When I was awake at 2am this morning, I was thinking about this passage from the opening of The Federalist:

"It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may, with propriety, be regarded as the period when that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act, may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."

I have always thought this was a beautiful, uplifting passage about the capacity of men to determine their political destiny based on informed reason and reflection. But earlier this morning I was thinking about it in a...somewhat different light. It reads more like a warning than an affirmation. 

Also: one of the best parts of writing a blog is that you get to revisit what your past self was up to in, say, November 2008. Quite a different time, and yet I don't disagree with anything I wrote then. Here's to 2020, I guess?