Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:03am

Considering American Exceptionalism

There has been discussion in the public square lately about American Exceptionalism. The term is one of those which, it seems, causes visceral reactions in many people, either positive or negative. Some immediately declare that the United States is one of the greatest nations that has ever existed. Others insist either that the US is entirely un-exceptional (and its inhabitants delusional for thinking otherwise) or that it is exceptional only in that it has been an unusually bad influence upon the world.

One of the problems is that there are a couple of different meanings one can assign to the term “American exceptionalism”. Some use the term to mean that 19th century Protestant idea that the United States is uniquely selected by God as a new Israel to play some pivotal role in the world. This view strikes me as sufficiently wrong as to be uninteresting, so I won’t discuss it further. However, this does not necessarily leave us to conclude that the US is either unexceptional or evil.

There are, I would propose, a small number of countries which have had an outside impact on the history of the world — mostly for the good: Athens, Rome, Charlemagne’s empire and its Holy Roman successors, the Spanish empire, the British empire, the United States, and (though this may get me drummed out of the conservative ranks) the French republics and empires. All of these have had prodigious effects upon the history and culture of the world. Having had such an impact, all have had, beyond question, quite a bit of negative impact as well as positive. Rome is, after all, the military power that crushed many another regional kingdom, razed Jerusalem, persecuted the Christians, picked up the Persian practice of crucifixion and spread it throughout the world, etc. Indeed, Rome was arguably what St. John described as the Whore of Babylon, crouched upon its seven hills, in the Book of Revelation. Rome was far from being an unambiguously good force in the world, and caused its share of destruction and suffering.

And yet, for all its faults, Rome was by any measure exceptional. It was a major force on the world stage for over five hundred years. It left a legacy of Latin language, Roman law, Roman architecture and classical art throughout the known world. And, quite without the intention, originally, of its elite, it became the mechanism through which the Christian religion spread to every corner of the world. The Church, which Rome did its best to wipe out through persecution, is now called the Roman Catholic Church. Nor is it merely a historical accident that this occurred, a mere coincidence that the center of the Church remains in Rome. Just as the Roman Empire because Christian, so to an extent the Church became Roman. Through the Roman world we absorbed classical learning, we learned the Latin language, and we adopted traditions of Roman law. The City of God learned much from the City of Man.

This is not to say that that one is better or more worthwhile because one is an ancient Roman, or a subject of the British Empire or a US citizen, nor that one should be ashamed for being from a country which is not among these greats. There is a great deal to be proud of in the history of any country, and if some countries cannot claim to have had such widespread effects upon the world as a whole, they are spared blame as well as praise.

But there is, I think, a very false balance in trying to explain away the exceptional place in history of these countries, or denying that the United States is the latest in that elite succession. It is, unquestionably, exceptional.

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R.C.
R.C.
Tuesday, February 8, AD 2011 11:14pm

Bill Whittle’s video essays on YouTube discuss this, among other things, in describing the Tea Party movement.

Among his assertions is that the U.S. is exceptional in having decided to ground its principles of governance in Natural Law and in the tragic vision of human fallibility rather than the utopian vision of human self-perfection. This resulted in the wisdom of constitutionally limiting the power and role of government, and also of dividing government authority among two legislative chambers, among three federal branches, and between the federal government and the states through federalism/subsidiarity.

Whittle’s view, then, is that the U.S. is exceptional in these ways, but that any other country could easily join us in being “exceptional” by choosing the same path. “Exceptionalism” is not therefore a birthright or a racial statement about blood and soil. It is an assertion that some principles upon which a society might be governed are more moral than others; and that sadly it is rare — it is an exception — for a society to select the principles of Natural Law and constitutional governance, and reap the benefits thereof.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 6:22am

“and if some countries cannot claim to have had such widespread effects upon the world as a whole, they are spared blame as well as praise.”

On the contrary, I hold Luxembourg responsible for most of the world’s ills! 🙂

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 6:30am
WJ
WJ
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 6:37am

All this is true, so far as it goes, but the following cannot be left to stand:

“The City of God learned much from the City of Man.”

This is, as I’m sure you know, an impossibility, seeing as the City of God (which is not identical to the Church) is structured around the love and worship of the Triune God and the City of Man is structured around the love and worship of the self.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 7:17am

Who can match English and Russian literature, Italian music, painting and sculpture, German science and philosophy, French style and fashion? If America is exceptional it is only because it has stood on the shoulders of European civilization, and other than jazz and baseball, is more a copycat than an innovator.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 7:23am

How about English cooking, Russian technology, Italian government, German jazz and French driving? 🙂 All cultures and peoples stand on the shoulders of their predecessors Joe. One of the unique things about America is the way in which so much derived from other peoples has been taken and transformed by America.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 7:33am

I’ll give you one of those, Don; in fact, all, but they are not important. In matters that truly count, America can boast of airplanes and computer chips and nuclear weapons, but not much else. In the essential spheres of art, architecture and culture, I’d contend, you can’t win the argument.

Darwin
Darwin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 7:42am

RC,

Agreed to an extent, but one doesn’t want to take the approach of saying that because we can read the thoughts of Socrates and think the same thing, that therefore we are as insightful a philosopher as Socrates. Also, while I’d agree that American institutions and political philosophy are, to an extent, a part of it’s exceptionalism, there could be a country with very good political philosophy and civic institutions which was not a particularly exceptional actor in history.

In the same sense, Athens and Rome were not necessarily unique or event the best in their institutions — yet their influence on world history far exceeded more modest states which may have exceeded them in those respects.

WJ,

the City of God (which is not identical to the Church) is structured around the love and worship of the Triune God and the City of Man is structured around the love and worship of the self.

And yet we understand the Triune God, to a great extent, through the originally pagan philosophies which were learned from the Greeks and Romans. We worship in languages spread by Hellenistic and Roman culture. And the institutional Church, which is not identical to the City of God, yet certainly is not unrelated to it, is ruled by a descendant of Roman Law and Roman political institutions.

Truth is worthy, even if it is found among pagans — and much truth was found in the Greek and Roman cultures emanating from Rome and Athens by the early Church.

Darwin
Darwin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 7:49am

Joe,

I’ll give you one of those, Don; in fact, all, but they are not important. In matters that truly count, America can boast of airplanes and computer chips and nuclear weapons, but not much else. In the essential spheres of art, architecture and culture, I’d contend, you can’t win the argument.

Well, first off, note that I listed a half dozen exceptional nations in history, not just one. I would not, for instance, claim that the US was more exceptional than Rome or the British Empire, though it possesses some virtues those lacked (and lacks some those possessed.)

That said, the nations which have the greatest impact and influence are not necessarily those who excel in every field. The Brits and Romans were both considered pretty dull and stolid folks in their way, yet had far more lasting impacts on the world than their flashier contemporaries.

WJ
WJ
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 9:00am

Yes, Yes, of course that’s all right. But none of that has anything to do with the “City of Man”–the civitas terrena. By definition, the civitas terrena (which, again, can’t be confused with any one polity) is the collection of individuals at all times and in all places devoted to the idolization of the self. You are conflating two issues here. The first issue, that Truth is one and is not limited to the Church (though of course the Church contains a fuller plenitutde of truth), is different from the second issue, which pertains to the radical separation between two ideal typical regimes, across which there is no bridge.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 10:51am

We are “poor banished children of Eve.” To our Holy Queen, Mary, we “send up our sighs mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.” The best we can hope for is that “after this our exile” we may be found worthy (through grace, prayer, repentence, and Mary’s intercessions) of the “promises of Christ.”

Look at other countries. Name one that possesses a more just political system led by the consent of the governed. Name one that gives its citizens the opportunity to rise from rags to president or millionaire. Name one that had the power and ever and always gave more than it took in its relations with all the rest of the world.

Now, if Nate or MM can’t stomach evil, unjust America. They know what they can do. There are no walls or border police keeping them here.

I wonder why ten of millions want to come to America.

And, stop listening to comprehesively ignorant, intellectually incompetent lying, aged hippie college prof/VC-sympathizers that revise history to continue in their useful idiocy even into weed-sotted senility.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 11:04am

Name one that has a higher crime rate and commits more abortions.

Jacob Morgan
Jacob Morgan
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 11:24am

As Chesterton said, America was unique in that it was founded on a creed, namely that all men were created equal.

It was the first country in modern history, and one of the few ever, countries were an indigenous uprising resulted in a long standing democracy, instead of trading one tyrant for another.

It is unique in the extraordinary potential for upward mobility. It really does not matter that much to whom you were born. As an example the airplane was invented in America, not by some idle rich duke of this or that, but by a couple of bicycle mechanics. Carnegie went from being an poor immigrant to being one of the richest men in the world.

America invented the AC electrical system, high speed steel, automobiles for the masses, TCP/IP, the personal computer, the radio, and the telephone. America, with aid from the British, did invent nuclear technology to end a war and then offered to hand it over to an international body–how many other countries in a similar position, with absolute asymmetrical power at the time, would have done that?

As far as culture goes, Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses people liked living in. Mark Twain wrote books that people still read without them being a class assignment. America invented Jazz while Europe invented classical music–well Europe had a two or three hundred year head start on classical, and what has it done since then?

Churchill joked that America always did the right thing, after it tried everything else first–well, how many other countries of similar size and relative power is or was even interested in the right thing? Damn it for not being perfect, but what other superpower or other country has even tried? The Greeks, the Romans, England of the 1800’s, there was no real concept of trying to do the “right thing”–it was build the biggest empire at any cost, because that was what powerful countries did. If a new country becomes the new superpower, how hard do you really think they will try to do the right thing?

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 11:34am

Well said Jacob!

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 11:44am

“Name one that has a higher crime rate and commits more abortions.”

Actually quite a few nations have a higher abortion rate than the US:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/wrjp333pd.html

There are also quite a few nations with higher crime rates, starting with the five featured below:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/159175/top_5_most_dangerous_countries_in_the_pg3.html?cat=9

WJ
WJ
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 11:45am

This “upward mobility” canard has got to be called out. Consider that:

Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.

Children born to the middle quintile of parental family income ($42,000 to $54,300) had about the same chance of ending up in a lower quintile than their parents (39.5 percent) as they did of moving to a higher quintile (36.5 percent). Their chances ofattaining the top five percentiles of the income distribution were just 1.8 percent.

Education, race, health and state of residence are four key channels by whicheconomic status is transmitted from parent to child.

African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.

The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.

AND THE KICKER!

By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of
intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark.

(From http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html)

Darwin
Darwin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 11:50am

Joe,

Name one that has a higher crime rate and commits more abortions.

What, name one country with a higher crime rate than the US and more abortions?

Russia.

In fact, despite having a population less than half that of the United States, their absolute number of abortions per year is about twice that of the US. More than half of pregnancies in Russia end in abortion.

Not like being better than Russia in these two respects is anything to be particularly proud of. But ask an easy question and get an easy answer. 🙂

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 12:23pm

Donald,

The abortion rate in the US, per your link, is almost exactly the same as Canada and only slightly more than England and France. How can this be given that social welfare programs are supposed to eliminate abortion? Can it be possible that there are other reasons other than economic ones that people?

WJ
WJ
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 12:29pm

Darwin,

I don’t understand that response. I suppose that I agree that it’s not a *necessary truth* that the fact of lower intergenerational mobility in the U.S. entails there being a lower “possibility” of intergenerational mobility in the U.S.

But as I see it, the important thing is exactly what you state: intergenerational upward mobility “doesn’t happen as much” in the U.S. as in other (roughly comparable) countries. Who cares whether it’s hypothetically more “possible” that in happen in the U.S. if it doesn’t actually happen? (And I’d like to see the concrete explanation as to how upward mobility could be simultaneously (a) more likely to happen in the U.S. than in other countries and (b) not happen as much in the U.S. as in other countries.) But if you want to take this up later, that’s fine.

I don’t mean to hijak the thread, but the myth of the actual existence of upward mobility in the U.S. dies hard, and needs to be corrected.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 12:56pm

WJ: Now, I am a myth.

Guys like me likley are rarer than before. Why is that?

Try: confiscatory taxation; ruinous regulations; gluttony; state licensing for many crafts, e.g., dog groomer; sloth; promiscuity; single parent households; lust; public school brainwashing instead of education; hate rich people; wrath; envy; drugs; alcohol; etc.

It is not America that keeps people dependent and desperate. It is the immoral, liberal progressive movement that controls the democrat party, the Senate, the WH, vox nobrains, and the lying liberal media.

Joe Green:

Solution to abortion and crime: DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT, BUILD MORE PRISONS.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 2:44pm

A good post on the subject by Thomas Sowell:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell060805.asp

This country is just as socially mobile as it ever was, but it helps if a few simple rules are followed, which I have gleaned from 28 years at the bar:

1. Graduate from high school.

2. Have kids in wedlock.

3. Actually show up when hired to perform a job.

4. Try your best not to look like a ganster or a whore on the job.

5. Realize that having a surly attitude and mumbling tends to displease bosses and customers.

6. Master basic literacy and math.

7. Don’t become an alcoholic or a druggie.

8. Be ready to move to be employed.

9. Save as much of your pay as you can and invest it.

10. Go to church on a regular basis and pay attention.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:01pm

1. Graduate from high school. (…and ‘Welcome to Wal-Mart’)

2. Have kids in wedlock. (…so you can get a tax deduction)

3. Actually show up when hired to perform a job. (…if you can find one)

4. Try your best not to look like a ganster or a whore on the job. (…unless you’re Christina Aguilera or Lady Gaga)

5. Realize that having a surly attitude and mumbling tends to displease bosses and customers. (…after all, why be like them?)

6. Master basic literacy and math. (…so you can read the want ads)

7. Don’t become an alcoholic or a druggie. (…but a little wine and Viagra never hurt anyone)

8. Be ready to move to be employed. (…see No. 3)

9. Save as much of your pay as you can and invest it. (…so you can be conned by Bernie Madoff & and the rest of the Wall St. crooks)

10. Go to church on a regular basis and pay attention. (…so you don’t miss the Bingo announcement)

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:08pm

Well Joe, all I can say in response to your cyncism, is that in my practice the people who obey those ten rules tend to be doing pretty well, and those who do not are doing pretty poorly. Or, as Kipling put it so long ago:

“AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:12pm

just tweaking you, Don. Don’t take me seriously. I’m just a jaded misanthrope obviously and mean no harm. If everyone on here wants to think they are ‘exceptional,’ that’s fine…I used to be a Christian and I read “…there is neither Greek, nor Jew, male nor female…etc” but people everyone, no matter where they live and what they believe, think they’re better than the other guy.

It’s human nature unfortunately. We’re such a sad pathetic species.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:15pm

“We’re such a sad pathetic species.”

Yes Joe, except when we’re not.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:32pm

To quote Mark Twain:

Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah… didn’t miss the boat.

WJ
WJ
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:33pm

Hi Darwin,

Well, I don’t mean to be crass, but it seems to me you’re answer boils down to: “basically they’re lazy and dumb.” I don’t think this fits the data very well at all, but I suppose it’s an answer.

I think the data supports the opposite conclusion, namely, that the “for the sake of the argument” conditions you construct at the beginning of your response don’t hold: that there are, in fact, a higher amount of barriers at work in the post 1970s states than just after the war, and that these do impede talent and hardworking workers from moving up, and that these barriers are getting harder, not easier, to overcome. (Although for minorities this general statement might not be true.)

I should state that I’m not a command economy kind of guy, but I do think it’s a cause for concern whenever you have the inequality conditions that presently exist in America, as it undermines any sense of a common good and creates factions of interest that are dangerous to the republic. I don’t think either the Democrats or the Republicans are interested in this problem, as they both benefit from the condition itself.

G-Veg
G-Veg
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:33pm

You wrote “people everyone, no matter where they live and what they believe, think they’re better than the other guy.”

However often this is true, the exact opposite must be said of a Christian. There are a lot of examples of humble greatness and all of them begin with the humble acknowledgment that our hero knows that he has earned no good thing and deserves far worse than he has received.

I am sorry that you perceive that you “used to be a Christian.” Fortunately for all of us, rejecting that label does not change the reality of His love.

Flawed though we are, there is a force for good, it is overwhelming, and it is the undeniable truth of and reason for our existence. His existence is the only rational answer to our nagging fears but his law is as hard to follow as the tracks of a mouse in blowing sand. We run and hide as Adam but His voice breaks through all of our deceits.

I wish you well, brother.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:37pm

C-Veg…Like the Prodigan Son, I’m off the reservation, hoping the Hound of Heaven comes and gets me. For now, though, I think He is rounding up others.

G-Veg
G-Veg
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:42pm

Doesn’t sound like you are terribly far from home though. We’ll leave the lights on.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:45pm

Sheesh….Prodigal…typo…Just to clarify: Like the character in The Brothers Karamazov, “I love humanity, but I can’t stand people.”

Can someone explain to me how God wants us to love one another when we are so unlovable?

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:55pm

“Well, I don’t mean to be crass, but it seems to me you’re answer boils down to: “basically they’re lazy and dumb.” I don’t think this fits the data very well at all, but I suppose it’s an answer.”

Some people are WJ. They come in all classes too, except that what is simply disgusting in someone who is rich tends to be a complete disaster for someone who is poor.

In any case I don’t think that is what Darwin is saying. What really can hamper upward mobility is single parent families, or no families and endless foster parents, a lousy education, no work ethic, involvement with drugs and alcohol, and having kids out of wedlock. With a black illegitimacy rate of 70%, a hispanic illegitimacy rate of 47% and exploding white illegitimacy rates
http://pasadenasubrosa.typepad.com/pasadena_sub_rosa/2009/05/white-illegitimacy-rates-skyrocketing.html

the slowing of social mobility is not really surprising.

Joe Hargrave
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:56pm

“Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.”

Who cares?

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 3:59pm

“Can someone explain to me how God wants us to love one another when we are so unlovable?”

By attempting to love each other as God loves us. Tough to do, but not quite as tough as dying on a cross. A sense of humor also helps.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 4:03pm

Don, I’m still working on liking people including me. It ain’t easy.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 4:04pm

“Just to clarify: Like the character in The Brothers Karamazov, “I love humanity, but I can’t stand people.’”

Maybe you should comment at Vox Nova. 🙂

“Can someone explain to me how God wants us to love one another when we are so unlovable?”

I guess I look at my son and think about how unlovable he is sometimes. Then he is away for a night and I miss him terribly. Then I realize he is really lovable even if sometimes he is unlovable – or maybe its just that he seems unlovable. And then I realize I adopted him even when he is unlovable at times – or at least seems that way. Just as God makes us his adopted children even when we seem unlovable.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 4:18pm

“Don, I’m still working on liking people including me. It ain’t easy.”

Like and love are too separate things. The Good Samaritan showed that he loved his neighbor by helping him. That did not mean that he wanted to be best buddies with him and sing camp fire songs late into the evening. I always felt awkward speaking to my father after my mother died, because he tended not to be very communicative, a skill my mother had in spades. I often felt that the calls were a duty and were glad when they ended. However that did not mean that I did not love my father. Of course now that he is dead also, how much I wish I could have one of those conversations again.

Harder to love people who do monstrous things. I really can’t say that I love the murderer in one of my cases who shot to death his two little kids, but I do not think that God expects the impossible out of us.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 4:25pm

Then again, Don, the Greeks had about 5 definitions of “love”. It’s a word that’s tossed around loosely these days and usually distorted. How far we are from “agape”, eh?

Perhaps God did not command us to do the “impossible,” but sometimes it seems that way. I wish I could pray like St. Theresa, “Lord, let me suffer or Lord, let me die.”

WJ
WJ
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 4:40pm

Okay, Darwin. Thanks. By the way Donald, the statistics I cited adjusted for the conditions you mentioned.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 5:31pm

“Well, not necessarily. I don’t think one need necessarily be either dumb or lazy to make less than 166k one’s whole life.”

The whole 166 k business, and a division of the population based on annual earnings, is a bit tricky. 166k up in many parts of Chicago and the suburbs would merely be getting by, especially if that is the sole household income. Go 70 miles southwest to Dwight, Illinois and a person is doing quite nicely on 166 k a year.

“By the way Donald, the statistics I cited adjusted for the conditions you mentioned.”

I’ll take your word for that WJ, and I mean that sincerely, but that would take some pretty tricky statistical adjustment to compensate for those factors, especially since France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Denmark have pretty homogenous populations compared to the US. A better comparison would be say between Minnesota and Sweden or Montana and Finland.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, February 9, AD 2011 6:11pm

There is one exceptional American:

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan – A 10th Mountain Division (LI) Soldier with 1st Brigade Combat Team received the Silver Star Medal – the nation’s third highest award for valor in combat – during a ceremony Jan. 26 at Forward Operating Base Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan.

First Lt. David Provencher, an infantry platoon leader with 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, is credited with saving the lives of three wounded Soldiers and refusing to leave two others who were mortally wounded.

Greet them ever with grateful hearts.

American Knight
American Knight
Thursday, February 10, AD 2011 1:44pm

As one who was not born in this land and blessed to come of legal age as a citizen of this country, thanks be to God in the South, I can tell you that it is exceptional. I have the ability to go live just about anywhere on Earth and yet, I don’t leave. Why? In what other country can one accuse his own of committing atrocities that his country did not and disdain her for not being exceptional and yet still live and engage in debate? The answer is none before the USA. All other free places in this world are free because of the exceptional work done here.

Do I accuse the USA for not being perfect? Absolutely. Is there great evil in the USA? Without doubt. Do our government, public and private institutions, etc. do great evil in the world? No doubt about it.

So what?

America is made up of sinners and Divine ideas filtered by sinners. In this regard we are not exceptional and if this is the fault one has against the USA then one has to destroy the whole world.

What we do, what we believe and what we stand for on balance is the greatest force for good this world has ever seen, taken from a purely natural perspective. America is not the Catholic Church and frankly the Founder of the Church is perfect, but our Holy Church is made up sinners and prone to screwing things up just was well as anyone or any other institution – save for the negative protection of the Holy Spirit and guarantee by our Founder that the gates of hell will not prevail against her. Heck who needs hell anyway, we do a good enough job of trying to tear down our own Church and we can’t succeed at that awful endeavor. America has no supernatural guarantee and yet we get it right more often than not and when we don’t, we keep trying.

America is exceptional and for those that don’t think so and want to blame her for all evil, I am not taking about beneficial self criticism, I am talking about disdain. Please go and trade places with some poor soul born in some one of the numerous hell holes in the rest of the world. The amazing thing is that this country is filled with Americans, born here and naturalized, and yet there are so many unAmericans here too, many born here. The nice thing is there are Americans all over the world and we should be actively trading the traitors who live amongst us with the foreigner who desires to be American – not merely live in American, but to actually be American, many already are. The world will be better for it.

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Saturday, February 19, AD 2011 12:04pm

[…] Considering American Exceptionalism – DarwinCatholic, The American Catholic […]

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