Happy Independence Day, everyone! I am writing this from my couch on July 4th, 246 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is quite fittingly a beautiful day outside. I am full of pride for this country and for the principles that it represents, even if our reality sometimes falls short of its caricature.
Here, I aim to write a brief essay on what American institutions mean to me. Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting to write this. I wasn’t expecting to be so full of pride and passion for America today, but when I woke up this morning the full-blooded American in me was triggered and I needed somewhere to spill out my excitement.
To me, America stands for liberty, independence, and freedom. The Constitution truly was a breathtaking moment in history. It stands athwart to the historical tradition of centralized power and monarchs. When America had won its independence from the British, many expected George Washington, as a general of the army, to take the power of the nation and lead at its helm as a king or ruler for life. This includes King George III of England, who asked what Washington’s plans were now that America was its own country. When he received the answer that he planned to return to his farm and resign, the King’s own response was “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” It may be hard now to imagine how incredible it is that the American tradition of giving up something as infectious as power has endured for this long. Of course, some of America’s leaders have succumbed to its allure, but the populace and our institutions held firmly in place to ensure that tyranny never took too tight a hold for too long.
The trajectory of this country was set forth at its founding by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the documents that laid forth the framework for how we make decisions. I wish to note that I believe there are two important opinions in politics. There is the way that you believe society should operate, in other words, the laws it should have in place. This is the institutional equivalent of having our own moral compass imposed on the society that we live in. The other thing that is important, is how these laws and moral precedents are decided. The process by which we decide what is right and wrong.
Within the American tradition, even moreso, I believe, than any specific laws, is a very important process with which we arrive at these laws and how we apply them and make decisions. Most of America’s principles are founded on the fear of tyranny, on preventing the tyranny of any single ruler or majority, and of making sure that little power could be exerted by any one mob over any small period of time. Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia writes extensively about how to arrive at a “Utopian” society. His description, in my opinion, is very reminiscent of much of what is in the Constitution. He writes that “The best of all possible worlds for me will not be that for you. The world, of all those I can imagine, which I would most prefer to live in, will not be precisely the one you would choose.” This is at the heart of the principles our country was founded on. I recently had a friend ask me whether I’d rather be president or whether I’d be a dictator since I could get so much done. For him, the answer was easy. “Think about how much more I could get done if I was dictator. I’d fix this country so quickly.” This is the type of hubris that is conjured by deeply held opinions. Values are not objective, and to imagine that you can fix the country in a way that is acceptable to everyone is a deeply flawed, arrogant, Wilsonian idea. I would rather be President. I would rather be constrained. In a Democracy, you must only be willing to take as much power for yourself and for your opinions as you’re willing to bestow upon others whom you disagree with.
I do not wish to have unchecked power. I wish to influence our political system only as much as everyone else has the chance to. I have no need to exert my will on others, I don’t consider myself omniscient and I find it offensive that others feel they have the objectively right opinion as to how to organize society. It is why we have the balance of power in this country, it is why our system is so slow to take action and make new laws. Four years is a short amount of time, presidents need not usher in new eras with every turning inauguration. Congress does not need to create a new country between every midterm. Our country is founded on slow deliberation that is meant to create compromise on issues and forge a path forward that is not too hasty and sloppily applied without considering all aspects of a decision. My AP Government teacher emphasized this: Our system works slowly on purpose because it aims to get things right the first time. It is much more difficult to get rid of laws and institutions than it is to make new ones, which is why it is meant to be so difficult to make new institutions. Even still, progress is not linear, and yet time marches ever forward. While there are ups and downs, we must look outside one presidency, or two, or even three, to see that we have made tremendous progress in fulfilling an American ideal.
Invoking Nozick once more, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, he talks at length about a world in which there are many different provinces that each uphold different values, rather than one single overarching utopia. In this system, a centralized authority sets a few ground rules to make sure that fundamental rights of the person are not taken away, but besides this power is left to these smaller provinces (or states) to decide their own fate. In this system is free entry and exit of any state, so that one may reside in the one that upholds the values they most closely identify with. In this system, each citizen would have far more control over their own way of life and the laws they live under. This simply means not having influence over the way people in other provinces live. Almost everything has tradeoffs, this is inherent in any system. To strengthen one value is undoubtedly to weaken another. Nozick’s idea is reminiscent of federalism, the system our country was founded on. We have become (in my opinion) overly centralized. Live and let live is a powerful adage. Many will wonder why, if not nationwide decisions, then why stop at the state? Why not the county? Why not the town? The street? The household? The individual? You’re preaching to the choir, believe me. However, I do believe there must be some social cohesion in order to have a well-organized society and community, so that cooperation may be encouraged. As Nozick would say, though, “No state more extensive than the minimal state can be justified.” or as Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.”
What is also true is that we have minority protections. Things such as the electoral college, the filibuster, and our bicameral legislature demonstrate that America is not meant to be a 1:1 democracy. We give the minority more influence on the central government than they are owed from fear of a tyrannical majority. While people lament this often, I understand why it is in place. There are far greater city dwellers than farmers, but when applying nationwide measures it is important that people who have no connection to farms aren’t making unilateral decisions for farmers that hold values that they can’t relate to.
Surely you’re thinking “but the nationwide measures will mostly affect city-dwellers since there are more of them! It’s unfair that farmers would have undue influence on a much larger group of people while the larger group of people have only as much influence on the farmers!” We have once again arrived at federalism and the slow deliberate way that our central government operates. It would be difficult to get anything done at the nationwide level, and it would not be too hard to get things done at the state level. Maybe Nebraska can make their own rules that are applicable to their way of life and New York can do the same.
I don’t want this to be a rant, I simply wish to explain why our country is built the way it is. More recently, I have seen the government working in ways that people are very unhappy about and there have been calls to abolish the filibuster, to get rid of the Supreme Court, to replace all the Supreme Court Justices so that they make more appealing decisions, and to abolish the electoral college to ensure that the majority vote wins every time. Remember that exceptions are the rule. If you truly believe in democracy, getting rid of the filibuster when you hold majority power leaves you defenseless when you’re the minority. This applies to the electoral college as well. It applies to the Supreme Court. It may be hard to imagine being in the minority while you’re in the majority. It’s easy to feel, as the majority, that your morals are rock solid and your opinions are objectively rational as they are held by so many. This is the hubris that springs from opinion. The divide in our country is not that drastically large. The majority is not always right.
I don’t mean to try to say that any person is wrong, or even necessarily that we should have the exact system we have here in America, although I personally look quite favorably upon our system. There is a story of a man who wished to take down a fence and asked the authority in the area if he could do it, as he did not understand why it was there and it was a hassle to him. The authority replied that he could take it down if he understood why it was erected in the first place. Our institutions are important, and people should think very carefully about how they would like opinions to become laws and they would like them to be applied. To think about how much they care for democracy and for action no matter from who. The end does not often justify the means. As Immanuel Kant would say, the means must be an end in and of itself. You can have your own ideal end (opinion), but understand that how you aim to impose it on society is as important as the end itself.
This 4th of July, I implore everyone to think deeply about our systems, about how they work, and why they are there. More importantly, I ask everyone to think about the progress our country has made over time. When this country was founded, it granted freedom to more in its populace than had been normal before. As time has progressed, America has succeeded in granting freedom and access to influence to more and more segments of the population. You can argue that it came too slowly or that it should have been this way from the beginning. You’re undoubtedly correct, but that we got here at all is something to be proud of and which only further strengthens the principles America was founded on, even if they were not fulfilled when they were written down and even if they’re not fulfilled to their greatest extent today. America is slow and deliberate, but America is progress. America is freedom. America is independence. America is liberty for all.
Happy 4th of July everyone! Go barbecue and drink a beer and celebrate!