I know. But I am asserting that is wrong. The US government was not set up to own people. (Yes, I know that it allowed individuals to own other individuals, but that got fixed.)
Some do it far more than others. The US was the first to have a Bill of Rights. It's a big deal. Although the BoR is constantly under attack. I'm amazed at the people who want to throw it away.
I know people who would happily replace it with the 10 Commandments, for example.
The Bill of Rights was literally inspired by various English Bills of Rights. To view the early U.S. as some sort of magical utopian exceptional polity that grew out of the head of Zeus is using incredibly rose-colored glasses; George Washington literally put down a tax rebellion with force, John Adams did as well, and Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Just ask Daniel Shays how much the Bill of Rights helped him.
From the beginning the United States was as flawed and as human as every single other government in the history of the world, and to pretend there is some sort of magical exceptionalism to it is both hopelessly utopian and impractical for useful discourse.
