I believe our constitution to be the least-bad construction of a government yet implemented in a pluralistic society, and that in general our government is at least as transparent (given it’s size and scope) as there is.
That is… interesting. Is that a commonly held belief among citizens of your country, personal patriotism or something that non-Americans can be expected to agree with? As an outside observer I’ve been given the impression that the construction of your government is a mixture of comical, quaint and scary. It isn’t terrible but ‘best’ is a big claim to make.
Is that a commonly held belief among citizens of your country,
It’s complicated.
A similar team-affiliation notion (e.g., “America is the greatest country in the world,” etc.) is pretty common, even among people who would never actually say that out loud, but is not specifically associated with the U.S. constitution… indeed, is strongly held among many Americans who don’t have a clear grasp of the difference between our constitution and various other elements of our government.
I suspect this is equally true for a great many countries. Team affiliation is something humans are good at.
OTOH, there’s a kind of fetishism that ensues around the Constitution as a document, wherein all endorsed things and no rejected things are attributed to it, even by people who have never read the document itself. So it’s not always easy to tell what people believe about the country, what they believe about the government, and what they believe about the constitution, or when they are even drawing a distinction.
There’s also a more narrowly targeted belief that the U.S. constitution is exceptionally least-bad as national constitutions go. My unreliable sense is that this is believed by many people who would not describe U.S. political institutions the same way (and indeed, many Americans will at the same time defend “America” and criticize “the government” in the strongest possible terms).
That is… interesting. Is that a commonly held belief among citizens of your country, personal patriotism or something that non-Americans can be expected to agree with? As an outside observer I’ve been given the impression that the construction of your government is a mixture of comical, quaint and scary. It isn’t terrible but ‘best’ is a big claim to make.
This belief is very common among Americans.
It’s complicated.
A similar team-affiliation notion (e.g., “America is the greatest country in the world,” etc.) is pretty common, even among people who would never actually say that out loud, but is not specifically associated with the U.S. constitution… indeed, is strongly held among many Americans who don’t have a clear grasp of the difference between our constitution and various other elements of our government.
I suspect this is equally true for a great many countries. Team affiliation is something humans are good at.
OTOH, there’s a kind of fetishism that ensues around the Constitution as a document, wherein all endorsed things and no rejected things are attributed to it, even by people who have never read the document itself. So it’s not always easy to tell what people believe about the country, what they believe about the government, and what they believe about the constitution, or when they are even drawing a distinction.
There’s also a more narrowly targeted belief that the U.S. constitution is exceptionally least-bad as national constitutions go. My unreliable sense is that this is believed by many people who would not describe U.S. political institutions the same way (and indeed, many Americans will at the same time defend “America” and criticize “the government” in the strongest possible terms).
In the national religion of the United States, the Constitution is like the Bible. Everyone reveres it, few read it, and none follow it.