Boss
Take a Memo:
That's not American Exceptionalism or what it means. Yes, many of us are stupid, entitled-minded, materialistic and arrogant... we're also free. To understand the concept of American Exceptionalism, you have to first understand the chronology of World History and how our American system was born.
For the first time in human history, man came up with the idea of a civilization based on foundational Judeo-Christian principle but with complete religious liberty ensured by it, including the liberty to not practice religion at all. In 1776, this was a totally new concept. Most powerful government either controlled religion or religion controlled it. People didn't really have religious liberty. Here, we took the beneficial societal aspect of religion-- equality of man endowed by our Creator-- but without the requirement of the individual to adhere to any particular religion. It is the nuanced combination of a nation built upon, [but not individually beholden to] a devout religious principle, which makes us 'exceptional.' .
You don't get this because you think we were founded as a secular nation.
First of all, it's "more stupid than the average person" and not "much stupider than" ....but at least you spelled "than" correctly.
The Tea Party Movement is comprised of millions of individuals who hold various viewpoints on any given political issue. You have deeply religious evangelicals and you have devoutly atheist libertarians. You have the highly educated and the less educated. You have wealthy and not-so-wealthy. young, old, middle-age... racists... gays... blacks... whites... hispanics... All unified under the concepts of the movement, which is basically limited government and taxation. This idea of the 'stereotypical teabagger' is a contrivance of the Liberal Socialist Party, aka: Democrats.
The concept of revenue is simple. You first have to generate profit through capitalism to generate any tax revenue. You can set a 100% tax rate and your revenue will be exactly $0.. the same as a 0% tax rate. This is known as the Laffer curve, in case you want to further your obvious lack of education. Increased tax rate does not always mean more revenue and decreased rate doesn't mean decreased revenue. In fact, in modern history, any increase in top marginal income tax rates has produced less revenue adjusted to GDP. Every tax cut has produced an eventual increase in revenue within 5 years or sooner. This has been our result in every instance of modern times.
Here's the thing... You represent a rather large subsection of society who somehow made it through public education without any real grasp of world history. Maybe you slept through class? Maybe the teaching liberal counterculture taught you an alternate version of history? The bottom line is, your thinking is very much in line with the way most Americans thought before WWII.
It's not that we think we're superior to anyone. It's that our system is superior and proven. It's that freedom and liberty are superior to tyranny and oppression. Western civilization is superior to Arabic barbarism. Representative Democracy is superior to Totalitarian dictatorship. We don't need to prove it... We proved it on the beaches of Normandy, at Iwo Jima. On the seas of the South Pacific and over the skies of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It was proven at Concord and at Gettysburg. It was proven in Selma, AL.
