Democracy in America by the Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville is one of my favorite books.  Tocqueville had an acute eye for this budding American experiment in democracy.  In light of the debate tonight, listen to his wisdom and keep in mind he wrote this in the 1830s!:

“A false notion which is clear and precise will always have more power in the world than a true principle that is obscure or involved.”