Sure. Of a supremacist policy and all of those that have spent their every waking ninutes in ways to implement same.
No big, right? Only the world as we know it has a better than good chance of disappearing altogether.
Never mind me an old fart coming-up on fifty, but what’s going to happen to our children? Some sort of Mad Max existance/survival?
Bet more than one on here thinks that’s a really cool idea.
Not if you ask me – but then again who the hell cares what I think? Just another piace in the short comptemporary period we choose call to call “ human ife” – souls and after-lives, just peachy.
Do you read or do you just rant? You’re an idiot. American exceptionalism is something historians talk about. The American traditional assumption that America is peculiar and exceptional. I’m not endorsing it, moron. I’m identifying it. And I’m pointing out two sides of it, one a lot darker than the other. The one Revenant is complaining about is actually the bright side and then I go on to say basically … wait you’re not seeing what’s really scary in the U.S.
You can point me to books, maybe, but I doubt you can read them for meaning. Get a brain.
I still don’t understand why we’re Pitting a criminal defense attorney who is basically saying that his clients are not bad people and that the responsibility was not entirely theirs.
I don’t understand why we’re pitting a criminal defense attorney for saying that the tolerance level in America for letting superiors off and hanging soldiers out to dry is going DOWN, because of the American belief that Americans are good people.
I am really, really thrown by the fact that we’re Pitting a cirminal defense attorney for using American exceptionalism as a reason to treat other people harshly and mitigate the responsibility of his own clients.
He’s doing his JOB. And I can’t say that I disagree with his strategic approach.
I agree, he is just doing his job, and he seems to me to be going about his job very cleverly also.
Just because he’s doing a good job, however, doesn’t necessarily align with good accuracy of statements. I congratulate him on his excellent defence so far, but that doesn’t mean I think he’s correct in what he says or that what he says is correct. After all, (and I apologise for using this example, and i’m not saying it’s in any way equivalent, but it’s the only one I could think of off the top of my head) I can think that the 9/11 attacks were vastly successful in causing terror, and that the hijackers did their jobs well, without agreeing with what they did.
He’s tapping into a wellspring of emotion that does exist. And he’s attempting to gain resonance with an opinion that is popularly held. And it’s not exactly a bad opinion to have exist.
A belief in our inherent goodness as Americans can be (and has been), although not universally so, a tempering force.
And in this case, he may even be right. The problem with Abu Ghraib is that higher-ups who knew or should have known (even if they didn’t order the actions or stop them) went largely unpunished.
Myers is attempting to rectify that situation. Granted, he’s doing it in order to mitigate his own client’s culpability, but it is nevertheless a step in the right direction. It would be nice to have one great big societal fix, but it is unwise to bank on such a thing.
I do see your point about the belief in inherent American goodness, and I think it can be a good thing, like you say, but there’s two problems; first, it’s not actually reflected in reality, and secondly there’s also potential negative points. A belief that Americans are inherently good (or better than other people) also suggests that questions don’t need to be asked, and that guilt is not likely; “This investigation isn’t that important, since obviously the Americans involved are innocent”. As a defence lawyer, prepping society into not feeling the need to ask questions is a good tactic; even if your client’s found guilty, they’re more likely to recieve a more lenient punishment (if one is possible) and greater general support. It does show a lack of care for the truth of the matter though, at least IMHO.
