The best book I've read in a while

Rachel Maddow's book, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, is an impressive, intelligent study of the movement away from our nation's founders' intent and subsequently the Constitution's design to prevent the authority to declare war from falling to one person. (The right to declare war belongs to the Legislative Branch, for the specific reason that it allows for debate, and for the whole nation to be involved indirectly through it's elected officials). On the first page she quotes James Madison: "In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people." Madison said that in 1795. The book is a well-documented and alarmingly clear description of how we got where we are. If you get this book, make sure you pay attention to the "Notes" and "Acknowledgements" at the end. I suspect that wherever you stand politically, you will get an education that you did not anticipate. And I suspect you will be more inclined to vote this November. And that will be good for everyone.I hope this book will start a conversation across America that will result in a return to sanity, and the original ideas that formed our Constitution. We are quick to quote the "founding fathers" when their ideas (or our version of their ideas) support our own views. This book reminds us, with conservative as well as liberal documentation, of some basic principles of democracy. Maddow points us toward a return to them, and we would do well to listen to her.
8/25/12