I arrived in the United States as a child from Cuba, and immediately realized things were different here. Nobody talked politics — it was a boring subject. Everyone went calmly about their business and trusted everyone else to do the right thing. Pedestrians walked in front of moving cars because of some abstract notion called the “right of way”! (I still can’t bring myself to do that.) The rules of social life were understood and internalized. Beyond that, it was up to you. The American people seemed to have freedom in their bones, in their DNA: so deep that they...