American Exceptionalism: Fair and Balanced.

Great Debates
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Not only is this not true, it is an insult to all non Israelis who have a deep, abiding love of their country.

It is fiction.

As the assertion is not true, there is nothing to take away.

You really believe that the nonsense of ‘the chosen people’ is what has earned Jewish people animus over the years? Really? It couldn’t be anything empiric, such as having an ingrained philosophy of achievement and success that other cultures that have become lazy and entitled are so threatened by it that they lash out and try to destroy the Jews rather than improve themselves?

Well, you’re trying not to be.

This has less to do with Israel than it does the focused mindset of Jewish people, wherever they are, throughout the world. Let’s not get started on the crap Israel has gone through, much of which of late has occurred as a result of acts committed by the government, in the name of, but not the behest of, the people.

They’re not.

A fair bit of religious fervor? A fair bit? Quite the understatement, I’d say.

American exceptionalism, as expressed by today’s movement conservatives in America is composed of so much jingoism it makes my teeth hurt, and has more to do with a whitewash of the mechanisms employed throughout its short history to get America to what it is today than any of the honor spun from whole cloth its proponents espouse.

And here is where I, unfortunately, veer from the topic. I don’t mean to call you out specifically for this, Try2B, as I have seen this usage for years by many on this very board. You just happened to be the poster who used this word incorrectly on the day I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The word is ‘crescendo’. Crescendo is a rising, or building, or increasing intensity of a thing. It is not the achievement or the apex of a thing. One does not reach a crescendo, for goodness sake! Please make a note of this.

Back to our regularly scheduled rant.

The United States of America has been in existence for just 239 years. Touting the “so far” as though it has existed for millennia is a bit premature, no?

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But is it the best place to live? There are many quality-of-life measures on which other, less powerful countries have us beat.

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Yes, I believe America is the best place to live…for the greatest variety of people, with their varying tastes, talents and temperaments.

Want to be a coal miner in the mountains? We can accommodate you. Want to be a ballerina in the desert? We can accommodate you. Want to be a long-line or crab or shrimp fisherman in one of two oceans? We can accommodate you. Want to grow soybeans on the prairie? We can accommodate you. Want to sit around spending your day posting to internet message boards with your thumb up your ass? We can accommodate you, too.

We really are Earth’s human melting pot. There has never been as varied and complicated a nation like us in the past, and there won’t be in the future (I bet my hat on that). We’re unique.

It dismays me to think we may have already jumped the shark, but post-WWII America was on fire and globally envied—deny it all you want, but we were. (if you haven’t already done so, click the second link I posted in my last post)—that just blows me away…it should you, too. Nordic country youth and middle-aged men still fetishizing half-century old 50’s Americana???—what other nation even comes close to that level of idolatry? Long-dead Elvis Presley, of all people, is still the King of the World! I’ll bet most people around the world are more familiar with Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and a host of other American icons than they are with their own country’s stars. And they’ve been dead for decades.

Many contemporary Americans don’t deserve the gift we’ve been given—we were blessed with exceptionally prescient and gifted nation-building forefathers who got the ball rolling, followed by a succession of gung-ho, can-do generations. I see signs of slippage in recent years, and that’s a shame. Our future is hazy.

Certainly we have much to be ashamed of (our treatment of black people being at the forefront), but what adolescent nation doesn’t? We do, however, appear to learn from most of our mistakes and attempt to build a better society for all. We’re good and evil—mostly good.

But, I do commend all the foreign posters who’ve resisted the urge to call America, the most exceptionally fat nation in the world (a charge I deny, BTW…and I’ll explain if anyone’s interested).

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That the issues of Gay marriage and equal rights for the LGBTQ community have even to be contemplated by SCOTUS appears to prove the very lack of America’s ability to learn from its mistakes if you ask me.

America pats itself on the back for every minor concession it gives one group, crowing about its magnanimity, while continuing to hold its boot on the throats of other groups.

America the expedient. Is it not merciful?

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The debate is about exceptionalism, not about being most nice, or even most socially enlightened.

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USA is big. Meh.

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Believe it or not, that was my original point - that “exceptionalism” wasn’t limited to Americans, or to Israelis for that matter. All nations feel it to one degree or another.

And I don’t thing that’s a bad thing. You need pride in your country in order to make it better; if you go around thinking, "“Meh, we’re nothing special”, then that’s all you’ll be.

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But American exceptionalism is — exceptional! :rolleyes:

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And the point I addressed in your post was about learning from mistakes.

I guess being dragged kicking and screaming to doing the right thing time and time again is exceptional. Doesn’t say much about learning from mistakes, though.

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To be accurate I posted *“We do, however, appear to learn from most of our mistakes and attempt to build a better society for all.” *I never claimed all of them. And most of the important issues that we do lag on usually get done in a righteous way, eventually. Politics creates a lot of bottleneck jams.

And, what country are you from?—Japan from the look of your sig. Has your country learned from all of its mistakes in a timely fashion?

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The notion that America isn’t the global bellwether is frankly absurd.

L.A./Hollywood generates the pop-culture and idols the world devours. NYC’s, Madison Avenue spews out the logos and catch phrases the world plasters on its T-shirts. When Wall Street speaks, the world’s financial institutions shut up and listen. In D.C., when the Department of Defense gets its feathers ruffled, the world cowers. America doesn’t simply influence the world; it’s got it bitch-slapped. Love it or leave it, you can’t ignore it.

And, furthermore!..:smiley: (some tongue in cheek follows):

Unlike empires of days gone by, America actually encourages our tiny friend countries to spread their wings and bask in some of the glory we could just as easily reap all for ourselves—they’re like our not-too athletic, kinda slow-witted little brothers and sisters. C’mon UN, fly some of your airplanes behind ours and help us bomb that bad country…but, be careful you push the right buttons on the bomb shoot and be careful not to fly into any mountains.

In 1957 the Soviets launched a dog named Laika (the first muttnik) into orbit. Problem was, they didn’t bring her back home again (Laika Come Home…NYET!). America said, screw that, that’s not very nice, and we started shooting our own critters into space—but, we brought them back home again, including the homo sapiens!

After landing men on the moon, golf carts on Mars and anal probes deep into space, we said, enough already, time for some of our tiny friend countries to spend a little cash and take some credit. So, we sat back and let a bunch of countries band together and form the European Space Agency. NASA taught them how to screw on their space helmets and ignite their rockets. When the ESA shot their first rocket into space, we thought that was darned cute. We applauded when they embarked on the Rosetta Mission and patted them on the back when they made contact with the comet…and we did not make fun when, after the 10 year journey, they accidentally landed the probe in a hole.

Music? Don’t make me laugh. America has dominated the world of music for over a century with jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, ragtime, hip hop, barbershop, pop, techno, house, dance, boogaloo, salsa, and rock and roll. No contest; no other contenders. Oh, sure, Europe gave it a shot with Polka and the Swiss with their Yodeling—but those genres don’t exactly fill large stadiums. Don’t get me wrong, Europe does indeed occasionally output some awe-inspiring music, like this chart-topping fine performance demonstrates.

The British Invasion was an anomaly (genius collaborations like Lennon & McCartney don’t come around too often). But, remember, the British Invasion was what it was because of America. We were getting tired of the crooners and beach music, and Elvis went off in the army, and Bob Dylan went electric and Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin.

And so we flew four mop-headed Liverpudlians over and put them on the Ed Sullivan Show. America embraced them (and the Limey bands who followed) with open arms and propelled the genre into the stratosphere of popularity. But, recall that rock legends like John Lennon credited his musical roots with American R&R and Skiffle; others, like Keith Richards credit American R&B (and we do give credit for blues African roots).

If not for the Beatles, American artists like Little Richard and the Beach Boys would have remained at the top of the charts and their music would have continued to evolve and mature (like with Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys admirable answer to Sgt. Pepper).

A handful of European countries dominated Western Music in the 18th and 19th centuries (Franz Liszt was arguably the first Elvis Presley). But, America owns the 20th and 21st.

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There certainly is, I must admit, a special kind of exceptionalism required for “allowing” other nations to do their own thing and then taking credit for not doing it themselves.

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I understand this thread is about American exceptionalism (barf), and this is definitely a sidetrack, for which I apologize, but I dispute that America usually gets things “done in a righteous way.” America’s default position is to discriminate or harm until the right thing is rammed down its throat, and even then its troglodyte contingent on the Right, with its out-sized influence on government matters, mucks up and slows down progress.

It made me ill yesterday hearing Justice Kennedy say that the Supreme Court may be moving too quickly on marriage equality. this was one of the arguments in support of anti-miscegenation laws in the late 1960s, for heaven’s sake!

Also, don’t think for one minute that its treatment of LGBTQs is the only issue that discounts any claim America has to exceptionalism. Torturing and detaining people in substandard conditions who have not been proven to have committed any crime, without charge or due process of law, for years, most of whom are probably innocent, is nothing less than immoral, and makes America no better than any other country’s government that commits similar atrocities that the American government hypocritically labels as “criminal acts”, to name just one other in a litany of issues that has marred and continues to mar the sheen in the armor of righteousness America tries to portray to the world.

For every claim of American exceptionalism there is a corresponding proof of willful duplicity and wrongdoing that either achieved, coincided with, or preceded it. If this doesn’t bother you then, fine, America is exceptional.

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… is one of the stupidest things I have read on this forum for a while. Congratulations.

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Why? It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Even if it’s wrong (and why would it be wrong?) it isn’t stupid. As far as I can tell, this is one of the least cogent rebuttals I’ve ever read on the SDMB.

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Let me just fix that for you:

:smiley:

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Fair enough. You’re starting to convince me. Let me just mull over your ideas in my head while I finish my Big Mac®, chased with a Coca Cola®, then get in my Ford F-150® and listen to cool Jazz® on my Apple IPod® and get home before my favorite show, American Idol® starts.

Hey, O, here’s an idea! Why don’t you join me at my home and we can debate this topic in person?? Just exit Route 66 at exit 1776, (just beyond the ASPCA headquarters), then drive 10 miles till you reach the NAACP building, take a left, then drive 5 miles till you get to the gay bathhouse (pink building, on the right), then turn right and drive 3 miles to the Yogurt shop owned by those three women. My house is catty-corner to them.

Let’s then debate the issue of American exceptionalism. Afterwards we can watch a movie! What would you like to watch? American Graffiti? American Beauty? American Pie? American History X? American Splendor? An American Werewolf in London? American Pop? American Psycho?..you name it; I’ll stream it, from Amazon® video.

I’m not making a value judgment, just stating what should be an obvious fact—America dominates the world in most things people care about.

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Obligatory The Newsroom clip.

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The Newsroom:

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There are things that will affect America just as much as any other nation.
Let’s say that national debt reaches 300 percent of GDP. In that case, the United States would be in dire straits, just like anyone else.