The Messy Innovation Of America

A reader writes:

Last semester I took a course on Political Innovation. Positively brilliant course. But one of the things we discussed is that America's system, due to federalism, local and individual autonomy and other factors, is really great at producing innovation. At the same time, the system is set up to resist change. In Europe, on the other hand, the system is not very good at producing change at all, because those ingredients are not present. But because the bureaucracy has more power, and because there are fewer levels of government, it's much easier to implement change.

So what you have, ironically, is American innovators coming up with brilliant ideas, and overseas countries being the first to implement them--which explains why, for instance, the rest of the world is now ahead of us on gay rights even when America played a huge role in creating the movement in the first place.

This is an excellent addendum to my frustration at the way in which the US has in some ways been left behind by Europe on gay equality. And, to be perfectly frank, I find the messiness and honesty and conservatism of the American system preferable, for all its faults.