Comment by bitwize

The USA is a common-law jurisdiction which means that convention and "how things were always done" have outsized significance when compared to civil-law jurisdictions like much of western Europe. Civil-law jurisdictions tend to rely more on statute, but they also have legislatures that can actually get things done, rather than cultivate this bogus adversarial relationship between the people and the government wherein the government is obstructed or hindered from getting all but the most critical and unanimously supported things done.