"but the truth of the matter is that the entire Western world owes the very foundation of its modern beliefs to the US Constitution, in my opinion."
What are those 'modern beliefs' then? Modern democracy, philosophy and human rights are not American products, but European, starting with ancient Greece, further expanded during the Renaissance and the reformations after the 2 world wars.
The fact that America is so young allowed them to choose from many of the time's political ideas. Saying what you said is like saying 'all smartphone users owe Samsung for the user experience, because they created the Galaxy S4'.
What are those 'modern beliefs' then? Modern democracy, philosophy and human rights are not American products, but European, starting with ancient Greece, further expanded during the Renaissance and the reformations after the 2 world wars.
How Eurocentric of you.
As http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/September/20... points out, the US Constitution took some of its inspiration from the Iroquois. They provided inspiration for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a 2 state legislature, a federal system, the requirement for an annual state of the union address, and so on.
Of course the influences you cite were also hugely important. However the USA introduced important ideas from the native Americans that had not previously been part of the European tradition.
Freedom of religion and freedom of speech were already common in at least some European governmental systems and certainly in the philosophy of enlightenment. I am not quite sure what you mean by ‘2 state legislature’, if you refer to two chambers/houses of parliament: Britain had two chambers since at least 1706, and ancient Greece and Rome often also had two chambers. The Holy Roman Empire was a strongly federal state/union with very independent member states. The annual state of the union address can be found in basically every remotely civilised form of government, be it the speech from the throne in monarchies (e.g. the UK) or those in the Roman republic.
I don’t think ideas from native Americans were of particular importance, or, even if they were, substantially newer than those from Europe.
Historical accounts of both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin make it very clear that both looked to the Iroquois for inspiration and considered them important.
Franklin in particular became inspired by the idea of combining the colonies into a federation after reading about the Iroquois. And did much to raise awareness of their culture, and get involved with them. (Including becoming an envoy to them, and being involved in treaty negotiations.)
The fact that these ideas had plenty of European precedents does not diminish the fact that, historically, it appears that key figures in the US revolution and the later writing of the Constitution actually took inspiration from the Iroquois.
>> However the USA introduced important ideas from the native Americans that had not previously been part of the European tradition.
The last part is the bit that annoyed me. Of course I don’t know how or where the founding fathers got their ideas, but saying that these important cornerstones were non-existent in Europe before is simply wrong.
I was curious about this Iroquois influence on the form of U.S. government, so I read Wikipedia. It turns out to be a pleasing story of recent invention.[1]
Perhaps we can say that the prominence of the Iroquois confederacy (where, although the tribes themselves had hereditary leadership, the way the tribes were confederated was vaguely democratic[2]), was used as a persuasive anchor in favor of the colonists' confederation - Ben Franklin urging: "It would be a very strange thing, if six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such a Union … and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies."
Some excerpts:
Rakove writes, "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois" and notes that there are ample European precedents to the democratic institutions of the United States.[57]
Tooker concluded that the documents cited indicate that groups of Iroquois and white settlers realized the advantages of a confederation, but she thinks there is little evidence to support the idea that 18th century colonists were knowledgeable regarding the Iroquois system of governance.
Tooker concludes, "...there is virtually no evidence that the framers borrowed from the Iroquois." She thinks the myth resulted from exaggerations and misunderstandings of a claim made by the Iroquois linguist and ethnographer J.N.B. Hewitt after his death in 1937.[60]
[2] (from wikipedia) No Iroquois treaty was binding unless it was ratified by 75% of the male voters and 75% of the mothers of the nation.[46] In revising Council laws and customs, a consent of two-thirds of the mothers was required.[46] The need for a double supermajority to make major changes made the Confederacy a de facto consensus government.[47]
Freedom of religion and speech were already part of the Roman empire.
That is besides the point really. What I said was in reaction the the quote that America 'created' all those things. While I argue that they were able to pick and choose from existing political systems. So they didn't create, they chose. You can compare this to either building your own framework or picking one that will work for what you are trying to do.
What are those 'modern beliefs' then? Modern democracy, philosophy and human rights are not American products, but European, starting with ancient Greece, further expanded during the Renaissance and the reformations after the 2 world wars.
The fact that America is so young allowed them to choose from many of the time's political ideas. Saying what you said is like saying 'all smartphone users owe Samsung for the user experience, because they created the Galaxy S4'.