[Skybird]

A constitution always has two sides: that of vision and utopia, this says somethign about what the state and it'S people want to be. And the pragmatic side, showing what it really is in reality. Conformity of the spirit of the idea, and the real deed, is acchieved not often. Seen that way a constitution is not a decription of what a nation really is, but a compass showing it the direction where to search for improvement. that's is why I like the US constitution, all in all - and greet the EU draft with disgust only. The first is a well-meant vision, short, straight and clear. The latter is a bureaucratic regulation, monumental in volume, intended to hide the shifting of power from democratically legitimised institutions to non-legitimised smaller and smaller "hidden circles" ruling with special decrees if needed, and hiding this behind hundreds and hundreds of hundred paragrapühs, sub-articles, footnotes and appendices. Seen that way, the old american presidents may not be electable today, but their ideas of how to define an utopia as an attractor that puts a nation on course would well be needed in Europe. We do not have visionaries here. We only have technocratic managers, and where the first looked beyond the horizon, the latter do not look beyond the tip of their nose.