the moment) "It's frightening when you think that we started out with just ten commandments". While our Founders didn't establish a two-party system in the Constitution, and in fact some railed against the Party system, it has proven to be one of the things that has kept America stable and moderate over the course of over 250 years.

It works.

So of course progressives want to change it.