There's a lot of angst in America these days. Jobs are scarce, and while inflation for consumable goods isn't rising, health care and higher education keep ticking up much faster than wages. The mood of the country is unsettled and angry.

As it ought to be. And in these times, there are people of all political stripes whose first inclination is to turn against their fellow Americans.

But this instinct is merely an abstract thought. I was out in the country apple picking with the fam this weekend. There was a guy sporting a "Legalize the Constitution" t-shirt. I can guarantee you that if he knew my political bearings, he might well try to rip my ears off.

Of course, if we were to talk about kids, or the Redskins, or (certainly my preference) the Caps, or beer or whatever, I think we'd probably get along. Despite all the noise and all the stupidity (on all sides), we're all Americans. And no matter how the election goes in a month, we'll still all be Americans. And we'll still have to live with each other.

See, I have faith in the Constitution. There's this thing that social studies teachers call "checks and balances." As a practical matter, if the Republicans gain slight majorities in one or both houses of Congress, it means that we might go two years without getting a single bill passed.

But at some point a budget will go through, despite what will surely be an excruciating process. A Republican Congress and Democratic President would mean that folks will have to work together, if only to make sure that we keep bombing rocks in eastern Afghanistan.

The original Constitution was not written with a two-party system in mind (in fact, one of the first post-Bill of Rights amendments essentially codified the two-party system, at least for presidential elections), but making the executive separate from the legislature was a smart idea, even if it does indicate a bit of a royalist streak in some of the Founding Fathers.

The Supreme Court was not explicitly intended to be part of those checks and balances, but the Marbury v. Madison decision in 1804 codified the concept of judicial review in American law. This decision wasn't made of whole cloth, though. It was well-established in British common law and was endorsed in the Federalist Papers.

Now, I maintain that attempting to read the minds of a bunch of eighteen-century, middle-aged, white slave owners isn't the best way to run a country. Since the last signer of the Declaration of Independence died in 1832 (Charles Carroll was his name), things have changed. Railroads crossed the country. Ships abandoned sails for steel. Airplanes and automobiles replaced horses. And that's just transportation.

Americans have always been a relatively rootless people, and that has continued to expand almost exponentially since 1776. I've got friends and close relatives in all four time zones. I myself have lived in one-fifth of the fifty states, and I'm only 40. De Tocqueville is famously paraphrased as saying the business of America is business, but he might well have said the engine of America is change.

The two are almost perfectly intertwined. Americans are a famously-malleable people, able to follow the most profitable trends faster than anyone else. We have been blessed with a country that sits right in a climatic sweet spot, rich in resources and large in both population and area. Anyone who is an American today is lucky, and can thank his or her ancestors or his or her common sense (in the case of immigrants) for this fortune.

Despite all the doom, gloom and pious naysaying, we're still the country that can make things work. We have the strength of 300 million stories standing together. The only way we lose is by hating each other.

This angst will pass. The economy will grow again. Times will be better. And more and more of us will return to the notion of America as a place where people can find almost infinite ways to accomplish the same goals. We don't have to be alike. In fact, the diversity of America makes it stronger.

So love your neighbor. Even if he (or she) is acting a bit weird right now. Talk about the kids. Or the dog. Or the ice cream man who really should have put the truck away for the year by now.

See? In our differences, we're all the same.

The ice cream truck in Jon Worley's neighborhood plays ersatz Belgian pop. Which is very weird.