ChezLark

Becky brings up an important point in a comment to the last post:

As a regular reader of this blog, I wanted to respectfully ask you to please make a distinction between the U.S. government and the PEOPLE of the U.S. [...] Saying that the “U.S.” has no respect for the rule of law is insulting to all of the people who do not agree with these policies, who DO have respect for the rule of law, and who feel suspect about the current administration (who 48% DID NOT even vote for) and their treatment of oh…EVERYTHING.

Up front, I want to say that Becky is right and that often, I make statements about the “US” that could be understood as statements about the people of the US, when really I just meant the current government. I will try to be more precise about that in future.

I’m in something of a negative mood about US policy at the moment, though, so I would also like to make a larger and more depressing point: there is a sense in which a statement like “the US does not respect the rule of law” is not only accurate, but accurate in the only way that matters.

There is only one way in which the US can be said to act or speak with a single voice, and that’s when its government acts. This is the very function of our government: our people speak with 300 million separate voices, but on the domestic and international stage, a singular entity must act with coherent and specific will to get things done. In a very real sense, the acts of the US government are the only acts that can accurately be described as being “by the United States”. No private citizen speaks for the entire country, but our government acts in all of our names and on behalf of all of us.

Because of this, there is a demoralizingly real sense in which it is correct to say that the United States stands today for lawlessness, kidnapping, and torture. That statement, sadly, is true, because of what the United States does. Its citizens may disapprove, and the history of the country may stand in contrast to the present, but those are intangibles: the US is as the US does, and right now what the US does is not pretty.

I am not in favor of these things, and nether is Becky. Possibly, a majority of Americans, even, are opposed to them. But we do not wield the power and authority of the US executive; George W. Bush does, and he acts for all of us. The United States invaded Iraq. The United States shipped Maher Arar to Syria to be tortured and then dodged reparations in court. The United States kidnapped a Muslim preacher off the streets of Milan and sent him to Egypt to be tortured. The United States threw Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla in a hole, cut them off from the world, and denied them due process. The United States tortured Padilla in custody until he was as docile and inert as a “piece of furniture”. The United States has repeatedly dodged the rule of law by invoking the “state secrets” privilege, moving prisoners into or out of military custody, keeping them overseas, or hiding their very existence from the outside world.

Becky, I assume, would prefer I say “the United States government” in each of these statements, and of course that would also be true, and more precise to boot. But, no entity on Earth other than our government speaks and acts in the name of The United States of America. The United States, then, as an entity in the word, stands today for lawlessness, eavesdropping, kidnapping, torture and warfare.

Becky is right, though: it’s important to remember that the US could be different, and that many people don’t like what it has come to be. We are used to thinking of the US as standing for democracy, freedom of affiliation, speech and religion, and a respect for the rule of law. The US does not stand for those things today, but it could again in the future.

We should also remember that our government is only empowered to speak as The United States of America because of the trust we put in our democratic institutions to ensure that the government’s actions reflect the will of the people. I would submit that recent events, from the election of 2000 in which the candidate receiving less votes was awarded the Presidency, to the escalation in Iraq despite massive public opposition, give reason to doubt the soundness of our country’s democratic foundations. But that is an issue for another time.