“Open thread, what you all eating and thinking about?”

Sloppin’ the hog. Tractor pull this evenin’ at the corn-dome.

We ain’t to intersted in ca-ca tacohs or eggs from florentine, not real fond of devilt eggs, neither. You from the coast?

In my line of work, the three day weekend doesn’t begin until noon on Sunday. That said . . .

Breakfast will be served in bed tomorrow morning, with smoked salmon and cream cheese as the main attraction. This will be followed at lunchtime with mahi mahi fish tacos, and dinner will feature a smoked pork loin, cooked nice and slowly on the grill out back. If I get really pumped and predicted thunderstorms don’t show up, there will also be homemade peach ice cream.

(Running the grill in the rain is no big deal, but making ice cream in the rain is a real drag.)

I’ve been thinking about how terribly correct the Federalists were when they argued against the necessity for a Bill of Rights to be added to the Philadelphia Convention draft; for instance, James Wilson (taken from Elliot’s Debates, PA’s ratification convention on Wed. Nov. 28, 1787):

But in a government consisting of enumerated powers, such as is proposed for the United States, a bill of rights would not only be unnecessary, but, in my humble judgment, highly imprudent. In all societies, there are many powers and rights which cannot be particularly enumerated. A bill of rights annexed to a constitution is an enumeration of the powers reserved. If we attempt an enumeration, every thing that is not enumerated is presumed to be given. The consequence is, that an imperfect enumeration would throw all implied power into the scale of the government, and the rights of the people would be rendered incomplete.

Yet, I don’t think it would’ve been any better (likely much worse, in fact) without the BoR. Also, two quotes from James Wilson (same source, diff. days though) that depress me when I consider them in light of today’s political realities. First (emphasis in bold for the stuff that can depress, italics are per the original):

Oft have I marked, with silent pleasure and admiration, the force and prevalence, through the United States, of the principle that the supreme power resides in the people, and that they never part with it. It may be called the panacea in politics. There can be no disorder in the community but may here receive a radical cure. If the error be in the legislature, it may be corrected by the constitution; if in the constitution, it may be corrected by the people. There is a remedy, therefore, for every distemper in government, if the people are not wanting to themselves; if they are wanting to themselves, there is no remedy. From their power, as we have seen, there is no appeal; of their error there is no superior principle of correction.

Second (the whole thing is depressing when one considers today’s politics, so no bold emphasis necessary):

I have supposed one of my constituents to ask me why I gave such a vote on a particular question. I have always thought it would be a satisfactory answer to say, Because I judged, upon the best consideration I could give, that such a vote was right, I have thought that it would be a very poor compliment to my constituents to say, that, in my opinion, such a vote would have been proper, but that I supposed a contrary one would be more agreeable to those who sent me to the Convention. I could not, even in idea, expose myself to such a retort, as, upon the last answer, might have been justly made to me — Pray, sir, what reasons have you for supposing that a right vote would displease your constituents? Is this the proper return for the high confidence they have placed in you? If they have given cause for such a surmise, it was by choosing a representative who could entertain such an opinion of them. I was under no apprehension that the good people of this state would behold with displeasure the brightness of the rays of delegated power, when it only proved the superior splendor of the luminary of which those rays were only the reflection.