An awful lot of problems in America today stem from the founders’ lack of imagination.

They couldn’t imagine private health insurance companies that trade on the stock exchange.

They couldn’t imagine churches that act like corporations.

They couldn’t imagine assault rifles.

I can’t blame the founders for failing to predict what life would be like 250 years later.

But I do blame us for clinging so religiously to the loopholes and mistakes they made simply because “if they’re old they must be good.”

And that’s what our lack of action boils down to.

Step back and think about how we treat the Constitution.

Like fierce opponents playing a complex board game we obsessively pour over the rulebook for guidance.

Lawyers today even argue over the meaning of punctuation; whether a comma written into the constitution is meaningful.

“Sure people are dying but the first draft of the rulebook written by a bunch of terrible slaveholders has a comma here, so that means we can’t do anything but pray for the violence to end.”

This is how the supposedly “manly” right wing sounds when they argue against gun reform.

Each year we teach children comforting myths about the founding fathers rather than the whole truth.

Look, many were rich, vicious slaveholders. The man who wrote our Delcaration raped his slave.

If we’re going to correct his mistakes, we need to stop putting him on a pedestal.