Women voters aren’t problematic per se, but women’s suffrage was a massive lurch forward into the notion that anyone who breathes has a sacrosanct right to impose their uninformed opinion on the rest of us. Consider the 26th Amendment, rammed through in less than six months, responsible for presidents now being elected by people too young and naive to even know that Obamacare is going to cost them money, who get most of their information from Facebook memes, Upworthy videos, and Huffington Post articles. Then consider the fact that these same people are horrified by the notion that someone ought to have to prove that they are legally allowed to vote before doing so.

Mostly we’re left with the progressive puritan notion that the state has the right”€”nay, the duty“€”to combat evil wherever it might rear its ugly head in the world. We”€™re also left with a teleological concept of the American Republic wherein each subsequent generation is responsible for righting the wrongs of the last. Whether it’s raising the minimum wage or affirmative action, it is now an officially prescribed function of the federal government to make the world a better place. Sure, liberty is cool and everything, but isn’t equality a lot better, maaaan?

Still, Repeal Day offers a glimmer of hope through another historical lesson: It is, in fact, possible to turn back the clock. As 100 legislators from over 30 states gathered less than a week after Repeal Day to discuss passing the so-called Liberty Amendments”€”nothing that strikes so much terror into the editorial board of Daily Kos and Slate can be all bad”€”it’s prudent to remember that arguably the best Amendment to the Constitution was passed in just such a manner. 

I’ll drink to that.