Senate report concludes: no proof of contact between

[--Pete]

Hi,

It's not just the R's.

No, it is indeed not. However, the D's have been so ineffectual for so long and are so disorganized and so unfocused that the only thing they are a threat to is themselves.

I recall quite a few rights tramplings during the Clinton years.

Must be old age, but I don't remember anything in particular from the Clinton era that threatened to diminish the Bill of Rights. If by 'rights', you mean some of the crap that has been introduced since the mid fifties, then I agree on the trampling, but less so on the 'right'.

Also, when has this nation ever had an educated populace? One that could meet your standards?

Through most of the first half of the twentieth century. After public education became widely available and before the focus shifted away from the basics (reading, writing, reasoning, arithmetic, history, geography).

It seems that Americans have been treated as nearly savage, and uneducated by Europe since before the revolution.

Largely true, but a non-sequitor. The European opinion of the American educational level is of no importance or value. What is of value is the educated American's opinion of the average American educational level. And what is of even more value are the objective, quantitative measurements of that level. And those are pretty much uniformly low (e.g., a recent test showed that about two thirds of the Chicago public high school graduates could only read at an eight grade level -- the question is clearly, how did they get past eight grade?).

We ourselves have been so xenophobic that we came close to barring recent German emigrants, Catholics, and other so-called unwashed miscreants from voting in the late 1850's.

Again true, but again largely moot. Note that the requirements imposed on voters was, at that time and for quite a while after, left to the States. It may not have been in the spirit of "all men are created equal", but it was completely constitutional to limit the franchise to white, male, property owners. Only the religious factor was borderline, but neither the body of the constitution (which simply bans religious tests from being used to hold or to be excluded from public office) nor the First Amendment (which simply bans the establishment of a state church) actually forbids such a practice. It isn't until a series of Supreme Court decisions 'interpreted' the constitution that such restrictions on voting became unconstitutional.

If you are looking for examples from earlier in our history, try the alien and sedition acts (1890's and 1910's IIRC), the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and the internment of the Japanese Americans.

--Pete