American Exceptionalism

[Polk]

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

Of course it does, which is what makes it so problematic. If you walk around assuming you're already perfect, there is no incentive to improve.

 

[Si modo]

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

Of course it does, which is what makes it so problematic. If you walk around assuming you're already perfect, there is no incentive to improve.

In the mind of Newspeaking bleeding hearts, exceptional and perfection naturally mean the same thing.

So many strawmen are typical of the non-thinkers.

 

[Polk]

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?

Love of country doesn't require an irrational belief in it's constant and eternal perfection in deed.

 

[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?

Love of country doesn't require an irrational belief in it's constant and eternal perfection in deed.

Notice that it's only you and other bleeding hearts mentioning perfection.

It must be rough for you being such a lazy debater.

 

[Polk]

What's your point?

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

Love of country doesn't require an irrational belief in it's constant and eternal perfection in deed.

Notice that it's only you and other bleeding hearts mentioning perfection.

It must be rough for you being such a lazy debater.

That's because you don't understand what the term being discussed means.

 

[Si modo]

Love of country doesn't require an irrational belief in it's constant and eternal perfection in deed.

Notice that it's only you and other bleeding hearts mentioning perfection.

It must be rough for you being such a lazy debater.

That's because you don't understand what the term being discussed means.

I'm not the one saying exceptional is equivalent to perfection. You and other bleeding hearts are. I don't speak Newspeak, either.

Same thing I said two posts ago, and you STILL don't get it.

Idiot.

 

[Murf76]

To start with the narrow issue you bring up, is our system of government exceptional? Most other nations that configured their government in a manner similar to ours have been rocked by instability and dictatorship. It's telling that when we assist other nations in writing constitutions, we don't suggest they adopt our system.

You do understand, don't you?... that our system of "negative" unalienable rights cannot coexist in the same space with the "positive" rights you libs espouse???

You have to give one up in order to have the other. Are you REALLY willing to do that for the sake of government cheese?

 

[geauxtohell]

While I appreciate your point... I do believe that there is a widely-held misunderstanding of the term, particularly as it applies to "American Exceptionalism". And to be candid... sometimes I think that the misunderstanding is deliberately propagated.

"Exceptionalism" in this instance doesn't mean "better than everyone else"... it just means "different than everyone else". ie. NOT a monarchy. And NOT a class system.
But no matter how many time that's explained, here we are, something like 8 pages in, with people still rabidly posting about how America is not "special".

One is forced to conclude that some folks are either being deliberately obtuse, or that they have a reading comprehension disability. A sad state of affairs in either case.

That's a weird statement. We are all different from each other. What is the point? I think you are meshing words. "Exceptionalism" means just that, and there is no denying that there are people in this nation who think that we can do no wrong simply by virtue of being American.

 

[kulihalasigeo]

The United States tries to be driven out from east Asia.
It sees it like that when seeing from Japan.
As for the Democratic Party in Japan, it won by the election in August this year, and Yukio Hatoyama became a Prime Minister in September this year.
The policy of the Democratic Party aims at the conversion from the alliance of Japan and the United States to the alliance of Japan and the china. The East Asian Community advocacy, the anti-terror law discontinuance, and the Futenma U.S. base relocation, etc. are the models.
People in the United States must be interested in the thing that has happened in east Asia in an emerging area.
It is convinced that the flow makes the world unstable.

 

[kulihalasigeo]

I am Japanese.
The United States tries to be driven out from east Asia.
It sees it like that when seeing from Japan.
As for the Democratic Party in Japan, it won by the election in August this year, and Yukio Hatoyama became a Prime Minister in September this year.
The policy of the Democratic Party aims at the conversion from the alliance of Japan and the United States to the alliance of Japan and the china. The East Asian Community advocacy, the anti-terror law discontinuance, and the Futenma U.S. base relocation, etc. are the models.
People in the United States must be interested in the thing that has happened in east Asia in an emerging area.
It is convinced that the flow makes the world unstable.

 

[PixieStix]

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.

Yes America is quite exceptional, our founding Fathers had exceptional ideas, and this administration and the leftists of the world want to destroy the very fabric of American society and culture.

 

[geauxtohell]

I can't find one post by a single conservative that ever said that Americans are incapable of sin but I can find post by liberals that we have inherited bad qualities such as slavery because liberals seem to go around and want to apolagize for something like slavery as if current living Americans who have not acted "in bad faith" regarding slavery are somehow responsible for it. It seems to me that people on the left want to say that we don't inherit anything that makes us immune from acting in bad faith (witch is true) yet believe we inherit everything that prevents us from acting in good faith such as slavery.

This concept is a lot larger than internet message boards. It was hardly originated by "liberal" or "conservative" posters. So citing internet posts to support or refute this concept is somewhat lame.

I'll contrast your anecdote: I've yet to see any liberal poster claim that we inherit everything that prevents us from acting in good faith.

At any rate, what we are talking about is a mentality, that when it reaches the highest levels, drives foreign policy.

This might be a simple academic debate if the Bush Administration's adherence to the concept of American exceptionalism led them to think that we would be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq, and that the country would instantly start putting McDonald's on every corner as opposed to the reality in which we got stuck in a ten year insurgent conflict.

Exceptionalism is the natural enemy of pragmatism.

 

[rightwinger]

Exceptionalism is not an absolute. It is not something you declare and then everything you do is acceptable.
Those who engage in torture are not exceptional
Those who run preemptive wars are not exceptional
Those who dump polutants into the air and water are not exceptional

We lead by example

 

[Murf76]

That's a weird statement. We are all different from each other. What is the point? I think you are meshing words. "Exceptionalism" means just that, and there is no denying that there are people in this nation who think that we can do no wrong simply by virtue of being American.

Meshing words? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Here's the dictionary definition:

ex·cep·tion·al·ism (k-spsh-n-lzm)
n.
1. The condition of being exceptional or unique.
2. The theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm.
exceptionalism - definition of exceptionalism by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

ur founding Fathers had exceptional ideas

They had no original ideas. They just tried to copy the French.

 

[Polk]

That's a weird statement. We are all different from each other. What is the point? I think you are meshing words. "Exceptionalism" means just that, and there is no denying that there are people in this nation who think that we can do no wrong simply by virtue of being American.

Meshing words? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Here's the dictionary definition:

ex·cep·tion·al·ism (k-spsh-n-lzm)
n.
1. The condition of being exceptional or unique.
2. The theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm.
exceptionalism - definition of exceptionalism by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Nice that you know how to use a dictionary, but the term is use here has a specific meaning in context. It's not just a generalized expression meaning "USA #1".

 

[Si modo]

That's a weird statement. We are all different from each other. What is the point? I think you are meshing words. "Exceptionalism" means just that, and there is no denying that there are people in this nation who think that we can do no wrong simply by virtue of being American.

Meshing words? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Here's the dictionary definition:

ex·cep·tion·al·ism (k-spsh-n-lzm)
n.
1. The condition of being exceptional or unique.
2. The theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm.
exceptionalism - definition of exceptionalism by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Nice that you know how to use a dictionary, but the term is use here has a specific meaning in context. It's not just a generalized expression meaning "USA #1".

Look at # 2.

Idiot.

 

[ihopehefails]

Meshing words? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Here's the dictionary definition:

ex·cep·tion·al·ism (k-spsh-n-lzm)
n.
1. The condition of being exceptional or unique.
2. The theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm.
exceptionalism - definition of exceptionalism by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Nice that you know how to use a dictionary, but the term is use here has a specific meaning in context. It's not just a generalized expression meaning "USA #1".

Look at # 2.

Idiot.

I like that one better because it says we are unique which is nothing more than saying we are different from anyone else. I like that a lot.

 

[Alvin]

I like that one better because it says we are unique which is nothing more than saying we are different from anyone else. I like that a lot.

There is a problem with being different from anyone else.........The rules which govern our behaviour do not govern yours. If you wish to enter into a treaty or "Game" with anyone else then you must obide by a predetermined set of rules.

Which in turn does not speak to exceptionality.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

American Exceptionalism. Your thoughts?

American Exceptionalism is a bullshit, NeoCon buzz-phrase for perpetual-WAR/PROFIT$!!!!

This morning David Stockman laid-out the whole scam.....a fave of ignorant, bigoted/racist White-Trash Teabaggers.....

See: 7:15 thru 10:10