Good comment, Astoria Bob.

The legal theme is all about the foundation. Who are we? Who gets to decide what? What powers do our judges have?

In nations with actual separation of powers, the judges appoint the judges. The politicians can put their signatures under the appointments and that's all folks.

When the politicians do not like what the judges end up saying, then the politicians can change the laws -- that's one of their functions. The judges do not write the law. The judges judge, the politicians decide what the laws are that they judge with.

In Case Law, jurisprudence competes with jurisprudence.
In Enlightened Law, all rules are in agreement with one another.

When we look at the United States, we see that judges play a far more prominent role in our lives than in other nations. Our politicians are actually not writing all that many laws; the judges are very much involved.

Similarly, we see an army of attorneys because a decision is made by a judge based on the presented evidence (in Case Law), and a good attorney will find all that benefits their clients, and nothing that undermines it. That's why the rich can go scot free sometimes because they have better lawyers than the other side.

Ultimately though, the true question is whether we embrace legal equality or not.

In the United States we say that we embrace legal equality, but reality tells us that we do not embrace legal equality unless the suppressed individuals won that fact (and can hold on to it).

Venice, therefore.

Is the US Constitution enlightened? Yes, but....

It was very disappointing for the Founding Fathers to accept the demands made by the 13 colonies. They had to agree to what is in essence a separate-but-equal reality for the Federation, independent states in a larger setting of federalism. Instead of establishing norms that are norms based on logical grounds that are aligned well in their collective outcomes, they had to accept the already established powers of the 13 colonies, incorporating the old with the new.

That disappointment led to their writing the Bill of Rights in which they do their utmost best to 'right the wrong' of the original version not being enlightened enough.

As a result we can say that the US Constitution is enlightened indeed, with as caveat that the federation itself is one of compromise.

And that is reflected in the voting systems. The Federal level is fine with voting in discriminating manners even though the Framers had wanted something better originally. And that two-party system leads to too many politicians sitting on their hands — they are not proactively doing what the voters want. Circle complete with the US Supreme Court then stepping in, making political decisions they should not be making.

The State and local elections should be based on equality in outcome, today. What we find in place, however, is that the discriminating voting systems are used for all levels. You know the rest of the story and why those being discriminated against have to fortify themselves all the way until they are recognized as equal citizens indeed.

The judges ruled that this is Venice. They ruled that the foundation is muddy. The judges can be blamed — together with the politicians. They are not standing on ground zero; they snub their noses about it.

https://sites.google.com/site/enlightenmentinfluenceamerica/us-constitution