A report from the Democracy Policy Lab at UC Berkeley finds Americans are confused about the meaning and practices of democracy and deeply distrustful of public institutions — and each other. Strong “democracy policy” could help renew national bonds, the authors say.
While the US has problems, merely having a constitution (1) the courts meaningfully refer to (2) that demands special effort to amend isn’t clearly a problem.
I can agree with that. I guess what I take more of an issue with really comes down to “American civil religion”.
Americans seem to be taught (from my outsider perspective) that the basis of which the US was founded upon is perfect and needs no changing ever. There’s so much propaganda surrounding the founding documents that even suggesting changing something is basically akin to blasphemy. Like look at the second amendment. Even suggesting that maybe it doesn’t fit into modern society is considered heresy.
That sort of thing is why I really don’t like politicians claiming that their country is “the best in the world”. You see it in Canada too, and I hate it because even if it’s true, it just sort of waves away the many improvements that can be made. There’s ALWAYS things to improve upon
I can agree with that. I guess what I take more of an issue with really comes down to “American civil religion”.
Americans seem to be taught (from my outsider perspective) that the basis of which the US was founded upon is perfect and needs no changing ever. There’s so much propaganda surrounding the founding documents that even suggesting changing something is basically akin to blasphemy. Like look at the second amendment. Even suggesting that maybe it doesn’t fit into modern society is considered heresy.
That sort of thing is why I really don’t like politicians claiming that their country is “the best in the world”. You see it in Canada too, and I hate it because even if it’s true, it just sort of waves away the many improvements that can be made. There’s ALWAYS things to improve upon