When the Constitution was finished, Benjamin Franklin was asked what the Founders had produced. He said: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Some think that meant a virtuous people that will defend liberty at all costs. I think he meant we’d need a sense of boredom. After all, he was the least boring guy around. And boredom saves us from dreadful political results.

Boredom inoculates us against the tiresome ideologue, the person who wants to fix everything with One Big Idea—the fellow trying to privatize Social Security, the...