the hero worship of the founding fathers

"The Constitution invests the people with just enough power to carry out the functions that it dictates. If so, this explains a good deal about the American political system — its low ideological level, its narrowness of debate, its all-around thoughtlessness. Instead of freely thinking through the problems before them, Americans are required — programmed, actually — to think only in ways dictated by the founders.

They are creatures of a pre-ordained democracy that limits their role to filling in certain blanks. They will argue endlessly about the “necessary and proper” clause in Article I or the meaning of the Second Amendment, but never about why, after more than two centuries, they should remain bound by such precepts in the first place. They debate what the Constitution allows them to debate and disregard the rest."

--  Abolish the Electoral College

Promise

"I think promising goes back to the unstated contract between a mother and child.  It's no use her telling a child, 'You must not go near the edge of the cliff, or touch fire, or wander off,' unless the child agrees that it won't.  If the child doesn't agree, then the mother must be more vigilant than is practical. What the child promises is to try to stay alive. What the mother promises, in return, is to love the child and try to keep it alive. That is the earliest contract humans make, or have ever made. So, when we ask a [crisis line] caller to promise, we are touching an ancient nerve. The equation written in our cells, in our bones, is that keeping yourself safe will lead to love. It is the oldest and simplest promise."

-- Diane Ackerman, A Slender Thread: Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis