You just don’t get it. China banned plastic bags, man. P-l-a-s-t-i-c b-a-gs. Gone, with the single enlightened stroke of a pen. They just got rid of them. No votes. No debate. Those inspired rulers said There Shall Be No More Thin Plastic Bags. “Bam! Just like that — 1.3 billion people, theoretically, will stop using thin plastic bags” he writes in his chapter “China for a Day (But Not for Two).”

We could do that here if we could just get rid of our constitution — just for a day, mind you. I mean who wouldn’t want to go 24 hours without habeas corpus or the first amendment, if it meant getting rid of these petroleum-soaked turtle-choking wind-socks of doom?

If only the founding fathers had known that such a deal was in the offing, they could have put a clause in the Constitution that said “the contents herein are binding, for 364 days a year. On the First Day of May, every year, the United States will be a ruled by the five wisest people in the land. Their decisions are not reversable by Congress or Courts and not subject to criticism by the press.”

Who wouldn’t take that deal?

Alas, the founders were just too short-sighted. Which is just more proof that our democratic system can’t hold a candle to the one-party autocracy of the Middle Kingdom.