"Hey, they were doing the best they could," I replied. Indeed, when one looks at the state of economic and political oppression which prevailed around most of the globe in the 1780s, the foresight of the founders was astonishing, even if admittedly flawed. "I never much cared for counting black folk as 3/5ths of a person, either," I continued. "But remember, the original Constitution permitted no personal income tax; the Supreme Court (though it sure took them long enough) eventually threw out the tyrant Lincoln's income tax. It took a very stupid constitutional amendment to mess this up and put the central government on the direct arterial feeding tube it now enjoys; and some reputable scholars argue that amendment actually created no new taxing power, anyway."

In hindsight, I do think one more thing needs to be added to this reply.

One of the ways we know the government monopoly schools are bad is that virtually everyone who attended one will tell you the Articles of Confederation were not working out in 1787, which is why the delegates had to return to Philadelphia to craft our current Constitution, which all us dutiful students will therefore certify was necessary, inevitable, and good.

If any of us thought to ask teacher why the Articles were bad, we were fed some bunk about how the seaboard states were charging unfair tariffs on good trans-shipped to the landlocked states.

The only problem with that particular hokum being that the first effectively landlocked state -- Vermont -- wasn't admitted to the union until the 1790s.

In fact, one searches contemporary accounts in vain for any reports of rampaging mobs or people starving in the streets from 1781 and 1787 (unlike, say, Russia from 1917 to 1920.) The only "crisis" of the time was simply that the several states weren't ponying up as much money as the central government in Philadelphia wanted.

Well, who ever met a bureaucrat who didn't want more money? This was no accident. The real democratic republicans -- true heroes of 1776, like Jefferson and Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee -- gave us a weak central government under the Articles, on purpose.

In his fine novels of an alternative universe, starting with "The Probability Broach," science fiction author L. Neil Smith asks what America would have been like if the Declaration of Independence had contained just one additional word -- if Mr. Jefferson had thought to declare that governments derive their just powers from "the unanimous consent of the governed."

In that alternative universe, George Washington leads his federal troops to put down the Pennsylvania rebellion against the whisky tax, and is promptly captured and hanged. Albert Gallatin becomes the next president of the young republic, promising no more of this "tax" stuff. Down to the present day, in Smith's novels, there continues a subculture of frustrated imperialists -- led by a thinly disguised William F. Buckley -- plotting to restore the central taxing authority necessary for their dreams of a majestic, powerful, imperial state. Smith dubs them the "Hamiltonians."

In real life, of course, Hamilton and the federalists waited till Jefferson was safely out of the way in Paris, and then trooped around banging on their shields, winning ratification of their flawed new Constitution based on numerous promises that we need never fear the kind of powerful central government that could, say, bar a state's secession, or override a popular vote in any given state to legalize marijuana, or strike terror in the hearts of the common people with the words "asset seizure," "bank account lien," or "IRS audit."

Why? Because of "safeguards," and "powers divided between jealous factions," of course. In net effect, they promised us the kind of non-government that the Washington Post would today deride as "paralyzing gridlock."

Why, they were even willing to add a Ninth and 10th amendment, swearing that the central government would never be allowed to assume any powers not specifically listed. Not enough for you? We'll even add a Second amendment, promising that no tax or regulation or other "infringement" can ever be allowed to restrict the average citizen from owning, carrying and keeping in his home "the sword and every other terrible instrument of the solder." Why, only a paranoid fool would worry about federal tanks plowing through churches full of innocent women and children, when "The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword," as prominent federalist Noah Webster cooed, "because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."

So, to the questioner who asked, "Were the Framers thieves?" let us answer by refusing to lump all those men into one group. Jefferson, Henry, Lee and the many vocal antifederalists were not thieves. Jefferson said "a wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." These men had our best interests at heart.

Whereas the gang commanded by Alexander Hamilton -- a bunch who thought the nation's capital should be in Mexico City, centrally located in the heart of the region which it was our manifest destiny to eventually conquer and rule -- oh, these were ambitious men.

Thieves? At the very least, it's now well established that they lied through their teeth.

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)