[It's taken me a while to catch up on the Afterburners. There are some major projects in the works -- and they have been in the works for eighteen months now -- and I promise they will not disappoint.
Here I am on my favorite ground. Some of this may be familiar, but certainly the frame around it is new, and disturbing. One would think the President of the United States might be a little more historically literate concerning the country he has been elected to lead.
Also, I have had many requests for the SILENT AMERICA esssays, many of which did not survive intact from the old site. I'll start re-posting them here in between the new work. And I'll start with TRIBES, which has been requested by name several times. Until then, you can find the video link to the True Story of American Exceptionalism Afterburner here.]
The Huffington Post has gained a reputation as the premier philosophical center of the modern American Left, and it is there that we might look to find the kind of in-depth, rational argument that powers modern left-wing ideology.
An example of this kind of reasoned discourse was found in a recent article by leading American intellect Bill Maher. Mr. Maher is outraged that people like me are outraged at a statement made by the President of the United States.
Mr. Obama, while attending a European summit earlier this year, was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism. The President of the United States replied, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”
Liberal intellectual Bill Maher then went on write, “Yes, our so-called president actually said people in other countries might like their countries better. I was so shocked I nearly dropped the Bible I was using to help me masturbate into my gun.”
Now even those of us without the towering intellects of Barack Obama and Bill Maher can see that that both men are suffering from a simple lapse in comprehension. The question wasn’t whether or not he believed in American patriotism – that is, the love of one’s country. Of course the British and the Greeks love their country. I love my country. I understand this emotion completely, and I think it’s great to have pride in who you are. But that wasn’t the question. The question was, do you believe America to be “exceptional.”
Bill Maher and Barack Obama say no. I say, yes it is, and here’s why:
Let’s examine four international areas of competition to see if there’s any way in which America can be defined as exceptional: Militarily, economically, scientifically, and culturally. There’s the challenge. Ready? My God, this is going to be so easy and so much fun…
Okay, Militarily…
Throughout history, certain exceptional nations have dominated the world militarily. Egypt, Rome, The Mongols, Spain, France, Britain, and America’s military dominance since World War II certainly puts it in that category. But the American military exceptionalism is completely different both in terms of relative power, and more importantly, in terms of the use of that power.
At the end of 1945, only two military powers of any consequence remained after the ruin of the World War: the United States, and the Soviet Union, and while the Soviets had large numbers of troops and tanks, they had no navy and no strategic air force to speak of. On the other hand, the United States possessed, intact, the most awe-inspiring, battle-hardened navy the world had ever seen. It possessed sky-darkening clouds of B-29 strategic bombers. And it possessed, alone, the atomic bomb and the will to use it.
Had we been like any other power in the history of the world, the United States of America would have used that monopoly on absolute military supremacy to have planted its flag anywhere it wanted and no one would have been able to do a thing about it.
But what did America do with this once-in-all-of-history military advantage? We scrapped the ships, drove steel bars through the wings of the priceless bombers, and began the largest de-militarization in the history of the world. Oh, and we sent billions of 1940’s dollars – an almost unimaginable sum – to our defeated mortal adversaries to get them back on their feet.
And in all of the years since then, despite what Michael Moore may want you to believe from the comfort of his editing room, the United States has deployed in response to aggression – not to cause it. Berlin, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Korea, Vietnam – all of it Communist – that is to say, Leftist – aggression.
There is another military issue that need to be addressed. It is the idea of American “Imperialism.”
The fair working definition of “empire” is a group of countries ruled over by another country, and the entire point of an empire if for the ruling nation to pull resources and wealth from the subject nations. So, is America an Empire?
Well, over what other nation does the US exercise “supreme power in governing?” Whose national parliament can we overturn at our whim? What nations in this so-called “American Imperialism” does America have ruling governors in? There are none, and everyone knows it. We have a handful of very small territories that repeatedly vote for that status. And in those nations that voluntarily house American military bases, we find we not only do not steal the resources of the host nation, but rather pump vast amounts of money into those countries. When a country – like the Phillipines – decides it no longer wants those bases, the bases are removed. Furthermore, we pay for whatever resources we are sold. That benefits us and our trading partner. Free trade is the economic and moral antithesis of imperialism.
And just as a quick parting shot, let’s talk about a “war for oil.” Unlike the people that bandy this term around, I’ve enough about military doctrine to know what a War for Oil would like like. In a War for Oil, the US would secure the oil fields using Special Operations teams. We’d place an armored cordon around the oil fields, and then, using military convoys under overwhelming close air support, convoy the oil to Basra where it would be loaded on US tankers and escorted out of the region by American Carrier Battle Groups. And if you don’t believe that take on America’s fundamental military decency, I would refer you back to the First Gulf War, when Saddam was high-tailing it back to Iraq and the US Army sat unopposed on the precious, precious oil fields. They were ours; we won them in battle. What did this American Empire do? We put out the fires and then we went home. Again.
So what kind of empire has no sovereignty over its subject nations, deplys no governors to make it’s will felt and which puts resources into the outlying colonies, rather than pulling them in?
What kind of empire is that? An Anti-Empire, that’s what kind. America’s presence is Anti-Imperial. That has never happened before in history. That is one of a kind. That’s exceptional.
Economically, the United States – with less than five percent of the world’s population – produces 20% of it’s total economic output. You don’t find that exceptional? How about this? America, with three hundred and seven million people, produces about 14 trillion in GDP. China, with 1.3 billion, produces almost 8 trillion dollars of GDP. In other words, America produces twice the GDP of second place China, and we do it with less than 25% of their population. You don’t find that exceptional, Mr. President? I find that very exceptional.
And just to shoot down a recurring bit of idiocy I see bandied about out there, let’s just very quickly dispose of the idea that America is rich because it steals all the wealth from the third world.
U.S. GDP, as I mentioned, is a little over 14 trillion dollars. Let’s take the GDP of a poor country – Djibouti, lets say – the not the absolute bottom, but close enough… Djibouti ranks 162 out of 180 countries in the world.
Djibouti’s GDP is a little less than 1.9 Billion dollars annually. The GDP of the United States is 7,600 times that of Djibouti. If we were to send the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines into Djibouti, and steal everything they made that year – everything, we just took their whole GDP – well, that would account for the first 1.2 hours of the first day of January of America’s GDP year. In other words, the United States makes in the first hour and ten minutes of January first what Djibouti makes all year.
There has never been anything like the US economy. No one can look at the numbers I just gave and not see it as the most remarkable and exceptional wealth creation machine in history. But it does seem at times that the President who sees nothing exceptional in America is doing his level best to remove what were the exceptional elements of the US economy – low taxes, low regulation and private initiative – and lead us straight out of this once-in-history economic miracle. Into what? I don’t know. No one knows.
Moving on. One of the common charges leveled – seemingly every week – by deep thinkers like Bill Maher, Janeane Garofolo, Michael Moore and other left-wing idols – is that America is a stupid country. In fact, if you listen to these guys, American’s are not just stupid – we are, literally, according to them, the stupidest people in the world.
Is that true? How does America fare scientifically?
Each year, scientists all around the world write research papers. These papers produce scientific citations. It’s fair to call these citations “units” of science, that is, a measure of how much ground-breaking science is being performed.
Now the last time I checked, China came in sixth, preceeded by France, England, Germany and Japan. Japan, at number, had six and a half million citations in a ten year period.
During that time the United States produced 39,027,838 – more than six times as many as the runner up. Six times as many as number 2. Mr. Maher, I’m not even talking to you any more – you’re an idiot if you can’t see numbers like this. But Mr. Obama, as President of the United States, can’t you see that this is not just patriotism. Six times the number of scientific citations as the number two country, and with less than five percent of the world population… Don’t you find that even somewhat exceptional?
Let’s put this in visual terms…
All of those images of the deep structure of galaxies and nebulae from the Hubble Space Telescope are provided to the world at the expense of the American taxpayer and through American. Almost every image of the surface of Mars, the asteroids, and the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune was sent to the world by American grad students at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech in Pasadena. The American university system is the envy of the world. Nowhere is there better science being done, and no where is there anything like the numbers of people receiving advanced scientific and engineering degrees.
One man – an American named Norman Borlaug, whose name should be sung to the rafters every day – launched what is known as the green revolution. This American agronomist first developed the high-yield, disease-resistant crops that defied the Malthusian projections of worldwide famine and single-handedly fed the entire world. Billions of people are alive today because of this American scientist.
But I can go on. Almost all of the life-saving drugs administered around the world are the product of American pharmaceutical research. Almost all.
To compare American inventive genius relative to the rest of the world, let’s go right to the heart of the modern socialist European state, Sweden. Google “Swedish inventions” and what comes up? Wikipedia has nothing – not one thing – in the 21st century. Swedes did invent the spherical bearing in 1907 – and that’s not a trivial thing – and neither is the first practical dialysis machine, invented by Nils Alwall.
On my monitor, I had to hit “page down” key 3 times to run through the list of Swedish inventions. The list of American breakthroughs took me 69 taps of that button, and revealed – just taking one out of twenty, let’s say – Refrigeration, the electric telegraph, anesthesia, assembly line production, the airplane, the bulldozer, extragalactic astronomy, the liquid-fueled rocket, EEG brain topography, the digital computer, nylon, ,the creation of the first Transuranium element, nuclear weapons, the transistor, supersonic flight, the video game, cable television, radiocarbon dating, the atomic clock, the credit card, the nuclear submarine, the laser, carbon fiber, the integrated circuit, the weather satellite, the birth control pill, the communications satellite, Kevlar, the compact disc, the jumbo jet, the personal computer, email, the Heimlich maneuver, the space shuttle, the graphic user interface, the global positioning system, and in case you missed any of that: TiVo. Oh, and parenthetically, this nation of idiots landed on the moon two generations ago, and we also mapped the human genome about a decade ahead of schedule.
Mr. President, would you not consider that exceptional scientific output for less than five percent of the world’s population? And Bill Maher, sir… you smoke too much pot.
Culturally, I’ll just say this: look at the list of the 50 top-grossing movies of all time. There is a lot of international talent there, certainly, but every single one of them is the product of an American studio. You might object to Lord of the Rings being on that list, but the three Lord of the Rings movies cost about 450 million dollars and New Zealand doesn’t have that kind of money – nothing like it. The top 50 movies are American movies, spoken in English.
In terms of albums sold, American Michael Jackson is the only one to sell over 100 million worldwide. The following six best selling albums are all American, with Andrew Lloyd Weber, of all people, coming in at number 8.
Compare the star power at the BAFTA’s – the British film awards, or the Greek Awards – with the Oscars. That’s not a question of the Brits or the Greeks loving their own movie stars. It’s a question of which country produces the international culture. And by every measure, it’s us. Five percent.
Let’s not belabor this any further. As a reasonable person, based on the evidence I have presented, would you not say that the United States of America is not only exceptional in one or two of these areas, but has historically dominated all of these fields – military, economic, scientific and cultural – in a way never before matched in history. It’s simply never happened before.
It takes lethal doses of cynicism to ignore a mountain of facts this high. I expect this kind of cynicism from Bill Maher. Bill Maher – and Michael Moore, Janeane Garofolo, and all the rest – have made a very comfortable living – well, maybe not Garofalo – by telling a small group of under-educated sycophants that they’re actually really much smarter than the rest of the rubes because they buy their tickets. But no one can seriously believe, in the face of the evidence I just laid out – that this is a stupid country. In fact, you can’t come to any reasonable conclusion other than the United States being the most exceptional country in the history of the world.
So why do they say what they say? Nihilists, you see, believe in nothing. They are hollow, soulless people, and the one thing they cannot tolerate is belief in something good. Belief in America is to them like sunlight to vampires. It makes their skin catch fire. They cannot hear this music, and so they can’t allow you to hear it either. But don’t let them get to you. The facts are on our side, and not theirs.
You know, I can remember a time when a common citizen didn’t have to explain American greatness to the President, but rather the other way around.
I remember a President who thought of his country not as one out of 180 equally good countries, but rather as a shining city on a hill, an exceptional place. A President who once said “After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”
Mr. Obama, like all previous Presidents of the United States, you are descended from immigrants. But I believe you may be the first whose father hurtled through the darkness, towards home, then discovered he didn’t care for it much and hurtled back to where he came from. That’s the true story of the man you revere, along with the Marxist professors you claim to have sought out in college, and the radical Anti-Americans you have associated with your entire life. I fear they may have colored your judgment somewhat, sir, and I would ask that you take a look at the evidence I have presented and perhaps, next time you are asked if the country you lead is exceptional, you might perhaps nod and say, “yeah, you know what? Maybe we are.”
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42 Comments
1. Dolf Fenster:It strikes me that neither Obama nor Maher can scarcely be unaware of the greatness of this country. They just don’t appear to possess the need to incessantly bleat on about it, particularly when entertaining foreign dignatories.
Sometimes it’s the difference between successful diplomacy and having large majorities in every country in the world wish you ill.
Sep 22, 2009 - 4:46 pm 2. Deano:The spectrum of Obama’s view of this country is so narrow it puzzles me how he even wanted to become President. The manner in which your take on American exceptionalism eclipses his, is akin to the planet Jupiter eclipsing a speck of dust. I also enjoyed your pep talk at the LA Tea Party. Thanks for you continued efforts on behalf of this nation.
Sep 22, 2009 - 5:49 pm 3. Eject Eject Eject » BILL MAHER, BARACK OBAMA AND THE TRUE STORY OF … | Daily News Headlines:[...] here to see the original: Eject Eject Eject » BILL MAHER, BARACK OBAMA AND THE TRUE STORY OF … Share and [...]
Sep 22, 2009 - 9:13 pm 4. David Thomson:Bad things sometimes happen to good people. We should feel sorry for Barack Obama. He graduated from Harvard University—and obviously received a second rate liberal arts education. Never forget that you too could have wasted years of your life at this vastly overrated academic institution. There was very good reason why some thirty years ago John LeBoutillier wrote Harvard Hates America.
Sep 23, 2009 - 2:36 am 5. Doug Loss:Dolf, you don’t know what you’re talking about. No one is “incessantly bleating” about American exceptionalism, other than Obama and Maher when they deride and belittle it. I take it from your name that you’re not American. If that’s so, your comment smacks of little more than jealousy.
Sep 23, 2009 - 5:46 am 6. Captain Ramen:Bill, you are quite right about the American Empire – it is a negative cash flow empire. Which makes no sense. And while you are right about American Exceptionalism, I fear that until we stop defending all these far away places for free, it will no longer be the case.
Sep 23, 2009 - 10:43 am 7. Professor Guvinoff:I grew up in France, one of these countries where many love America secretly and hate it vociferously at the same time, a stunt I could not manage in spite of the intense peer pressure. I received the privilege of American citizenship, after bringing my wife and children here, to make our life on the shining hill, because my love of America was not so conflicted. America is exceptional, and I relish the blessings of being an American.
About Mr. Obama, I have to wonder whether he is so deeply convinced of his own supreme exceptionalism that he cannot allow for even one extra token of exceptionality, even for the country that elevated him to its pinnacle!
Perhaps we are all narcissistic to one degree or another, but this indulgence is generally unsustainable, and sooner or later we climb out of it. It seems like our president has not done so, yet. This is an unfortunate chapter of our history, and I look forward to resolve this as soon as practical, by the ballot, with the joyous complicity of my fellow tea-party-ers.
Sep 23, 2009 - 1:10 pm 8. Roderick Reilly:I have a different take on exceptionalism, or, more accurately, want to comment on a different aspect of national or cultural ‘exceptionalism.’
Throughout history, humanity has had to make exceptions for certain peoples and places out of sheer necessity and practicality. This is because societies have found that they needed safety valves and loopholes to their standard practices. Medieval Europe needed the ‘exceptional’ status of Jews to enable money-lending for increasingly sophisticated economies; the world has needed places like Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc., for various purposes. Ships carry the Liberian flag, and people stash there money in the Seychelles. Communities establish red-light districts because they know they can’t completely control societal mores.
The United States is the biggest exceptional entity of all. The reason its exceptionalism matters, as does that of the other places, people and institutions I mentioned above, is because the theory of the benefits of diversity apply to national systems and economic systems and cultural systems as much as it does to Nature and biology. To make America ‘unexceptional’ by conforming it to say, Western Europe, does not bode well for either America or Europe, or the world in general. America is at the top of the world’s economic food chain, and works best when it applies different practices than others do. One reason why Europe could afford its welfare states and why China could become a powerhouse was because of the American economy and markets. The world is better off if they lay off with the demands that we ‘be in harmony’ with their notions of governance and business practices.
Sep 23, 2009 - 2:57 pm 9. Roderick Reilly:An addendum to my comments above:
The Obama adminsitration violated the wisdom of exceptionalism by going after ‘tax cheats’ and their Swiss bank accounts. Swiss exceptionalism on banking issues is one of those accommodations which wise governments allow. Disrespecting Swiss sovereignty to satisfy its lust for money to fuel the dangerously reckless fiscal policies demonstrates how stupid and ignorant and unwise this administration is.
Sep 23, 2009 - 3:02 pm 10. Alsadius:Much as I normally agree with you Bill, I think you’re missing the point here. The point I think Obama was trying to make is that history is not a simple or a concrete thing. It’s open to interpretation, and people will naturally interpret it in ways that make them feel good about themselves. You list off the successes of your nation and ignore its failures. You’re probably justified in doing so, but other nations are certainly entitled to the same level of glossing-over in their national narratives as well. A Briton could just as easily talk about how their nation didn’t crack under the pressure of being alone against the most terrible engine of conquest since Genghis Khan as their capital was being bombed into rubble. Or maybe they’ll mention how all those American movies are written in English, not American. How they were the first to lift themselves from the appalling conditions humanity had lived under for all of recorded history before the Industrial Revolution, and brought prosperity to the rest of the world in a timeline where you can pretty much draw circles around London and count the years to industrialization. How the richest, most powerful nation in the world is their former colony, who broke away in a violent revolution and are now their good friends. How London is still as important a centre of world finance as New York, despite being in a country a sixth the size. How they didn’t shoot Ghandi like so many other empires would have, and instead handed him the crown jewel of their empire.
Yeah, that narrative glosses over all manner of tyranny, abuse, and cruelty, but so does yours. How exceptional is it that a third of your country was willing to fight until they were starved out to protect the institution of slavery? How exceptional was it to use a trumped-up accident to go to war with a second-rate power and steal all their best colonies for yourselves, even to the point of massacring the people who lived in those colonies and tried to resist?
I don’t mean to imply that the US is evil, or anything of the sort. Indeed, I largely agree that it’s been one of the nicest major powers in history, and its influence on the world has been overwhelmingly positive. But is it really so hard to believe that other nations might apply the same blinders to their own history, and come to similar conclusions? A Briton can point to the glory of Victoria or the courage of Churchill, the liberties of the Magna Carta or the genius of Darwin. How could any properly “unbiased” Briton come to the conclusion that his land is anything but an exceptional one? And while I can rattle off chapter and verse on British history, it’ll be the same for any other nation. The Greeks hearken back to Thermopylae and Socrates, the Canadians to Vimy Ridge and Frederick Banting. Every nation has a narrative its citizens tend to prefer, where their successes are glorious and their failures are ignored. And of course, when you put on blinders like that, you look exceptional.
Sorry man, I have to come down on Obama’s side here. America might be exceptional, but good luck convincing a non-American that it’s more exceptional than their country.
Sep 23, 2009 - 7:57 pm 11. Gaffe Prices:#1 Dolf Fenster: “It strikes me that neither Obama nor Maher can scarcely be unaware of the greatness of this country.”
Oh they know full well its greatness, they just suffer from such an extreme psychological handicap as to harbour a Mein Kampf against it; as though the only way their psyche can continue exist is to live by the notion that all the ills of the world can be traced back to it (American Exceptionalism).
The same way adolf hitler used the Jews as the all purpose scapegoat for any and all ills (with capitalism and usery as their means), so that Hitler could make his argument that national socialism, or in the case of Italy, that crony capitalism was the (final) solution to all ills.
Sep 23, 2009 - 9:59 pm 12. WayneB:Sorry man, I have to come down on Obama’s side here. America might be exceptional, but good luck convincing a non-American that it’s more exceptional than their country.
But he’s supposed to be an American. If the President of the United States is going to equivocate on a question like that, then he’s sending a message that he doesn’t really give a damn about his country. He was asked a simple question, but, as with every other simple question he ever gets, he has to go and sell America downward.
Sep 24, 2009 - 5:20 am 13. Professor Guvinoff:10 Alsadius
I was only one of the many non-Americans who converge to America to make their life here, and came with very little money in their pocket, but a recognition of the central idea of America: Individual freedom, opportunity, good work ethics, openeness, and decency, simply put, the American dream, which you can turn into the American reality if you apply yourself to it! I started a small business, and created jobs, which I could never have done where I come from, because I did not have a rich uncle to help me with the extra taxes you are burdened with over there when you become an employer.
But the biggest thing is Freedom of speech. Otherwise “modern” countries like France have a minister of information in the cabinet. I am not making this up. What do you suppose a minister of information is good for?
Logically, there are two possibilities: America is indeed better, and exceptionally so, or the immigrants are people of very poor judgment. Which do you think it is?
Sep 24, 2009 - 6:03 am 14. Jonk:From Bill’s PJM counterpart, Richard Fernandez:
“One of the most ironic things about American exceptionalism is that it is based… on the supremacy of Everyman.”
That is how so few of us can do so much for everyone else.
Sep 24, 2009 - 10:40 am 15. Chris Vernon-Jarvis:I wonder, just perhaps, if the answer is in the words. When I first read the question I had to ask myself if “American exceptionalism” was perhaps some doctrine or policy with which I was not familiar. If I was in a public interview I might just hedge or answer with a non committal turn of phrase and if that is the case this particular answer would be rather cute.
If, however you asked me if Canada was exceptional, (or the USA for that matter,) I could unequivocably answer “YES.”
Sep 25, 2009 - 12:40 am 16. haha:haha you think bill maher is an intellectual
Sep 25, 2009 - 6:42 am 17. selective quoting:good work at quoting out of context. how about reading the entire thing:
“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don’t think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.
“And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.
“Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we’ve got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us.
“And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.”
Sep 25, 2009 - 6:49 am 18. Fireballs:Alsadius: Greece had it’s time in the sun, as did Britain. But those times are long gone. Bill’s essay is clearly focused on the post-WWII era.
What has happened to Britain scares the bleep out of me. It’s shocking to realize just how rapidly a once-great nation can descend.
Sep 25, 2009 - 10:28 am 19. Stephen J.:“If the President of the United States is going to equivocate on a question like that, then he’s sending a message that he doesn’t really give a damn about his country. He was asked a simple question, but, as with every other simple question he ever gets, he has to go and sell America downward.”
To give the President as much benefit of the doubt as possible, I think it can be argued that he and his co-ideologues do not see it as “selling America downward” but rather as attempting to take a less confrontational stance in America’s relations with the world (and that is one of the President’s legitimate functions).
It should also be borne in mind that one of the key tenets underlying leftist/progressivist philosophy is the belief that most arenas of competition are fundamentally finite, zero-sum spheres. By this logic, the dominance of American exceptionalism — culturally, militarily, economically, scientifically — is seen as something that must by definition diminish and constrict the potential of other nations and peoples to excel in those areas; “American exceptionalism” cannot but mean “rest-of-the-world subjugation”.
There can certainly be no doubt that American prominence exerts a vast and inescapable influence on the rest of the world; to be as generous as possible, I might suggest that Obama is merely attempting to acknowledge that this influence has not always been positive, nor is it always welcome even if Americans see it as positive. “I give a damn about my country,” this might be phrased, “but I am also attempting to ensure my country gives a damn about all others, as well.”
This charitable sentiment may be disingenuous, or naive if it is not; it is certainly unlikely to be returned. Whether that makes that stance a principled attempt to do the right thing for its own sake or a foolishly naive attempt at making friends with unfriendly nations, it needn’t necessarily indicate spite for America as a nation — though it can be argued that it does indicate a telling error of priorities in the President, the office of which is supposed to protect America’s interests first and foremost.
Sep 25, 2009 - 11:22 am 20. Daniel Redmond:Good article and I agree with the general perception of the United States’ significance in the world today and its place in history. But I have the following observations upon the subjects covered, in the order of their appearance:
MILITARILY Yes, it is true that the USA has not been the overbearing presence in the world that its ‘emperial’ predecessors have been. Our reconstruction of Japan and Germany after WW2 is well-documented and deserves ample praise. But if we have not followed the heavy-handed practices of past empires, we have not been without our own self-indulgent tactics of exploitation. Over several decades we developed a network of economic and political vassal states that were effectively run at the pleasure of our own State Department, often covertly through the CIA. Pakistan is a prime example of this, as was Iran under Shah Mohammad Pahlavi. CIA also cultivated a cooperative relationship with the Baath Party in Iraq way back in the 1960s due to their anti-Communist stance. That was the party that brought Saddam Hussein to power, by the way. And the numerous attempts at assassinating Fidel Castro also dating back to the Kennedy administration are hardly secrets any longer. Further back in time we can reference former Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of only 19 Americans in history to have won 2 Congressional Medals of Honor, who stated openly that many of his own military operations were at the behest of American corporate interests looking to exploit Third World nations. To believe that we Americans have been uniformly altruistic throughout our history is to be naive regarding these realities.
ECONOMICALLY: Agreed, historically we have been the biggest engine of wealth on the planet, hands down. But our economic system is strained to the limit and has become increasingly dysfunctional, as evidenced by our economy’s reliance upon massive amounts of debt, both in the public and private sectors, to sustain itself. You compared our GDP to that of Mainland China but did not mention that China is now the biggest creditor nation on Earth while we are the biggest debtor nation, and at least a trillion dollars of our debt is now owned by–you guessed it–China. And after the much publicized and absurdly enormous bail-out of both banks and manufacturing corporations in the past year it is clear that American capitalism has abandoned its philosophical antecedants of “free enterprise, competition, and survival of the fittest in the corporate world” for a new era of corporate socialism whereby any bank or corporate entity that is large enough can expect to be rescued by the taxpayers and simply not allowed to fail, no matter how stupid their mistakes have been. This is not the way it was supposed to be.
SCIENTIFICALLY: Absolutely no dispute here. We lead the world in technological inventiveness and always have since the days of Thomas Alva Edison.
CULTURALLY: Well, yes, American culture is a force to be reckoned with across the globe. We are successful and we Americans, furthermore, simply know how to have fun. We enjoy ourselves and the rest of the world wants of piece of the action. Can’t blame them for that. But we are slipping in the education arena with more high school drop-outs than in any other Western industrialized nation and our literacy levels are dismal even compared to what they once were right here in our own country forty years ago. And as a people we are singularly indifferent to other cultures. Half the people on the street couldn’t find England on a map if they were asked to. That’s sad. Mixed Martial Arts—aka: controlled street fighting—is becoming the most popular spectator sport in the country and we often spend more time reading about the sex lives of movie stars than the voting records of our elected officials. We have a lot of positives in our American culture, but there’s certainly room for us to evolve to a higher state than what we’re at now.
END OF COMMENTS
Sep 26, 2009 - 5:27 pm 21. Edmund Burke:No country before ever elected as their presiden a relative outsider and minority with a name that sounded foreign to majority. No predominantly white country that inherited its culture and language from the Brits, a Northern European island who once had a world-wide empire, ever elected a Black man as its president before, albeit one raised by white people. I find that exceptional too, and it made a lot of Blacks feel a little more welcome in their own country, and Hurrah for that.
Sep 27, 2009 - 6:04 am 22. ray:am vietnam vet. am disabled now due to other factors. have known all along, that the financiers of obamastan were socialists. first take over the money(banks)then take over industries(auto companies)next it will be the media(like chavez)this is all to stifle dissent. (humana incident) removing the anti-ballistic missle system in eastern europe, and redefining the mission in afganistan,denying troops when requested by the experts.The “czars” bypass the role of congress, not accountable to the people. then not supporting the uprising in iran, supporting chavez, and denying legitimate sucession in Honduras, and the world appology tours. there is no question on his alliances are not with the people of the United States of America and to the constitution. According to the Koran and Mohammed, if your father is a muslim the children are muslim, and according to the Koran if a muslim converts his is to be put to the sword. I am not a birther, but would like to see his birth certificate, if you will show me yours, i’ll show you mine. probably will have from the irs over this letter..oh, by the way, that rumble and the earth shaking you hear and feel, is the sound of all the dead veterans turning in their graves.
Sep 27, 2009 - 6:31 am 23. Leinad Dnomder:We have much to be proud of here in America, but to see only our positives and never acknowledge our mistakes is to take a somewhat Pollyanny-esque perspective. We are a nation that embraced slavery for nearly the first century of our existence, then kept those slaves’ descendants oppressed for another hundred years afterward. We ruthlessly exterminated indiginous tribes across the continent. We’ve habitually indulged in ‘regime change’ in other nations at our own discretion, either through assassination of leaders [remember Salvador Allende anyone?] or outright invasion as in Iraq [while searching for imaginary WMDs]. The idea that because other nations are poor that we’ve given them more than we got back is true in some cases, false in others. We’ve certainly treated them more fairly than most empirial powers of the past, but we’ve mostly profited from the relationship as well. Are we an exceptional nation? Yes. Are we as perfect as Bill Whittle seems to think we are? I’d question that.
Sep 27, 2009 - 8:03 am 24. Alt173:No one in the real world or even on “the Left” considers Bill Maher to be a “leading American intellect”. He’s a *COMEDIAN*. You are setting him up as a straw man.
My hunch is that this post is a prolongated knee-jerk reaction to Maher’s status as an evangelical Atheist and his rather crude comment that “[he] was so shocked [he] nearly dropped the Bible [he] was using to help [him] masturbate into [his] gun.” Remember: He’s a *COMEDIAN*. Unfortunately comedians make crude jokes sometimes.
Your knee-jerk reaction manifested itself as an overly long “America is the Greatest Country in the World” type commentary. Please join the rest of us in reality — this is 2009, not 1949, “Leave It To Beaver” WASP America.
And before you criticize others for preaching to “a small group of under-educated sycophants,” you should look in the mirror. I have no guess as to the education level of your readers, but clearly this article is pandering to the extreme right-wing fringe.
In sum, you set up a comedian as a straw man and knocked him down. Great job of wasting time writing a long piece that is based on a flawed premise.
Sep 28, 2009 - 6:48 pm 25. Wither the PAX Americana? « Way Too Opinionated:[...] [...]
Sep 29, 2009 - 7:17 pm 26. Ilion:The term “American exceptionalism” isn’t (of course) just another way of talking about patriotism. But, neither is it another way of talking about preeminence by this measure or that measure.
Rather, “American exceptionalism” is about the idea that there is something so different about America, as compared to other countries and nations throughout history, that one might almost say “the normal rules don’t apply.”
When you talk about American military might, or economic might, or cultural preeminence, you’re not talking about “American exceptionalism.” There has always, by definition, been some state or society which is preeminent by some measure or other.
The term “American exceptionalism” isn’t just the sophisticated way to chant “We’re Number 1!”
On the other hand, when you talk about the American anti-empire, then you are talking about “American exceptionalism.”
Sep 30, 2009 - 8:38 pm 27. bobsmith:I don’t think the author here even understands the meaning of “American exceptionalism.” It is not simply the greatness of America.
Instead the term (as the “ism” implies) refers to a specific theory regarding the superiority of the US to all other nations. So Obama’s hesitancy to endorse exceptionalism in no way constitutes a denial of America’s greatness. It is really more a reluctance to arrogantly proclaim, “We’re number 1. We run the world and play by our own rules.”
Oct 1, 2009 - 3:36 am 28. Doug in Colorado:All those things which you listed that make America exceptional are exactly what the DemLeft would list as “America’s Greatest Sins.”
I pity the fools…
Oct 1, 2009 - 2:13 pm 29. The Kid:I believe Barak and Michelle hate America so much, it would have been impossible for them to absorb much of American history, much less appreciate America’s worth and accomplishment.
Completely forgetting all of the radical associations like ayers, wright, and so on, I have zero confidence that Obama intends to maintain the ’shining house on the hill’. He doesn’t even know it exists. I believe when Obama said he’d “been to 57 states and had one or two more to go to” he had no idea how many states made up the United States. Absolutely believe that.
How many American soldiers died in the attempt to save the life of a Muslim, and yet, when Obama did the world wide apology tour, he didn’t make mention of even one of them.
All ya need to know.
Great write-up btw.
Oct 1, 2009 - 7:57 pm 30. Nash:Great video Bill Whittle! Did you ever send it to Bill Maher? I am sure he would never see it otherwise. It was just top shelf stuff. Bill certainly has quite a decent handle on history. I learned a lot from this video and from the Hannibal and Cannae video recently. Just excellent work Bill.
Oct 1, 2009 - 9:48 pm 31. Alsadius:@12: And if you take what he said as his opinion(always dangerous where politicians are concerned, but nonetheless…), then his answer was perfectly American. More diplomatic than most phrasings, but entirely consistent with an actual belief in American exceptionalism.
@13: I never claimed that America wasn’t a great nation, a good place to immigrate to, or a land where you can show up with the clothes on your back and work your way to being a rich and powerful man. It’s a country I have immense respect for, despite having never lived there myself. I’m Canadian, and while there’s a few areas where I’d take our history over yours in a heartbeat, I know that you won the 20th century and we were the tag-along. That doesn’t change anything about the debate at hand here, though. Bill’s essay proved that America is exceptional, when you frame the argument as being about the eras and fields where America is greatest and other nations were not. People from other nations won’t debate you on the same ground – they’ll emphasize when they were great and America wasn’t when they’re trying to build up their national mythology in their own minds, or justify it to others. If you want to claim true exceptionality, you can’t rest on “Man, when we were good, we were good“, you have to be able to prove that other nations can’t say the same things. Otherwise, you’re merely one of many nations which was great. That’s certainly something to be proud of, and I’m not trying to knock it, but it’s not really an exception to anything.
@15: Oh, I agree about the frightening downhill slide of Britain. It’s a running joke between me and a few friends – every time we see another absurd nanny-state story come out of the UK, the response is just “Man, Briatin used to be cool…”. It’s worth noting that these aren’t just right-wingers who say this either, the guy who started the joke is actually pretty much a socialist. But really, that’s not the point. Bill focused on post-WW2 because that is the era when America’s exceptionalism shone brightest. Not every national myth is based in the same era and the modern American one. An American reminisces about 1946, a Briton about 1846. Bill wasn’t alive for George Marshall or the nuclear monopoly, but they’re still the grounds he stakes his claims to exceptionalism on. Why should a modern Briton who wasn’t alive for Charles Darwin or the invention of the steam engine feel constrained in using them as their basis for a belief in their national exceptionality?
Oct 1, 2009 - 11:13 pm 32. Rich Casebolt:It strikes me that neither Obama nor Maher can scarcely be unaware of the greatness of this country.
Actually they can, for the same reason that the UN is ineffective as a body for assuring world peace … they possess a relativist worldview that leads one to the moral equivalence necessary to perceive dictator and democrat with near-equal deference.
They just don’t appear to possess the need to incessantly bleat on about it, particularly when entertaining foreign dignatories.
Maybe we wouldn’t “bleat” so much if we weren’t having to deal with the messes left by those who engage in alternative courses of action to our “exceptional” ways.
This isn’t bragging … this is a friendly “Heads Up … this works, you should try it.”
Sometimes it’s the difference between successful diplomacy and having large majorities in every country in the world wish you ill.
Problem is, much of that ill will is founded on ill thinking, on the part of these other nations … ill thinking that in some cases leads to large numbers of poor, suffering, and dead people.
That ill will, too many times, is an attempt to drag America down, in order to appear to have risen by comparison. Perhaps they should try emulating what we do right, first, before they start griping …
Oct 2, 2009 - 7:22 pm 33. Luis Gonzalez:Europeans came to this Continent in ships propelled by wind. They cooked their food and heated their homes with fire, plowed their fields with their backs, or animals, rode on the backs of horses, and communications took days or weeks to reach their destination. That was the world in 1776, the world that had existed since time immemorial.
Since 1776, man has walked on the moon, nuclear power lights entire cities, and automated harvesters do the work of a thousand men in a day or less, and a thought circles the world in the time that it takes to think it. Someone likened all this (and more) to a 5,000 year leap forward in the history of humanity compressed into less than two hundred years. A leap fueled by the creation of America, and the advancement of the concept of individual freedom under our Constitution.
I call it proof of American exceptionalism.
Thank you Mr. Whittle.
Oct 3, 2009 - 6:55 am 34. SkinneeJay:Great video, and I agree with it. I personally think every country is exceptional (Aside from those tyrannical regimes but they probably have a good past) but that does not mean I hate America or my country (Israel). I have to admit America falls off a little on the cultural side. I can’t see how Playboy and other pornography is a good part of the culture, but America also produced “Terminator 2″, David Lynch and Bethesda Softworks. So I will not hate it on that quite big stain.
Oct 4, 2009 - 1:59 am 35. GILMORE:An example of this kind of reasoned discourse was found in a recent article by leading American intellect Bill Maher.
I sincerely hope this was tongue in cheek…
If not… if you actually consider Bill Maher a ‘leading intellect’… well then, Bill O’Reilly must be a philosopher, Ariana Huffington a serious policy analyst, and Michelle Malkin a leading professor of political science.
Seriously. Whats with the overplaying of silly soundbites to the level of reasoned discourse? This reads like one of the most ridiculous straw-man arguments every compiled. Its like taking out jaywalkers with a bazooka. Maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems as though the position you’re ostensibly arguing *against* doesnt really exist, except perhaps in one’s imagination. Does Bill Maher speak for anyone other than Bill Maher? I wouldnt think so.
I dont really disagree with very much in the piece, but still find the premise kind of contrived. The idea that American ‘greatness’ is something we need to adhere to like a mantra kind of besides the point in general. Yes, we have militarily supremacy, cultural clout, and lead in scientific developments.
Yet what does that have to do with the fact that there’s no way on god’s green earth we’re ever going to turn Afghanistan into a functioning civil society – number of troops be dam#ed? – a far more important question. For all our exceptionalism… it doesnt mean we are omnipotent.
The point of culture I also think is completely misconstrued. Yes, hollywood movies and coca cola are globally ubiquitous. But the ‘customers’ of these products are not ‘encultured’ in any way… Pastuns listening to rap music and eating KFC does not make them any more likely to endorse the tenets of the Bill Of Rights.
Read Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” – modernity, as we define it, is still no indicator of any emergent ‘international culture’ as you put it. People can drink coca cola and still strap on a suicide vest. The success of our commercial culture has little to do with the likely success of American ideals, and this distinction should be clearer.
Oct 4, 2009 - 11:06 am 36. Obloodyhell:Actually, the one you should follow this up with isn’t Tribes (though I love it) it’s Rafts.
That, by the way, is a means to access the older stuff. Most of Bill’s old eject!x3 site is still accessible via The Wayback Machine… You can’t really do a search on stuff, though, you have to kinda hunt and peck for it, unless you happen to remember the article numbers (which you can if you still happen to have an older, non-working link).
But you can certainly do a click-through to find the older entries via the “Next article”/”Previous article” links.
Enjoy!
Oct 5, 2009 - 2:50 pm 37. Hangtown Bob:ALT173,
I have a Master’s degree from Stanford and was enrolled in the PhD program there until I was called to military duty during the Vietnam “police action”. What is your highest educational achievement?
Oct 7, 2009 - 6:08 am 38. Obloodyhell:> And before you criticize others for preaching to “a small group of under-educated sycophants,” you should look in the mirror. I have no guess as to the education level of your readers, but clearly this article is pandering to the extreme right-wing fringe.
Says the man rather obviously from the left wing fringe, where anything right wing appears to be “fringe”.
The vast majority of The Left are so far off the center nowadays they’re out in the fields out of sight of the road. From that perspective, all sensible things — those somewhere ON the road — look “right wing”.
Oct 7, 2009 - 6:45 am 39. DocTim:I agree with your first thee examples of America’s exceptionalism. Equating movie popularity is off target. Being the most popular movie making country just does not ring as clearly exceptional as the American poeple’s generosity.
Oct 15, 2009 - 9:33 am 40. “That’s Why I’ve Got #1 on the Back of My Range” « Shoestring Century:“America is a uniquely charitable country.– We gave $260 billion in charity last year. That’s almost $900 for every man, woman, and child.” “Individually, Americans give seven times more money than people in Germany and 14 times more than Italians give. We also volunteer more.” http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4854
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Oct 20, 2009 - 8:37 pm 41. Msanchez:This was one of the most interesting articles I have ever read and brought a knot in my throat. Thank you Bill for your uninhibited and proud defense of America.
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