History buff here. For those interested, take a look at the ratification debates. For a lot of people, it wasn't even clear why you'd need a Bill of Rights in t

History buff here. For those interested, take a look at the ratification debates. For a lot of people, it wasn't even clear why you'd need a Bill of Rights in the first place. The only reason it was included is to get the states to ratify. The anti-federalists (those opposed to the new constitution) made all kinds of arguments about the things that would happen. The federal government would take over most of the power. There would be a standing army. Language would be stretched to take the government far beyond the bounds that were initially established. There are two especially interesting things about this. First, the anti-federalists, like libertarians recently, were considered the tin foil hats of the day. Who could believe such silliness would ever happen here? Yet, like our recent example, they were proven right. The second thing that's interesting is the depth of conversation and debate that was going on almost 250 years ago. The debaters understood which structural flaws the government might or might not have and were arguing about weaknesses that in some cases took many decades to eventually show up. I seriously wonder if such a well-reasoned and supported by history discussion could happen today.