I had hoped to see better from you.

They will only if enough of us scream our bloody heads off demanding that they do so.

This could only work with a small number of people in an isolated area. Even Galt's Gulch had some courthouses.

Sadly, I don't think you are wrong. Momentum as a concept is as valid in politics and culture as it is in physics. It would require an enormous number of citizens to demand an end to this spending and borrowing insanity.

Trump has stated he wants to reduce Federal govt. staffing by 20%, and has his team studying the waste account books put together by former OK Senator Tom Coburn, now updated by OK Senator Lankford. Coburn's books simply took the recommendations of all the Federal agencies inspectors general, and determined eliminating duplication and outdated budgets would reduce spending by a trillion dollars a year. His first step in freezing govt. hiring except for the military aims to reduce the agencies through attrition, so his intent to reduce spending seems clear.

Whether the President will succeed is uncertain, since much "waste" serves as a jobs program to prop up employment in congressional districts, and there are representatives and senators who will stiffly resist any effort to end them. In this, the resistance is bipartisan, with many Republican congresspersons just as much in favor of these wasteful programs as Democrats. Can the President engage in public shaming of these politicians via tweets when their reelection is on the line?

"Although the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are generally recognized (and certainly should be) as major statements of the Natural Rights of Man in relation to the needs of government, the actuality of reliance of words written on paper leaves freedom and liberty of the individual subject to interpretation by others. "

Correct. Ayn Rand and many of us recognize that reducing concepts to mathematical specificity using ordinary language is incredibly difficult. The Collectivists have used this imprecision to cleverly invert the meanings of words to suit their evil intentions. I'm running out of ways (and time) to convince anyone that we are heading headlong into a dictatorship - if one hasn't already arrived.

My hope is that Pres.Trump with Congress roll back government regulations on commerce, industry and small businesses would go along way to improving the economy.

That "Third Way" was given by the Greeks long ago. That is "No Government", a.k.a. "No Ruler", called "Anarchy", and being self-governance by humans capable of Voluntary interaction.

Me dino thinks the Constitution of the United States is what is really great despite all the "Americans" who have tried their best to erode if not completely destroy it.
We just had a close call in that regard with the election of a Supreme Court justice appointing flawed but well-meaning blowhard over a corrupt evil hag.

Freedom of religion was added to the Constitution via the Bill of Rights. It is not in the original Constitution. Furthermore, if you read the Bill of Rights, you will see that it applies only to the Federal government: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" The states had that power. Massachusetts and Virginia collected taxes for their state churches. In other states the Church Tax was levied on all, but you could say which church got your tax money.
Again, see here: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion...

The British Empire ended slavery before we did. In fact, slavery was a universal condition, until the early 19th century, by which time most of the civilized world ended it.

If you read the Constitution, you will see that the importation of slaves was stopped before 1809. In any event the British ended slavery de jure in 1772. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboliti...

"the ballot box or revolution"
I'm generally an optimist, but I don't see how the ballot box solves this particular problem. The incentive to support good causes with money from the Treasury is still there, even if we get one set of politicians who resists the pressure to spend.

I am not for revolution in general, and certainly not without a clear solution to this problem ready to implement, so I hope for a third way that I haven't thought of yet.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but during the recession of 08-09 and its aftermath, we went borrowing more than a trillion a year. That settled down to 500 billion a year range. Now we have President Trump and a Congress supposedly completely opposed to President Obama. I predict the borrowing will continue and that gov't spending will continue to increase every year. The expansion of executive branch power will continue. The gov't intrusion into citizens' lives will continue. I predict a) supporters of Senator Sanders will merge will supporters of President Trump OR a Sanders-like figure will be elected president soon. I'm not happy about that, but it won't affect the trend of gov't metastasis. The gov't will slowly increase in size until a fiscal mini-crisis makes it difficult to borrow more.

Obviously, I hope I'm wrong.

Although the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights are generally recognized (and certainly should be) as major statements of the Natural Rights of Man in relation to the needs of government, the actuality of reliance of words written on paper leaves freedom and liberty of the individual subject to interpretation by others. Many have a desire to look for and find a flexion point or action that they can then blame for the cause or the beginning of the change from the ideals of the Founding.

But the quotes below illustrate some of the thoughts of the Founders themselves indicating that by 20 or 30 years into the existence of the government, that those ideals were already lost. And some feared that it was never actually realized because of the realities of the level of commitment to individual liberty and the unwillngness of the citizenry to exercise their Rights to say No, or to require that all in government act in accordance with the common sense meanings of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In my view, whenever the population has screamed for or a politician promised a law to control or restrict the liberty or freedom of any other individual or group, the ideal of the Founding was lost.

"A free people cannot remain free by resting their hopes on any Constitution, system of checks and balances, laws or courts. Freedom and the love of it must live in the hearts of human beings, man, woman, and child, the minute that love dies, freedom dies. It is the nature of government to demand more power. And it is the people’s responsibility to refuse to give it. After all, the people are the ones who delegate power to the government. The government does not make us free, we are free by nature." Jefferson (?)

”Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office, a rottenness begins in his conduct." Thomas Jefferson

"I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance." Thomas Jefferson September 12, 1821

"If this spirit shall ever be so far debased, as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty." James Madison February 19, 1788

Further, as to slavery, bear in mind that the British Empire introduced slavery into the colonies. Yes it took 73 years to end this evil scourge in a bloody civil war but end it we did.

"We solved a lot of problems but not the problem of a ballooning gov't."

Indeed! All forms of government tend toward dictatorship. The BOR was an attempt to constrain the government of America from becoming one. It has obviously failed to do so. The only two ways of getting it back on track
seem to be at the ballot box or revolution. I keep hoping it can be done via the former.

" So-called "freedom of religion" did not apply to the states. "

If the "freedom of religion" did not apply to the individual citizens, who did they apply to? Why did the framers put it into the Constitution? You are like all collectivists in that you only see society's entities and not individuals. You and Marx perfect together.

I have to agree with CircuitGuy: Your claim is that America only worked for 100 years. That is false. Moreover, the so-called "loss" of individual rights was from the very beginning. You talk about the Bill of Rights. So-called "freedom of religion" did not apply to the states. Only Congress could not establish a religion. I suppose, in theory, the President or Courts could have... In fact, the States of Massachusetts and Virginia collected taxes for churches. (George Washington supported state taxes for religion. Baptists were persecuted in Virginia. See here: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion... )

The "Black Laws" of the 1830s took away rights from free born Africans. During the colonial and revolutionary periods, free Africans were part of the social landscape. In fact, in some colonies, the concept of slavery did not apply to the children of slaves. The rulers had no clear conception of legal slavery. It was very weak. But they toughened that up, for sure. So, did America stop being great before it was born? No.

American greatness is founded on American exceptionalism. We always perceived ourselves as special. For whatever flaws, the first colonists sought to build "a City on a Hill" a special place for special people -- not by class, not by race, but by choice.

Despite the problems, women could vote in local elections in Kentucky in the 1830s. Anyone could open a bank, even in 1887, thanks to Salmon P. Chase's plan for a "national banking" system based on gold -- all it took was $25,000 on deposit with the Treasury. The first woman to be CEO of a bank was born a slave, Maggie L. Walker. That was in 1902, after the Interstate Commerce Commission supposedly destroyed American greatness.

(Why blame the ICC? It only rested on the canals of the 1830s. On the eve of railroading, states were building canals with public money. Did that not harm American greatness? Why blame the government? It was corrupt business people who pushed for that to line their own pockets at public expense. Blame evil capitalists, if you want, to, but it would be false to do so. Adam Smith pointed out that seldom do tradesmen meet for dinner but that talk turns to ways to restrict trade for their own benefit. It is as common as religious prejudice. It is a minor flaw in the greater pattern of individualism, rights, and the consequential material progress.)

From railroads to the Internet, America has been and remains great.

Do we have flaws? Yes. Are there contradictions in the Constitution? Yes. Can we be better? Yes. And we will be. Because of people like us here, we will make things even better.

I liked that liked comment because was very clear and objective.

I think of America as amazingly great, despite its problems. You ask if the Commerce Clause might be a fatal flaw. I'm not remotely knowledgeable about that, but I do think any democratic republic has to have safeguards against people voting themselves money from the public treasury. That's our biggest problem right now, but I cannot call it a flaw or a bug because it's not like there are widespread examples of systems to avoid this.

Placing the start of the supposed decline in 1887 would mean the country worked for less than 100 years, and during most of those slavery was legal and during none of them the country respected rights of women and non-Europeans.

When it started, the concept of power flowing from the people to the gov't and gov't based on philosophers was a leap forward, even if it was still horribly flawed in not respecting everyone's rights. It's come so far that now even though we still don't have fully equal rights, most everyone agrees we should.

We solved a lot of problems but not the problem of a ballooning gov't.

I agree. HTTP://www.somethingsonmymind.com
I wish Jefferson would have added property to the DOI.

I would argue that American greatness lies in the fact that the Constitution recognized the right of individuals to their own property and nothing else. It's when our government oversteps it's bounds that America becomes more equal to the rest of the world.