Extremism in the pursuit of “virtue” may not be a “vice” but it definitely can be (and presently is) a tremendously destabilizing tactic that, when unleashed by one group successfully, will no doubt encourage others to follow suit. Today, extremists are attacking efforts to insure that all Americans have access to affordable health care. If they are not chastened, tomorrow other extremists may likewise choose to exchange our economic well being for polices they could not get by conventional political means, like a national assault weapons ban, or perhaps the removal of “God” from our currency, public buildings, etc…
This, of course, would mean a nation periodically held hostage to a debate about “virtue,” something the Framers INTENTIONALLY designed our constitutional system to avoid. The Framers understood that “politics” is inadequate to the task of defining “virtue” and that if such an exercise were to become the province of our national government, she would surely perish just like the democratic experiments of antiquity before her. They understood that moral questions would pervade our politics in the same way they knew that “liberty” would encourage “faction,” but they did their very best to design a system that could not be hyjacked by the most dangerous kind of faction; a faction motivated by religious fervor. They designed a political system for the management and mediation of “ambitions,” precisely because they knew that more consequential disputes, could not be settled democratically.
The claim by the Tea Party hostage takers in the House of Representatives that they are the stewards of the Framers’ intentions and design is a “hate-joke.”
