Just finished reading an interview with Gore Vidal (which Mark Evanier linked to a week or so ago) and was intrigued enough to check out his comments re: Benjamin Franklin. I think both Vidal and Franklin are correct in feeling that despotism is what we have at the current time. Franklin predicted it over 200 years ago and Vidal points to it today.

Jefferson was probably right that we should hold a Constitutional Convention ever few years and start from scratch. The rich have already taken just about everything they can, so we might as well hand them everything else, sit back and wait to be taken away.

Here's a link to Franklin's speech. If nothing else, it demonstrates once again that the old guy knew his fellow Americans all too well.