Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
Or analogously: are cops especially honest? Are soldiers especially honorable?

These sorts of stereotypes need to be handled carefully, as they may turn out to be little more than self-serving propaganda.
We expect our cops to be honest and our soldiers to be honorable. When we see them not behave that way, people become outraged. Societies expectation becomes reality if we choose to enforce the stereotype.
Allowing ourselves to consider politicians to be irredeemable, corrupt, type A assholes with no regard for their constituents has led to an America where only half of its citizens bother to consistently vote. Because "hey, the lesser of two evils is still evil right?"

Is our Constitution special in its structure? Not at all, but our belief that it is special has carried America for 200 years on a Presidential system that has failed numerous times in Latin America. Our expectations of that piece of paper are stronger than the cult of personalities that arise in political discourse, which is why we are not a banana republic, yet.