American Exceptionalism
Or How Americans Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Gridlock
"What do you think is the reason that America is such a free country? What is it in our Constitution that makes us what we are?" asked the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia during his opening statement on ‘American Exceptionalism’ to the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 5th, 2011.
Scalia then offers his views on the most common answers: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, no unreasonable searches and seizures, no quartering of troops in homes — "those marvellous provisions of the Bill of Rights," he quipped.
The Bill of Rights. What a wonderful document. Some of the brightest minds in history coming together to realise that true democracy is not when the State grants rights to the citizens, but rather when the citizens have rights to protect them from the State.
What Jefferson, Adams, Jay, Madison, and Washington built was a place where the individual is above the government and the limit to your freedom is the freedom of the next free man. E pluribus unum. But, what did they really do? They put words on paper. Apart from achieving philosophical excellence, and ensuring the monopoly of violence for themselves, all they did was sign some paperwork.
"If you think that a bill of rights is what sets us apart, you're crazy," continued Justice Scalia, "every banana republic in the world has a bill of rights. Every president for life has a bill of rights." Scalia notes that the bill of rights of the former USSR was "much better than ours," guaranteeing freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests; and that anyone trying to suppress criticism of the government would be called to account. "Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!"
But, as Scalia notes, those are "just words on paper, what our Framers would have called a parchment guarantee." What Scalia regards as the real ‘constitution’ of the United States is the ‘structure’ of the government; the Bill of Rights "was an afterthought, wasn't it?", a set of amendments - the soul but not the body.
A document that improved previous attempts at democracy by specifically focusing on preventing the tyranny of the majority over the minority, while preserving the sacred tenet that neighbours should have more of a say over where a fence stands, than some faceless bureaucrat. So, to Scalia, the real key to the distinctiveness of America is the structure of the government.
A structure that prevented the centralisation of power, and the leakage of power to foreign interference. And that wasn’t guaranteed by a document or gifted by a central power. It was forged in the resistance to the Molasses Act, the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Quartering Act... Through agreements and hostilities, peace and war.
Which, in turn, bred a people that wasn’t letting a caste of luminaries decide the future of the nation, that wouldn’t be taxed without representation, a people that would sit in the throne of power — instead of a monarch —, all that was celebrated in the Tea Party.
And that is reflected in the ‘constitution’ of the USA, as Scalia puts it, not in terms of parchment guarantees, but in terms of structure. "Very few countries in the world, for example, have a bicameral legislature," he observes, pointing out that in England the House of Lords has no substantial power; and the French and Italian senates are honorific.
"Very few countries in the world have a separately elected Chief Executive," Scalia points out, noting that in many European countries, the separation of powers is more symbolic than effective, as the legislative and executive branches are essentially one and the same, with the chief executive often being beholden to the legislature. “When there's a disagreement, they just kick them out. They have a no confidence vote, a new election, and they get a prime minister who agrees with the legislature.”
Detractors look at the American system, observing the House, Senate, and President frequently in conflict, and label it ‘gridlock.’ They imply that this signifies a ‘dysfunctional government’ simply because there is a lack of consensus. But, according to Justice Scalia, this was intentionally designed by the Founding Fathers. "Yes, that's exactly the way we set it up. We wanted this to be power contradicting power —because the main ill that beset us."
Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers, spoke about having a separate Senate: "yes, it seems inconvenient, but inasmuch as the main ill that besets us is an excess of legislation, it won't be so bad." This was in 1787, “he didn't know what an excess of legislation was” Scalia remarks in his trademark style.
In Scalia’s view, Americans should recognise the value in this design and embrace the separation of powers, which means “learning to love the gridlock”, which the Founding Fathers believed would be the main protection of minorities, as “it doesn't take much to throw a monkey wrench into this complex system.”
“Americans should learn to love the gridlock. It's there for a reason — so that the legislation that gets out will be good legislation.”
Justice Antonin Scalia
American Pedestrianism
Is that all there is to it? Isn’t it remarkable that the USA is the sole country in the world founded upon an idea: the land of the free? It is the first true republic to emerge since Roman times; not just a city-state, but an entire country — that has inspired many other countries to aspire that, some even much older than her. A nation that triumphed over petty divisions such as race, colonialism, bloodlines, and tribal affiliations to ensure equality and establish checks and balances.
‘American exceptionalism’ is not an idea or a theory; it's a fact of reality. It is not a drive to rule the free world but to lead it by example. Not a drive to colonise, but to learn without being assimilated.
Between leading, following, and getting out of the way, there is only one option that leads to exceptionalism, with the remaining two leading to pedestrianism. The pedestrianism of ignoring history and regarding earned land as stolen land; the pedestrianism of flying other flags higher than one's own; the pedestrianism of submitting to foreign rule in the name of cowardly tolerance.
American exceptionalism is ‘e pluribus unum,’ not ‘e pluribus plures.’ Happy 4th of July.