We The People

The idea of American Exceptionalism is unpopular among the bien pensants these days. Unfortunately for them, there is a huge amount of evidence to support the thesis. While a deeper justification will have to wait for another day, let's simply consider two data points.

To this day, the French and British despise each other. The frogs vs. rosbiefs conflict runs deep, as the European Union has found to its dismay. Fundamentally, in most places across the globe, national identity is a a matter of location is space and time - blut und boden, blood and soil.

What does it take to be American? All one really needs is to believe a credo: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

American people act differently. The Axis powers in World War II found to their dismay that the American fighting man was not the soft, degenerate foe of their propaganda. This is a reflection not of the institution of the American Army, but of the people themselves. The people see themselves differently than other populations - independent, self-reliant, willing to be led but not to be ruled.

This goes back a long, long way. Everyone remembers Jefferson's inspiring words from the Declaration of Independence, but foreigners (or Ivy League professors) wanting to understand how America is truly exceptional should ponder why the Constitution opens with those words, We the people.

Via Chicago Boyz comes this reminder of how We The People really work, from Strategy Page in 2002:

... the American people have always deemed America's sovereign power to reside in themselves, while most other nations began their national consciousness with a hereditary monarch expressing the sovereign power. Other peoples identify themselves with their nations. Americans instead identify the nation with themselves, feeling they collectively are the nation.

Many distinctive American traits grow from these feelings - exaggerated self-reliance and individualism, disdain for elites, self-confidence, etc. The American phenomenon of "populism" is a perfect example - a feeling that factions are illegitimate usurpers of power properly exercised solely by the people through governments which are supposed to be their servants. The American people are rightly confident they collectively can bend their governments, including the national government, to their will when necessary, but don't hesitate to act on their own, as individuals or in spontaneously formed groups, to address issues as those arise.

This was seen in the only effective response to the 9/11 hijacks, on Flight 93. On that day when the organized defense organizations utterly failed, the People - acting on their own - took spontaneous action:

Students of American character should pay close attention to Flight 93. A random sample of American adults was subjected to the highest possible stress and organized themselves in a terribly brief period, without benefit of training or group tradition other than their inherent national consciousness, to foil a well planned and executed terrorist attack. Recordings show the passengers and cabin crew of Flight 93 - ordinary Americans all - exemplified the virtues Americans hold most dear.

Certain death came for them by surprise but they did not panic and instead immediately organized, fought and robbed terror of its victory. They died but were not defeated.

The 21st Century is seeing the accelerating death of centralized, top-down command and control models, as The Internet opens communication like nothing we've ever seen before. Information wants to, and will, be free. This technology seed, sown on the fertile ground of We The People is yielding a whirlwind.

The American people are rightly confident they collectively can bend their governments, including the national government, to their will when necessary, but don't hesitate to act on their own, as individuals or in spontaneously formed groups, to address issues as those arise.

Jefferson again, from our credo:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Welcome to the 21st Century.