> > I'd expect a very similar nation, actually. Has the Constitution ever actually stopped a ruling party from doing whatever it wishes?
>
> Yes. Fairly consistently, actually. The Supreme Court, acting as arbiter of the Constitution, has increasingly used its power to strike down Congressional legislation

Reading this once more, I think I may have come upon a more elegant way of saying what I meant to say in my previous, long-winded post. It essentially boils down to this:

While the simple act of having a constitution does not stop a ruling party from doing what it wants, the specific structure for government created by the U.S. Constitution limits the government. Furthermore, the level of respect for the nation's supreme law and document makes any direct governmental action taken against the spirit of the Constitution unpopular. Finally, the difficulty in changing the document through legal means (the amendment process) makes it very hard for a ruling party to change the Constitution against the wishes of large portions of the population.

If you mean that it's possible for the government, backed by a large majority of the people, to do things that are against the Constitution as written, then I'd agree. But that's how it's supposed to work, and exactly why the Constitution is amendable in the first place.

Stephen