As I
write, two events of the last week have caught the world’s attention.
On 4
July, Americans celebrated their 244th Independence Day (at least, the
fraction of Americans who don’t consider that holiday to be racist celebrated
it). As has been done for more than two centuries, fireworks were shot off to celebrate
our forefathers’ victorious fight for limited government, representative democracy,
and freedom from British rule.
A few
days earlier, on the other side of the world, voters in Russia approved a long
list of constitutional amendments which had been proposed by President Putin
and the Duma back in January. It’s impossible to summarize all of them
here, as forty-one of the Russian constitution’s articles were rewritten and
five new ones were added. In the West, the most talked-about changes were the
reset of Putin’s term limits (so that he can remain president until 2036 rather
than 2024) and the explicit requirement that marriages be between persons of
opposite sex (a restriction which already existed in statutory law).
Honestly,
if I were a Russian, I don’t know how I would have voted on the changes. All
other things being equal, I don’t think it’s a good idea for the same man to be
in charge of a country for 36 years. On the other hand, Russia at present has no strong
leader ready to step into Putin’s place, so sending him into retirement too soon
might just return the country to Yeltsin-style kleptocracy. Like all political
decisions in the real world, there are both pros and cons to each side.
In the
end, about 78 percent of Russians voted in favor, and just 22 percent voted
against, so the amendments were enacted. Was this a step forward or backward
for the cause of democracy in Russia? Most westerners would probably say
backward, what with Putin likely to be president-for-life and all. But if you
define a democracy as a regime in which major changes to the laws and
constitution must be approved by the people, rather than as one in which the
people always make the decision which you personally think is best, then the
referendum was, if not a step forward, then at least a signal that today's Russia is a functioning democracy.
Now take
a look at the situation in the United States. Officially, our constitution has
been amended only once since 1971 – that would be with the 27th amendment, proposed alongside the Bill of Rights in 1789 but then forgotten about until
its ratification in 1992, which prevents congressional pay raises from taking
effect until after the next biennial election.
Now,
everybody knows that, in practice, this hasn't been anywhere near the most
significant change to the official meaning of the US constitution in the
last 49 years. It is quite easily overshadowed by, among other things, the
constitutional rights to abortion and same-sex marriage, and by whatever quirk
of modern jurisprudence allowed President Obama to enact DACA by executive
order in 2014 but prevented President Trump from rescinding it by the same
mechanism three years later.
Nor, for
that matter, are policies beneath the constitutional level usually approved by America’s
elected legislature. Apart from gigantic budgetary appropriations and the occasional
watered-down tax reform, Congress has passed perhaps five significant pieces of
legislation since the turn of the century – the No Child Left Behind Act, Medicare
Part D, the Iraq War Authorization, the Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank Bill. With few
exceptions, the regulatory agencies that determine how millions of Americans must
live and work are running on autopilot.
Any real
American patriot who looks at this situation ought to be incensed that the
liberties which his fathers fought and bled for have declined to the point that, nowadays, Americans have less say in how they are governed than Russians do.
Nevertheless, very few Americans feel this way.
Too many
of us believe in the unconditional exceptionalism of our own country – a belief
which the founding fathers did not share, and which is bound to ruin the
politics of any country which adopts it. If, as most right-wingers believe, we
are guaranteed to be the freest country no matter what we do, then what reason do we
have to fight for our liberties?
Also, too
many of us believe in linear history. The Revolutionary War, we are told, was a
one-off event. Once it was won, the founders gave us a new and enlightened
system of government to make sure that we would never need to have a similar
revolution ever again.
I, on the
other hand, believe in cyclical history, in which nothing is permanent. What
was won by the bravery and wisdom of one generation can be lost by the cowardice,
or carelessness, of another. Past greatness is no guarantee of future
greatness. And if the freedoms that Washington and Jefferson fought for in 1776
are, in the year 2020, being exercised by Russians but not by Americans, then the
proper response, on the part of the American patriot, is not to deny what is
going on or understate the gravity of the situation.
No; the response
of a true patriot, in our day and age, is to envy Russian liberties.
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