We looked around the writer’s huddle on the Balcony with rain coming in. We have a crowd that has lived in multiple states, including the urban and rural areas of several. Both categories have commonality, though some of that seems to have become abraded in recent times. There is some discussion about what Rocket saw on one of the sites he follows. That was the matter of “a national divorce” that would recognize a case of “irreconcilable differences,” long recognized legally as justification for the dissolution of marital bonds.

As you recall, this has come up before in the dynamic nature of the relationship between our States. Our Constitution was hammered out in Philadelphia with high emotion over five months of labor in 1787. The original Articles of Confederation were not working out. The Delegates could have amended them, of course, but the consensus decided something entirely new was demanded by tough circumstance. Rhode Island didn’t attend for a variety of perfectly good small reasons.

We hear a lot about “democracy” these days, and it is said to be under threat. We understood the controversy, since the folks at Philadelphia rejected pure “democracy” right at the start. They decided a representative republic was the framework they preferred, governed by the terms of a new Constitution. That would enable a means of apportioning power in a manner in which everyone had a stake. The Red-Blue tension here at the moment reflects part of that, but in a new way. Big-State versus Small-State would have been how they viewed it back then, and partly accounts for Rhode Island’s view of the Convention.

If you recall, one of the founding states- Virginia- used to be twice as big as it became during the Civil War when they split off the Western part under a period with some really irreconcilable differences. That was one of the things the original Constitution addressed. United States Senators used to be elected by the members of the State legislatures, not the public at large. That lasted for 120 years before the 17th Amendment was ratified. That made Senate elections dependent on popular, not legislative votes.

There are periodic calls to “Repeal the 17th!” Thankfully, we swore to protect and defend the Constitution as it stood when we signed up, so our position is clear and effectively ends most of those discussions right there. But you can see part of the discussion is still a battle between “big” and “small.” Back then, it was how little States like Delaware could be confident they would get a fair shake when they sat down across from the people from Richmond or Philadelphia.

Now, it is about our nighbors in Culpeper fuming about all those people up the road in Arlington. “Pure Democracy!” shouts one side, and the other responds “That isn’t what we are!”

In some respects, the ‘irreconcilable differences’ argument goes with the talk about national distancing. We don’t understand that part, since it has been tried before with some aspects still not completely resolved. But some of us have been married and transitioned through the legal maw of the Family Court. Their recommendation is “try to reconcile, if you can. The alternative is kind of expensive.”

We wonder how we might go about the reconciliation process might go. We decided that some romance might be a place to start instead of the yelling. Maybe after Lent, you know?

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