American Exceptionalism

[uscitizen]

Change in the world is the only unchanging thing.

 

[Samson]

Yeah we provide democracy around the world whether they want it or not. and if a million or so of them die in the process, well that is just the price of Americanized democracy.

Wasn't that how the "Church" operated during the Inquisition?

And the crusades.

And during the colonial period.

but aside from that, the USA is exceptionally militaristic.

"Exceptionally?"

You mean, the US Army is Exceptionally Larger than China's, or Russia's?

The US fights more wars than France or England?

The USA has conquered more territory than Spain or Russia?

If you mean that the US Military is exceptionally competent, efficient, and trustworthy, then I agree.

 

[Contessa_Sharra]

The USA is exceptional. Just call me jingo Si modo - it rolls off the tongue nicely. I can think of no better country in the world and I have no problem with thinking that way. Sue me.

We all love this country.

Some of us just want it to live up to its ideals.

Others seem fine with PRETENDING it does

Individually or nationally, it is never a good idea to self-delude, lie to oneself!

 

[Si modo]

The USA is exceptional. Just call me jingo Si modo - it rolls off the tongue nicely. I can think of no better country in the world and I have no problem with thinking that way. Sue me.

We all love this country.

Some of us just want it to live up to its ideals.

Others seem fine with PRETENDING it does

Individually or nationally, it is never a good idea to self-delude, lie to oneself!

Dear, I tell no lies to myself when I say that the USA is exceptional.

You obviously think that is not true.

I'm not into self flagellation, especially for no reason. It reeks too much of a bleeding heart lib trait. Bleech.

 

[kwc57]

The USA is exceptional. Just call me jingo Si modo - it rolls off the tongue nicely. I can think of no better country in the world and I have no problem with thinking that way. Sue me.

Yes, America is exceptional, but we are not refering to the pride we have in our nation, but the dangerous concept of using American military might to shape the world into our own image.


AE foreign policies is the sign of political madness. That is all!!

I'm no believer in Newspeak definitions. I AM a believer in American exceptionalism. We are exceptional.

Isn't "exceptionalism" a subjective determination? I'm sure your mother thinks you are exceptional. Florida thinks Tim Tebow is exceptional. Of course, Texas thinks Colt McCoy is far more exceptional than Tebow.....while we in Oklahoma know that Sam Bradford is more exceptional than Tebow and McCoy combined. As a Baptist, I find my Christian denomination exceptional to all others. I know some Methodists who think their denomination is exceptional.

Isn't exceptionalism in the eye of the beholder?

Doesn't the claim of exceptionalism smack of ego and arrogance?

 

[Si modo]

Yes, America is exceptional, but we are not refering to the pride we have in our nation, but the dangerous concept of using American military might to shape the world into our own image.


AE foreign policies is the sign of political madness. That is all!!

I'm no believer in Newspeak definitions. I AM a believer in American exceptionalism. We are exceptional.

Isn't "exceptionalism" a subjective determination? I'm sure your mother thinks you are exceptional. Florida thinks Tim Tebow is exceptional. Of course, Texas thinks Colt McCoy is far more exceptional than Tebow.....while we in Oklahoma know that Sam Bradford is more exceptional than Tebow and McCoy combined. As a Baptist, I find my Christian denomination exceptional to all others. I know some Methodists who think their denomination is exceptional.

Isn't exceptionalism in the eye of the beholder?

Doesn't the claim of exceptionalism smack of ego and arrogance?

You bet it smacks of that. We are arrogant and have an ego for good reason.

At times like these I'm reminded of some of P.J. O'Rourke's words:

"Back in London…one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about 'Your country's never been invaded.' (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) 'You don't know the horror, the suffering. You think that war is…'

"I snapped.

"A John Wayne movie' I said. 'That's what you were going to say, isn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie-with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us. WE BE BAD.'

"We're the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France and Spain, roll them all together and it won't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d'Antibes. And we've got an American Express credit card limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.'

"You say our country's never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio'. Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer, and buy more things than you know the names of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than the king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little counties like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.'

"Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior European smile."

-P.J. O'Rourke - Holidays in Hell - Page 203​

Oh well. When it comes to my country, the USA, you bet your ass I am arrogant and you bet your ass we have an ego. And my arrogance on that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Truthmatters]

The USA is exceptional. Just call me jingo Si modo - it rolls off the tongue nicely. I can think of no better country in the world and I have no problem with thinking that way. Sue me.

We all love this country.

Some of us just want it to live up to its ideals.

Others seem fine with PRETENDING it does

Individually or nationally, it is never a good idea to self-delude, lie to oneself!

How very true.

when you lie to yourself about how others see you then you end up not being prepaired to deal with or anticipate the reaction of others.

Remember right after 911 when everyone was saying "why do they hate us?"

If you take the time to understand what the world thinks then you can better protect yourself from 911 type plans.

 

[midcan5]

I agree with the skeptics above but I have always marveled at conservative friends who throw this term around with little knowledge of our history. Or maybe knowledge is the wrong concept in this mindset. Consider our treatment of Blacks, Indians, Women, and rights till Lincoln, the beginning of the last century, FDR, and LBJ and still today and then look at inner cities today and exceptionalism seems a tough act.


"[T]he greatest challenge to [the American idea] is the false idea that American patriotism is inextricably bound up with the notion that being a normal nation is somehow beneath America's dignity. Belief in American exceptionalism is compatible with the idea of American normality: Our nation is exceptionally well-founded and exceptionally faithful to an exceptionally nuanced system of prudential political axioms." George Will

"Is it possible to construct a narrative that incorporates both the truly inspiring ideals of American democracy and the often ugly behaviors that have also characterized life in the United States? For whatever reason, speaking only for myself personally, it does seem difficult to think that way." U.S. Intellectual History: American exceptionalism

"The late eighteenth century was indeed an “age of democratic revolutions,” as Robert R. Palmer reminded us many years ago. But only the United States emerged as a functioning democracy. Tocqueville’s reference point was the French Revolution, which brought forth terror, dictatorship, Napoleon, national defeat, and reaction. The attraction of America to this remarkable French intellectual was its perceived distinctiveness. The mid-nineteenth century surge of liberalism in Europe had a significant impact in Britain, but much less on the continent."

"...It is not surprising that the years immediately after World War II, when the United States finally accepted a leadership role in world affairs, saw an outpouring of scholarship on the issue of American distinctiveness by scholars such as Daniel Boorstin, David Potter, Louis Hartz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. Their writing reflected the impact of World War II and the phenomenon of twentieth-century totalitarianism. Few people doubted at the time that America was exceptional in its liberal-democratic character, industrial development, and mass affluence. Clearly, that is no longer the case. Today’s historians, like Boorstin, et al., search for a useable past.

The United States, it still seems to me, has been during most of its existence different in kind from most of the world. But, Frederick Jackson Turner or Daniel Boorstin notwithstanding, its values did not spring simply from the environment. They derived mainly from a Northwestern European blend of Calvinist Protestantism and British Enlightenment liberalism." History News Network


"Difference in degree? Or difference in kind? “American exceptionalism” is a categorical phrase that can easily become an intellectual strait jacket. But when acting as historians studying a relatively distant past we abandon the idea of enduring and substantial national differences at the peril of insufficient historical understanding" Alonzo Hamby in above link

 

[Si modo]

Damn. Thank God bleeding hearts are mostly laughed at. The willful victims usually are.

 

[midcan5]

OK tongue in cheek well maybe not....

How many of the exceptional Americans drive Japanese cars or Korean cars? And do these same exceptional Americans have Japanese or Korean flags on these foreign cars? Or German for that matter? Whenever I chide a neighbor on his Toyota purchase he asks me 'who won the war?' How many of these exceptional Americans support worker rights or good free public education? How many exceptional Americans fight for UHC comparable with what they have in Japan for all Americans? After all aren't we exceptional or is that just an empty phrase.

 

[Si modo]

OK tongue in cheek well maybe not....

How many of the exceptional Americans drive Japanese cars or Korean cars? And do these same exceptional Americans have Japanese or Korean flags on these foreign cars? Or German for that matter? Whenever I chide a neighbor on his Toyota purchase he asks me 'who won the war?' How many of these exceptional Americans support worker rights or good free public education? How many exceptional Americans fight for UHC comparable with what they have in Japan for all Americans? After all aren't we exceptional or is that just an empty phrase.

What's your point?

You don't like it that I love my country?

 

[Murf76]

Isn't exceptionalism in the eye of the beholder?

Doesn't the claim of exceptionalism smack of ego and arrogance?

Not necessarily. An exception to the rule is simply different than the norm. In the days of our founding, the norm was monarchy and class division.

 

[Truthmatters]

loving your country is great

Lying to yourself and others about how the rest of the world views your country leads to 911 attacks

 

[Si modo]

loving your country is great

Lying to yourself and others about how the rest of the world views your country leads to 911 attacks

Tough shit. Sucks to be them.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

We are exceptional.

In what way? You could say that every country is exceptional in its own way, true?

This ought to be good...

 

[Si modo]

We are exceptional.

In what way? You could say that every country is exceptional in its own way, true?

This ought to be good...

In every way that is important to me. You got a problem with that? Too bad.

 

[Truthmatters]

loving your country is great

Lying to yourself and others about how the rest of the world views your country leads to 911 attacks

Tough shit. Sucks to be them.

One jvery important rule of war is "know your enemy".

When you ignore what every other country in the world thinks of you so you can pretend you are perfect then you fail to even recognize your possible enemies let knowing them.


Your type of arrogance makes us less safe.

 

[Si modo]

loving your country is great

Lying to yourself and others about how the rest of the world views your country leads to 911 attacks

Tough shit. Sucks to be them.

One jvery important rule of war is "know your enemy".

When you ignore what every other country in the world thinks of you so you can pretend you are perfect then you fail to even recognize your possible enemies let knowing them.


Your type of arrogance makes us less safe.

Knowing your enemy is one thing. Knowing it sucks to be them, is another.

 

[Truthmatters]

If you dont pay attention to what he thinks then you will know nothing of the treat he could represent.

You people think it is a maral crime to understand how and why others may have objections to our international policies.

You refuse to listen to them wether their complaints are valid or not.

You wish to live in this pretend world where we are capable of NO mistakes and that any policy we make have npo adverse effects on anyone in the world.

Its childish and very dangerous.

 

[Si modo]

If you dont pay attention to what he thinks then you will know nothing of the treat he could represent.

You people think it is a maral crime to understand how and why others may have objections to our international policies.

You refuse to listen to them wether their complaints are valid or not.

You wish to live in this pretend world where we are capable of NO mistakes and that any policy we make have npo adverse effects on anyone in the world.

Its childish and very dangerous.

I don't play with strawmen.