American Exceptionalism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not understand the conservative point of view on American exceptionalism.

Exceptional individuals in any context are those who constantly push themselves to be better, to grow and change.

The bedrock of biological nature is change and adaptation. Species unable to change get weeded out as other, more adaptive species outcompete them.

In the sphere of politics, our very ideas of democracy and liberty were the product of political and philosophical change.

In world history, time and again countries that fail to change get relegated to the dustbin of history. Empires fall because they do not adapt.

And America's strength has been in its ability to grow and change. We went from an ineffective confederacy to a unified nation. We moved from an agrarian society, through manufacturing, and on to technology and services. We moved from an isolated nation to a world power.

And yet, despite universal evidence that change is necessary for growth, we have this odd conservative notion: that staying the same is the key to success.

John Locke's ideas were not yet 100 years old when our founding fathers adopted them in our Constitution. They were grasping with, historically, the new and the radical. Their entire body of work, from Declaration of Independence to Articles of Confederation to the drafting of the Constitution was created in 11 feverish years by a country that was brand new.

Do we honesty think that they would look favorably on us, 221 years later, if we did not attempt to move forward, to advance their ideas? Would they not have attempted to confront the implications of modern society? The average person in 1789 lived on a farm and died around the age of 40, probably a handful of miles from where they were born. We now have family around the country, we work in information, and we live to our upper 70's. I think it impossible that a bunch of radical thinkers would have been content to sit on their second try at government without lifting a finger to make it better.

Change does not mean good, and different does not mean better. If you are not wise enough to always know which is which -- and I certainly am not -- one ought to be quite careful before tinkering with something that has been reasonably successful thus far. There is a huge difference between allowing individuals the space to act independently, and using the power of government to compel "improvements" that may or may not work as intended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[
But that's my point. The right really loves the America they have right now and doesn't want it to change, at least not fundamentally; the left really loves the fundamentally different America they intend to put into place, and are deeply conflicted about the America that actually exists today. At least, at a very broad brush level. Whatever the merits of the issue, that is a meaningful difference.

You say the right is fighting to keep a "narrowly defined, less inclusive definition of America" -- that a relative statement, and I'm not sure what, specifically, you are comparing it to. What is it that you think is not included in that definition that you want put it? I'm sure it is obvious to you, but it isn't to me.

I think this is all angels dancing on the head of a pin. I think both conservatives and liberals have a picture in their head of what "America" they are striving for, and their are *pieces* of actual America today that match up to both of those pictures. Arguing over who is a "real" American, or who loves America more, or who wants to change America "fundamentally", are all just ways of saying "my pictures/parts of America are better than yours".

It must be the same impulse that lets you say that it's wrong to say that liberals who want to improve America are "unamerican" and then say in the very same sentence that there's a grain of truth in saying that.

I don't know much about your "picture," and I don't think you are correct to draw such an equivalence between things that are very distinct from my perspective. In any event, I think I've made my perspective reasonably clear, hope it was of interest to some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not understand the conservative point of view on American exceptionalism.

Exceptional individuals in any context are those who constantly push themselves to be better, to grow and change.

The bedrock of biological nature is change and adaptation. Species unable to change get weeded out as other, more adaptive species outcompete them.

In the sphere of politics, our very ideas of democracy and liberty were the product of political and philosophical change.

In world history, time and again countries that fail to change get relegated to the dustbin of history. Empires fall because they do not adapt.

And America's strength has been in its ability to grow and change. We went from an ineffective confederacy to a unified nation. We moved from an agrarian society, through manufacturing, and on to technology and services. We moved from an isolated nation to a world power.

And yet, despite universal evidence that change is necessary for growth, we have this odd conservative notion: that staying the same is the key to success.

John Locke's ideas were not yet 100 years old when our founding fathers adopted them in our Constitution. They were grasping with, historically, the new and the radical. Their entire body of work, from Declaration of Independence to Articles of Confederation to the drafting of the Constitution was created in 11 feverish years by a country that was brand new.

Do we honesty think that they would look favorably on us, 221 years later, if we did not attempt to move forward, to advance their ideas? Would they not have attempted to confront the implications of modern society? The average person in 1789 lived on a farm and died around the age of 40, probably a handful of miles from where they were born. We now have family around the country, we work in information, and we live to our upper 70's. I think it impossible that a bunch of radical thinkers would have been content to sit on their second try at government without lifting a finger to make it better.

Change does not mean good, and different does not mean better. If you are not wise enough to always know which is which -- and I certainly am not -- one ought to be quite careful before tinkering with something that has been reasonably successful thus far. There is a huge difference between allowing individuals the space to act independently, and using the power of government to compel "improvements" that may or may not work as intended.

Clearly some change can be for the bad. But that is true in every one of the examples that I listed. The only guaranteed losing strategy, whether it is in personal life, nature, or whatever, is a strategy of not changing.

[Anonymous]

But that's my point. The right really loves the America they have right now and doesn't want it to change, at least not fundamentally; the left really loves the fundamentally different America they intend to put into place, and are deeply conflicted about the America that actually exists today. At least, at a very broad brush level. Whatever the merits of the issue, that is a meaningful difference.

You say the right is fighting to keep a "narrowly defined, less inclusive definition of America" -- that a relative statement, and I'm not sure what, specifically, you are comparing it to. What is it that you think is not included in that definition that you want put it? I'm sure it is obvious to you, but it isn't to me.

NP, The right also loved the America that existed in 1954 and 1964 and did not want it to change from its exclusive definition of America and an American. The left fought for a better America and I think continues to fight for a better America. There was a fundamental shift from '54 to '64 and I think millions of Americans would agree that it has only made our country the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The philosophy is empowering the individual , decentralizing and weakening the power of government. It is genius and it scares insecure types who want cradle to grave security. These types resent the power and wealth that this philosphy has given us. They sneer and sour-grape constantly. Then when they are treatened to be conquered by ruthless neighbors they squeal for us to save them. They are thankful for a while and then they revert to their slovenly and weak charachter of sneering and sour graping again.

Nice example of what I meant about building up our country by denigrating others. We are a great and wealthy nation with institutions that have withstood a Civil War, two World Wars, and a Great Depression, and will withstand this recession. We can be proud that we are a great nation without crowing that we are the greatest. Insulting other nations does not enhance our stature.

Especially, as PP hinted, folks like Mr Flag Waver here and his fellow travelers spent the 2000s undercutting American security, all while elevating pants-pissing to an art form. If the Founders were to come back and see what gutless cowards now wrap themselves in the magnetic flag of cheap patriotism, they'd never stop throwing up. Of course, such assholes would inevitably accuse these creatures of the Enlightenment of "sneering and sour-graping" if they weren't goose-stepping quite fervently enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP, The right also loved the America that existed in 1954 and 1964 and did not want it to change from its exclusive definition of America and an American. The left fought for a better America and I think continues to fight for a better America. There was a fundamental shift from '54 to '64 and I think millions of Americans would agree that it has only made our country the better.

This obvious point seems to elude most Americans when we talk about our poltical spectrum, and how America is essentially a "conservative country."

We're only a "conservative country" in the sense that it often takes us a long, long time to do the right thing; but we eventually get there. The difference between the "victories" of American conservatives is that they're fleeting: they win the right to have blacks count as 3/5ths of a person for electoral purposes. They win the right to treat blacks as separate but equal. They deny women the right to vote. They deny visitation rights to same-sex couples. They get marginal tax rates reduced.

Meanwhile, the victories of American progressives in this country are so comprehensive and irreversible, that a few decades after the victory, all but the most vile conservatives are repudiating the very idea that they could have once held these positions. Jim Crow? Oh, of course *no* one thinks that should be the law of the land! Women should *always* have been given the vote! It may take a half century of lynchings before these folks come around, but eventually it happens.

In 20 years time, we'll be hearing some future Glenn Beck clone talking about how only *Southern* gay marriages are *real* gay marriages, and that Yankee elites throw shitty gay pride parades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope I can state this as a serious question, not another left/right bashing party: It seems that recognizing American exceptionalism has become the right's new test of patriotism. To me, however, this is jingoism, praising our country by denigrating others.

I don't mean to say anything negative about America. I was born here and cannot imagine considering myself anything but an American. I have no desire to move to another country. I have spent time elsewhere and, much as I have enjoyed other countries, I always considered myself a foreigner there. This is my country and I love it. But just as I love my wife and family above all others and yet can see that they have their faults and are not inherently superior to other people, so I see faults with my country and don't presume it to be superior in all respects to every other nation.

My question is, am I missing something? Can someone tell me whether I am misunderstanding the phrase?

I completely agree with you and even when I lived in England, I was a Yank at heart. Moderates are in a minority today, I supose we are the Independents and our ranks are growing but not fast enough and the extremes of both parties are more vocal. The reactionary right thinks you have to bleed red, white, and blue to be patriotic and all criticism is treason. The revolutionary left are so politically correct that, they too, decry criticism of their agenda. I hope you are flame retardant.

[Anonymous]

I think the following is probably accepted by people on both sides: There are extreme leftists who would be willing to overturn our government because they feel it aids corporations at the expense of "ordinary citizens", and there are extreme rightists who would also be willing to overturn the government because it coddles the lazy and unproductive and restricts the rights of "real Americans".

I also think this thread may be setting a record for a discussion in which neither side has assumed that the extreme characterizes the other side. Bravo!

[Anonymous]

The original constitutional theme is best. 1)Nobody can be trusted with power. 2) power needs to be deconsolidated and spread out as much as possible (3 branches, states, counties cities) 3) I'd rather be ruled by the first 10000 names out of the Boston phonebook rather than the faculty of Harvard. Many national laws need to be disbanded there should be pro and con abortion states/ pro and con gay marriage states so people can live under the systems they choose. That makes for healthy competition and a Country with different, distinct and interesting regions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The original constitutional theme is best. 1)Nobody can be trusted with power. 2) power needs to be deconsolidated and spread out as much as possible (3 branches, states, counties cities) 3) I'd rather be ruled by the first 10000 names out of the Boston phonebook rather than the faculty of Harvard. Many national laws need to be disbanded there should be pro and con abortion states/ pro and con gay marriage states so people can live under the systems they choose. That makes for healthy competition and a Country with different, distinct and interesting regions.

As much as possible would be what we had under the Articles of Confederation. But that failed after a handful of years. And if you want individual rights to be defInef at the state level, you have to repeal the Bill of Rights.

So your simple claim of sticking to the original constitution is not what you make it out to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Also, in a democracy, if you change the demographics of the population, you change the political outcomes. And if you import significant numbers of people with different cultural assumptions, you change the culture.

On some of the other points you mention, I don't think conservatives actually disagree that rights for "all" should be protected, the disagreement is simply what falls within the category of rights. Ultimately, I think the left is way too confident in their prescriptions for social reform, and way too dismissive of the prospect for unintended consequences. I don't expect you to agree, but hope you have a little better sense of where I am coming from.

Well, this already happened with the decimation of the Native American population and tribes following the British invasion. Why is it acceptable for a crown/government to come for a land grab and exterminate the indigenous population & culture but not for legal immigrants to affect cultural change? I don't think immigration will exact a marked cultural change, but it will influence culture, foods, festivities by region.

See, this I don't follow. I don't think anyone would argue that the decimation of the Native Americans was "acceptable." It surely wasn't by modern standards, although history is filled with conquest and genocide, people being what they are. But how does that matter to what we do today? Nothing we do today will undo that historic fact, and it is not at all clear to me that there is an answer as to what this history means for the ethical obligations of the descendants of those who decimated the Native Americans. That strikes me as a complex and debatable question.

But it reveals an interesting assumption I see in the left -- the idea that because Americans did that in the past, somehow they have it coming if it is done to them in return, and accordingly it is wrong, indeed immoral, to resist. See here for a particularly pathological example. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/3/916577/-An-Open-Letter-to-the-White-Right,-On-the-Occasion-of-Your-Recent,-Successful-Temper-Tantrum Not saying you agree with that dude, not a bit, but it highlights a way of thinking about the world that, in far less pathological form, does underlie some of the views of the American left, or so at least it seems to me.

As for whether immigration will exact a marked cultural change, there we just disagree, we're not going to convince one another, and it is pretty much an empirical question anyway. Time will tell, I guess.

I threw this out there for thought to point out that throughout the course of world history, there has ALWAYS been migration, whether by a single tribe or a whole civilization due to drought, search of food, etc. Did you know the Finnish language is close to the Hungarian language when they are nowhere near each other? It's because the Hungarian tribes (im)migrated to Finland centuries ago. Cultures, like language, evolve with time. We certainly don't use the same vocabulary from 20-50 years ago, right?


I don't know if you're anti-immigration altogether or anti-undocumented immigration, but you can't stem the flow. Maybe you can stem it a little more than they did during the times of immigration thru Ellis Island. FWIW, I agree that there need to be some controls on whom to let in and whom not to let in: criminals, drug/human traffickers, as an example.

New poster here. The immigration itself is not the issue. Assimilation is. My German great grandparents sent their children to American schools and encouraged English, study, hard work, etc. They themselves made an effort at English, although I was always told stories by my Aunt about how my Great grandmother butchered the language.

Immigration without assimilation leads to trouble, as Europe is beginning to realize.

Additionally we have laws around immigration. We don't get to pick which laws we individually like and will follow and which we won't. WE have means to change the laws if we so want in a democracy. This is in part why the right goes crazy about amnesty or granting in state tuition and state/federal aide to non-documented 20 year olds who came to this country as young children. Sure it wasn't the child's fault. The child should be angry at the parents, not the state, for the status quo.

I strongly disagree that the right hates immigrants. Rather, they embrace immigrants who enter the country legally and who embrace the language, culture and values of their adopted country.

Just my two cents worth. This is a surprisingly civil discussion for this board - hats off to all participating.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the US for all it's problems now handles race relations better than Europe and part of that has been the more welcoming (believe it or not) approach to immigrants from different cultures. I'm so proud of how our country emphasizes and is proud of its diversity compared to many Western European nations and Japan. But that happened because a lot of people worked hard for equal rights for people of all races and ethnicities. It was *not* the aim of the original founders to treat people equally regardless of race and ethnicity (heck, they didn't even want white men without property to be able to vote). The United States has evolved into something better than it was at its founding because people never gave up fighting for justice.

I'm very proud of that but I don't see it as exceptional. I think it's a goal every nation should have.

[Anonymous]

My opinion is the United States Judeo Christian foundation and undercurrent has made it exceptional. The drive to become more decent over time and also have a rational reason for doing so has made us happier/wealthier/more creative and innovative. The sanctity of every life and each individual over the power of the State has been our secret. Deviating from these principles will kill the golden goose and reduce our strength and resiliency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The original constitutional theme is best. 1)Nobody can be trusted with power. 2) power needs to be deconsolidated and spread out as much as possible (3 branches, states, counties cities) 3) I'd rather be ruled by the first 10000 names out of the Boston phonebook rather than the faculty of Harvard. Many national laws need to be disbanded there should be pro and con abortion states/ pro and con gay marriage states so people can live under the systems they choose. That makes for healthy competition and a Country with different, distinct and interesting regions.

Well, we know what happens when power is in the hands of the "people". Just look at California. What a shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The original constitutional theme is best. 1)Nobody can be trusted with power. 2) power needs to be deconsolidated and spread out as much as possible (3 branches, states, counties cities) 3) I'd rather be ruled by the first 10000 names out of the Boston phonebook rather than the faculty of Harvard. Many national laws need to be disbanded there should be pro and con abortion states/ pro and con gay marriage states so people can live under the systems they choose. That makes for healthy competition and a Country with different, distinct and interesting regions.

Well, we know what happens when power is in the hands of the "people". Just look at California. What a shame.

In California, a natural outflow of business and tax revenue is occuring and the state will soon suffer greatly for it's lack of common sense. This is good.