and we will be a dictatorship. I feel we're at a Caesar-Rubicon moment. There's much to be said for pessimism, because pessimists are right. Well, pessimists are right a good bit of the time, and they're delighted when they're wrong, which is why I subscribe to the Ohio in 1895 theory of history, so named by me for the little-known fact that in Ohio in 1895 there were two automobiles, and they collided. Things go wrong. On the other hand, this is not a flimsy country. It was not made by flimsy people. And the flinty realists about human nature and the temptations of power who went to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 and devised a government full of blocking mechanisms, three branches of government, two branches of the legislative branch with different electoral constituencies and electoral rhythms, super majorities, vetoes, veto overrides, judicial review, all kinds of ways to slow it down and make it difficult for an overbearing government. It's not a flimsy country. It's not a (12/45)