Expressing one’s opinion is fundamental to being an American.  Foremost among our rights is the right of free speech.  Without free speech democracy is meaningless – democracy by definition means “rule by the people” and cannot exist where the people are silenced.

So I consider my eight and a half years of writing Perspectives as an exercise in Americanism, and I try to keep that in mind when people disagree with me.  While we just take it for granted, the right to publicly express opinions – and publicly dispute others’ opinions — didn’t exist until America was founded.  Any other country that has that right today owes us a debt.

But try telling that to people from other countries.  To mark July 4^th this year Canadian historian Paul Pirie pronounced the American Revolution a failure and called upon us to renounce it the way the Russians have renounced the communist revolution.  He claims the rest of England’s former colonies are more progressive than America, implying we’ve regressed back towards a time when social mobility was nonexistent and a wealthy aristocracy ruled.  America, he asserts, has failed to achieve “the ideals the new country set for itself — namely, advancing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Pirie points out that it’s hard to pursue happiness when “most Americans work longer hours and have fewer paid vacations and benefits — including health care — than their counterparts in most advanced countries.”  He also notes that America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world (Canada ranks 136^th).  Pirie cites a report co-authored by economist Jeffery Sachs which concluded that in America “uncertainties and anxieties are high, social and economic inequalities have widened considerably, social trust is in decline, and confidence in government is at an all-time low.”  And it’s not without some irony that Pirie notes that the governments of former colonies Canada and Australia can actually address serious issues rather then floundering in perpetual gridlock and partisan vitriol.

Pirie is correct that America is struggling.  Partisan gerrymandering has insured that the federal government can’t decide anything of importance.  Upward socioeconomic mobility has been shown to be lower today than it was BEFORE the Revolution.  Access to healthcare is based on income, and recently more and more women are seeing their access to healthcare restricted just because they’re female.  And just a few weeks ago the Supreme Court struck down a vital portion of the Voting Rights Act, allowing states like Texas, Alabama and North Carolina to impose restrictions on the ability of minorities and the poor to vote.

Despite these and many more problems that America has created for itself, all these other countries that do have greater democracy and social mobility wouldn’t if it weren’t for the grand – if faltering – American ideals of justice and equality.  We were the first, and though the ideals of our Founding Fathers in some ways remain unrealized, without the inspiration of our attempt to form a government based on what is fair, just and right, it’s doubtful other nations would have been able to advance as far as they have.  We may have entered an age when it’s “do as we say, not as we do,” when it comes to encouraging democracy in other lands, but still, had it not started here, where would it have started?  Australia or Canada?  Aren’t they both still subjects of the Crown?