The problem is, though, those ideas are like a sword – they can't do anything by themselves, someone has to use them.

As you and others have mentioned, we have the modern version of bread and circuses in the form of beer (and pizza) and television that keeps people delightfully ignorant of what's going on around them.

Talk to 20 people, and see how many either refuse to talk about politics ("friends don't talk about politics and religion" is one I've heard several times) or claim that it's too difficult for them to understand and get involved in.

It no, sadly, no longer surprises me to hear people on the news or when I'm out and about, that have little or no understanding of the Constitution, and actually believe that federal government is empowered by the Constitution to do whatever it deems necessary.

What's truly disturbing is hearing the subject of Constitutionality, in the few times that it is brought up, being referred to derisively in the media, and many people seem to hold the same attitude about it.

Despite things like Tom Brokaw's little stunt with George Bush's military history, or John Gibson claiming that Ron Paul said that the 9/11 attacks were our fault and that he's a "truther", then playing clips of what Ron Paul actually said, where he never once blames us for it and plainly says that he does not espouse "truther" theories, people don't seem to have gotten the point that the raw output from the media can't be trusted.

Likewise, people claim that they can't stand name calling and personal attacks in and by the media, yet, when tea party activists are labeled as screw-balls and racists and called "tea baggers", people seem to really believe that anybody associated with the movement are a bunch of screw-balls and racists.

That needs to be changed, or worked around, to start changing public opinion.

Monoprise – When the selection of senators was taken from the state legislators and put up to popular vote in the name of "democracy", that removed the states' ability to defend themselves and their rights at the federal level.

The value of the Constitution is, at least, that it shows us an historically accurate view of what the original scheme was so those of us who can read can clearly see how far off track the current system has become.

This gives us some perspective and an opportunity to rally others to that view. Without the written, unchanging document itself, it would just be oral history and it would be unreliable and not credible. Further, it gives us the benefit of the thoughts of people who were VERY smart and who had suffered through a crisis and prevailed. As you say, life it too easy today to get that view.

The written word is arguably mankind's greatest invention. It's not the paper that matters, as I'm sure you're aware, it's the IDEAS memorialized on the paper that matter.

We could start over and re-invent a system of government or we could push hard to move this one back in the direction of its original design.

Your option seems to be to wait until 'the people' are sick and diseased and begging in the streets and then try to put it all back together as was done in Germany in the late 1920's. I'd rather try to save the current system than risk another Hitler.

The specific mention in The Federalist No. 28 which was published before the Constitution's ratification in "selling it" to the people and State of New York is relevant.

It is relevant as it tells us of the actual powers the people and their State actually agreed to ceded to the Federal government with the United States Constitution.
The rewriting and twisting of the same constitution by the power welders senses constitutes a breach or abuse of contract.

This is not just any kind of contract this is a contract of employment, in which the employer reserves the implicit right to revoke, as both described and demonstrated in the Deceleration of independents 1776.

So while I agree that Alexander Hamilton was a lier and a fraud for the most part, that is really not the point here.