…from London:
The British are less religious these days than Americans are (although both the Anglican and the Catholic churches I saw this Sunday had quite large congregations), but the persistence of an established church has something to do with this feeling that the state is and should be an important moral agent in the life of the nation. The church, supporting and supported by the state, projects values into society and all good people are expected to rally around. (A Puritan version of this vision made it over into the New England states; the desire of many American liberals to use government to reshape society ultimately traces back to this English sense of the union of throne and altar.) In America, there were always too many sectarians who saw these attempts to unify the moral and the political as a form of tyranny, and in the US the ‘great and the good’ have had a harder time imposing a unified moral vision on society as a whole.
There are other ways in which the British are more comfortable with centralization than Americans are. We have no city like London: it is Britain’s New York, Washington and Los Angeles rolled up into one. The American founders debated keeping the capital in Philadelphia or New York, but decided to place it out in the boondocks. (In the same way many American states deliberately chose to establish their political capitals in smaller towns.) We don’t want too much power flowing to a single city and we don’t want the members of the elite to get too clubby and know each other too well; the rest of the country is suspicious of anyone who works on Wall Street or inside the Beltway. We don’t think America would be a better place if Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue got closer together.
America is too big, too diverse and too disputatious to settle down with one social model and one big establishment the way Britain has. This has its costs; ever since Franklin’s time Americans have looked with envy on British governance that often seems more effective, organized and, since the middle classes nudged the aristocrats out, more honest and competent than our own raggedy system. But although over time we have built a stronger and more effective central government, somehow we never quite go all the way. Thomas Jefferson and his allies ultimately defeated Alexander Hamilton’s effort to model our financial and political systems on Britain’s. Daniel Webster, Nicholas Biddle and Henry Clay were beaten by Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk.
In that sense, the forces that drove the American Revolution are still coursing through our politics now. While a significant number of Americans (usually relatively affluent and well educated) want a transformational government acting in the service of a coherent moral vision, larger numbers of Americans start getting nervous when they see too much movement in that direction.
Read the whole thing.
“ever since Franklin’s time Americans have looked with envy on British governance that often seems more effective, organized and, since the middle classes nudged the aristocrats out, more honest and competent than our own raggedy system.”
Ha ha, really? I’ve never met these Americans. In fact, the only “British government envy” I’ve ever heard of is the inexplicable fascination a subset of American women have for the British royals (brought to fever heat during the Age of Princess Di — since she bought it this stuff has died down quite a bit) and the idea that their rowdy Parliamentary meetings, which you could or used to be able to watch on C-Span, looked like a lot more fun than our staid, boring, orderly Congress.
Also, the vibe I’m getting from Blighty these days is that their government is bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and choked by political correctness. Yeah, bring (even more) of that crap over here.
I’m with Andrea — the reaction I usually have toward actions by the British government in the last several years has been, “There they go again, justifying our revolution for us.”
I disagree about the British government envy, but it is very clear that most of the (self-selected) American “intelligentsia” are worshipful of the European “intellectual”, and are eternally ashamed that the rest of us Just Don’t Get It. Tom Wolfe (my vote for the premier documentarian of America over the last 50 years) has been holding this phenomenon up for ridicule since the early ’60s.
I think the attitude against centralized governments that we have coursing through our veins comes from the belief that our inalienable rights are imbued by God or some higher power. Then, it is the people that choose to pass on that power to the state. The Founders created a government that is for the people, by the people, and of the people. What people don’t realize is that when they start looking toward their government to provide some moral compass then they are in fact flip flopping the order in which we receive our rights. This leads down the road in which government doesn’t just broadly say what you can’t do, but instead tries to outline everything you can do or even have to do (buy health insurance, spread your wealth around). And I don’t think you have to be particularly religious to believe that we receive our inalienable rights as a simple law of nature. It is the reality of this universe that dictates that all men are created equal, they just don’t end up that way. Or, that our biological construct imbues us with free thought, so therefore we have the right to say what we think. It didn’t take a constitution to make these things into reality. It just merely pointed out what was painfully obvious to most all people. This fact of nature is only willfully ignored by those that grow corrupted by power and their messianic narcissistic cult of personality.
America is too big, too diverse and too disputatious to settle down with one social model and one big establishment the way Britain has.
Which is why the British are silently allowing Sharia Law to creep into jurisprudence. As this is being shoved down the British subjects throats from above, I’ll take our system any day — as long as it lasts.
It is the reality of this universe that dictates that all men are created equal
It’s been said that you can’t have a thought until you have the language for it first. The idea that all men are created equal isn’t so obvious. It’s like the concept of zero. We take it for granted, but it came as a novel idea. Both are very powerful ideas. They keep working to revoke one of them… they’ll let us keep zero.
Rand, I apologize for going off topic here, but I was wondering what your thoughts were regarding a report on Bolden’s recent statements to al-Jazeera regarding NASA’s new top priorities.
WTF?
I’ll chime in with a few observations that the less British than I am people might not notice. Less British than me? As near as I can find, all of my ancestors came from the British Isles. Mom’s family was working class. Her father was a bricklayer by trade. Dad’s? Very English middle class — English middle class of some centuries duration. I’m descended from John Donne. Yes, that John Donne.
England, Scotland and Wales are physically small countries. You can take a train from London to Edinburgh in 4 hours, 30 minutes. I’ve done it. It is a pleasant trip. Creating multiple centers such as Washington, DC, New York City, Los Angeles, etc. would be rather difficult.
England, especially, is a friendly place for walkers. I can walk from my cousin’s home into the center of Nottingham fairly quickly — even if I stop for a beer along the way.
The small size of the country affects things in other ways as well. It’s easier to see how other people live and what affects them. Here in the DC area I don’t really see anyone but people much like myself in terms of class and cultural background.
One big thing in England is a kind of moderation. Early in the 20th Century there were crusades against alcohol in many countries — U.S. and England included. We tried Prohibition. England tried closing pubs earlier than our bars. Today Maryland has a 21 year old limit for getting alcohol. English influenced Ontario has a 19 year old limit. Ontario does not have a major teen drinking problem. Maryland does. Hmm…..
Today Maryland has a 21 year old limit for getting alcohol.
Most states do. You can thank (or curse — I prefer the latter) Elizabeth Dole for that.
I agree completely with you on the drinking issue as well.
Thirded. I think it’s only the same pinheads who envy China’s ability to “get things done” because they don’t mind grinding human lives into the macadam…