Can the failure of the latest attempt at constitutional government in Egypt be laid — at least partially — at the feet of the Great Sphinx of Ginsburg? We speak of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court. It may seem like an outlandish question, and no one would want to take it too far. But one of the things we find ourselves thinking amid the failure of democracy in the land of the pharaohs is the interview the justice gave to a television broadcast in Egypt as the country was preparing to write its constitution of 2012.

That is the interview in which the justice said, “I would not look to the U.S. constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” Instead she suggested the Egyptians look to the constitutions of South Africa, Canada, and Europe. Of the South African parchment, she said: “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary.” She also kvelled about the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada and referred the Egyptians to the European Convention on Human Rights. “Yes,” she says, “why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world?”

Why not, indeed? It turns out that there is a fundamental difference between those constitutions and America’s — apart from the fact that the non-American constitutions are radically longer. The American parchment deals in what are sometimes called “negative rights,” while the others parcel out something called “positive rights.” In the American system, rights are secured by prohibiting the state from abridging them. It is based on the belief that rights are given to man by God and the state dasn’t interfere. In the Canadian, European, and South African systems, rights are doled out by the state. One enjoys them at the blessing of the worldly powers.

Feature the sturdy copse of our Bill of Rights. It begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or abridging the free exercise thereof. . .” It is a prohibition on the government. It doesn’t grant any rights to the people. It assumes that they already have the rights and declares that the government mayn’t abridge them. Now feature the religion clauses of Egypt’s 2012 constitution: “The freedom of belief is inviolable. The state guarantees the right to practice one’s religious rites and establish places of worship for the heavenly religions. Details are specified by law. It is forbidden to insult any messengers or prophets.”

The differences are subtle but huge. The Egyptian constitution left an enormous amount of running room for the Muslim Brotherhood to work its mischief. We don’t believe for a second — a nanosecond — that the Brotherhood ever had an attachment to the idea of democracy; the constitution, in any event, has now been “suspended.” The positive way the rights were stated in the law was practically an invitation to the mischief that followed. It was a signal that the fundamental principles aren’t yet embedded in what there is of Egypt’s civil society.

Which leads to another point that Justice Ginsburg made, this one wise and true. She warned her interviewer on Al Hayat TV that “a constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom. If the people don’t care, then the best constitution in the world won’t make any difference. So the spirit of liberty has to be in the population.” It is hard to imagine that this spirit is lacking in the millions who risked all to topple the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a universal spirit, the world was often reminded by President George W. Bush. The thing to watch for in the current revolution in Egypt is recognition that it is the government itself that needs to be prevented from destroying it.