A British friend of mine once complained to me, "When we propose something, you Americans are always saying it's unconstitutional." Well, he's got a point. We Americans take the US Constitution very seriously, and when the Supreme Court makes a ruling on the constitutionality of an issue, that's it. End of discussion.

Part of the aura around the constitution is that it's been around so long, 219 years. This, to my knowledge, makes it the oldest functioning written constitution in the world. It's been changed only 17 times in this period, showing that Americans don't believe in a constitution set in stone, but they don't believe in changing it just for fun, either. The only time an amendment has been repealed was Prohibition, which was extremely unpopular and lasted only fourteen years.

The Spanish constitution, on the other hand, is a very young and very imperfect document, and Spaniards simply don't see their constitution in the same way Americans do. It's quite common for the Spanish constitution to be violated or defied openly by authorities.

Example number one is the brouhaha over the Catalan statute of autonomy. I don't understand everything in the document, and I don't think anyone else has understood the whole thing, either. What does seem clear to me is that the current text of the statute, the one passed in the Catalan regional parliament, violates the Spanish constitution in many ways, not just a few. The American reaction would be, "Well, if it's unconstitutional, no matter how much you want to do it, you can't." But the Catalan parliament happily voted for the unconstitutional statute and sent it off to the Spanish parliament for approval anyway. That is, they didn't take the Spanish constitution seriously and expected to be able to cram their modifications down everyone else's throat, failing to remember that one region cannot vote to modify the national constitution, which applies to everybody.

Example two are the incontinent remarks made by Lieutenant General Mena Aguado. Mena Aguado failed to realize that whatever the army thinks about its mission of defending the unity of Spain doesn't matter a whit, since the army is under civilian control. That is, if he doesn't receive orders from Zapatero and Bono, he and the army cannot act. If they do, it's what we call a military coup d'etat, which is about as unconstitutional as an action can be in any representative democracy. Fortunately, the PP spoke out against Mena's statements, meaning all Spanish political groups agreed that what Mena said was way out of line. Esperanza Aguirre, my favorite politician, was particularly strong in her censure. I'm hoping that Espe will be our Margaret Thatcher.

Example three is the hoo-hah over the ETA-front party Batasuna's so-called national assembly they're going to have next week. It seems clear to me that if your constitution allows a political party to be banned, which the American constitution does not--the Communist Party was never illegal in the US, despite European popular belief--then the law must be enforced. A judge determined that Batasuna was controlled by ETA, which is an illegal criminal organization, and therefore banned it under the Political Parties Act. That means that the regions must enforce the court's decree, no questions asked, no complaints brooked. But the Basque nationalist government in power in that region is unwilling to do anything, and the Batasuna show will undoubtedly go on as planned.

The last time an American state tried to disobey a federal court ruling was in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal, and Little Rock prepared to integrate its high school. Angry mobs surrounded the building and threatened the black students, and the Arkansas state government did nothing to enforce the court's decision.

So President Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne Division. Very soon Arkansas authorities were cooperating.