Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that the purpose of government was to secure the rights of the people, and that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. By that measure, the U.S. government is a failure. It serves the interests of a privileged few, not the public good. Although some of what has happened was unforeseen by the Founding Fathers, in fact the flaw goes all the way down to the Constitution itself.It's time for a new Constitution that will actually give us government of, by, and for the people, as our ideals demand but as has never existed in reality in the United States.