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Do you believe in American Exceptionalism?

Do you believe in American Exceptionalism?


  • Total voters
    61
The definition of exceptionalism was defined immediately in the first post. One wonders if you bothered to read
it.

What someone says and what someone means are often two different things. And the word "exceptionalism" is sort of self explanatory in meaning.

If you have to ring your own bell and tell the world you're great, you might not be as exceptional as you think?
 
When it was universally accepted that we were the best. We did great things.

Was it nationalism that excelled that? Or was it the idea that we ca better the country?
 
Was it nationalism that excelled that? Or was it the idea that we ca better the country?

It was a mind set that the US was the top of the food chain. Best and brightest. We always have been the shining light on the hill that all other nations strive to be. Don't believe it? Look how many people came here.
I don't seem to remember a mass exodus of people from the US heading to Europe in the early 1900s.
 
It was a mind set that the US was the top of the food chain. Best and brightest. We always have been the shining light on the hill that all other nations strive to be. Don't believe it? Look how many people came here.
I don't seem to remember a mass exodus of people from the US heading to Europe in the early 1900s.

:lamo A "mind set"? Really? So why do so many other countries have the same mind set and dont reach the top of the hill? Your trying to simplify a nationalistic propaganda technique.
 
Only insofar as we act exceptionally, sure. But we're not magically exceptional because we happen to have been born on American soil. That kind of belief is absurd.
 
Why don't we ask old Teddy what he thinks? ;)

"I would think no more of a man who does not love his own country more than any other country than of a man who does not love his own wife or mother more than the wives and mothers of any other man. A strong and sane nationalism is the only possible basis for internationalism." - Theodore Roosevelt

Who cares what Teddy thinks. The poll was about what YOU think, not who you can parrot.
 
This is true. My father came here from Greece where there is plenty of both, but I'd hardly call them exceptional. Their cultural and philosophic views forever changed the world, and during the golden age they indeed were exceptional, but not across the board and certainly not recently.

There's such a dramatic difference that I'd argue that modern Greece is an entirely different nation than thousands of years ago when they actually made a difference to the world. It's one of those "what have they done for us recently" things.
 
Statue%20of%20Liberty%20Crown%20with%20American%20Flag.jpg

In many things we were uniquely influential toward furthering a better world. Our recognition of natural rights in our founding document, and our views as to what that meant, was the main thing that made us exceptional. It is fading, now. The fact that it is so faded shows that our exceptionalism did not make us immune to decay.
 
Im shocked you dont think the US is a shining example. Pray tell what nation you think IS a shining example?

I'm not quite sure why you think the U.S. is a shining example today. In the past, sure. Today, we're just leading the world in military expenditures and shaking our dick in the faces of everyone else. Fiscally, we're certainly not superior. Socially, we're certainly not superior. In fact, we're no better or worse than most other nations out there. We used to be. Today we're not.
 
Cool many countries respect that right. We are not the only country that respects that right.

Sort of. For example, plenty of other countries respect that right almost as much as we do, but not if you offend anyone, or not if you offend certain groups. Then you're breaking the law ;). That's not freedom of speech, that's the freedom within approved speech.

Also many countries also respect this.

Really. Which other ones have that as a founding ideal? 'Cause it's not any of the Anglosphere that I am aware of.
 
Every culture has elements which make it unique and special. America has lots of that which - in my humble opinion - make it the greatest country on the face of the earth. So you will not get a strong argument out of me that there is not something exceptional about this nation and its people - at least some of them.

Sadly, the entire idea of what some call American exceptionalism has been politicized by the right as some sort of lame shorthand for "F the rest of the world cause we are different here and nothing you heathens do matters to us or reflects upon us". And that comes across loud and clear from some of the people who use this message as a way to play ostrich and hide their heads in the sand when they are not giving the middle finger to everybody else in the world.
 
Yes, of course we are. Of the top brands in the world, the vast, vast majority are from American companies.

And most of the products from those companies are made in China. We don't actually make anything anymore, we've shipped all the jobs overseas.

We still own IT.

Not so much. We won't even mention that a ton of our IT calls go to India, but a large number of our university programs in IT and other technical field are teaching foreign nationals as much as they are teaching Americans. This won't last, if we haven't already been surpassed.

We invented National Parks.

So what? That was decades ago and today, lots of people want to shut them down because we can't afford to keep them open.

We are the strongest country on earth.

And we're dicks about it. We spend all of our time trying to tell everyone else what to do because we have nukes and smart weapons and they don't. We run around the planet being asses, pissing off the native populations and bringing a ton of terrorism and other hatred on ourselves. This is nothing to be proud of.
 
:lamo A "mind set"? Really? So why do so many other countries have the same mind set and dont reach the top of the hill? Your trying to simplify a nationalistic propaganda technique.

So they fall short, I am supposed to feel bad for them or love my country less?
 
Oh, I don't know. I kind of like freedom of speech.

Too bad we've lost a lot of it in the modern America, isn't it?

The idea that individuals have rights granted them by their creator rather than by a government which can remove them at a whim is also an old favorite, admittedly.

Sorry, if your whole reason for believing in American exceptionalism is because the founding fathers believed in an imaginary man in the sky, you've got problems.
 
So they fall short, I am supposed to feel bad for them or love my country less?

You can love your country. But to think its some sort of exceptional country is idiotic.
 
So they fall short, I am supposed to feel bad for them or love my country less?

Why would you love your country, just because it's your country? You worship something because of an accident of birth? Really?
 
Sort of. For example, plenty of other countries respect that right almost as much as we do, but not if you offend anyone, or not if you offend certain groups. Then you're breaking the law ;). That's not freedom of speech, that's the freedom within approved speech.
Do we also not have "freedom of approved speech"? Such as an example would be cant yell fire in a crowded room?
Here is a great documentary that goes into this sort of subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLj-GX59OEM


Really. Which other ones have that as a founding ideal? 'Cause it's not any of the Anglosphere that I am aware of.

North Vietnam did... But it wasnt much upheld tho. But so what if our wording of our founding documents are different. Does that change something?
 

It's not.

It's a market economy protected by a military. China is not communist. The fact that you think it is demonstrates a lack of education.
 
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