How can anybody mutter this expression and not feel drenched in ethnocentric kool-aid?
I liked Obama's statement about how he feels America is exceptional the same way a Brit would feel Britain is exceptional, but you know there are a lot of nitwits out there using the concept as an excuse for narcissism and imperialism. It happened a few years ago when the minions of Herr Bush tried to say it made us excempt from international law.
American Exceptionalism strikes me as being disconcertingly similiar to another piece of nationalistic propaganda that Germans refered to as "Boden Geist" which essentially meant that just by living on German land you were superior to others and we all (well, all us sane ones that don't deny the holocaust) know where that kind of thinking leads.
As if this notion of exceptionalism wasn't pathological enough, you also have the misbegotten idea of America being beyond the pitfalls that other great empires fell prey to in the past. Ugh, the problem with that is that EVERY great empire thought they were too great to fail. Rome and Egypt both said "Oh, well, this can't happen to us" and it did.
Every nation on earth has a reason to believe they are the best, every nation can point out to some aspect of other countries and say "you suck", which is precisely why I have chosen not to play the patriotism games. America is my home, it's as good a place to live as any, and I see no reason to try and make it into more than that in the name of attenuated pride.
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