Do you believe in the American exceptionalism

[The_Tyrant]

So not long in the big scheme of things.

I will admit, based on incarceration rates, America has an exceptionally high number of criminals.

If you despise my country so much why don't you move to the socialist utopia up north or across the Atlantic? That's what Micheal Moore threatened to do. He would of fulfilled his promise if he had a half ounce of integrity in him.

Anyway, enough of him. Can I just tell you one thing? After reading your posts for the last year, I have come to appreciate America. The real America, where you and your ultra progressive and socialistic views are a slim minority, almost non existent in the grand scheme of things. That's why you use the internet and a video game forum to voice your opinions. Because it is impossible to impose and advance your views in the real America. An America where it's people are still largely Christian and center-right. So yes, you may bring out the very worst of America, but the only reason you continue to have a cynical attitude is you know the only platform you have is the internet, where your views attract the teenagers of America going through a rebellious stage.

 

[JollyRoger]

If you despise my country so much why don't you move to the socialist utopia up north or across the Atlantic?

I don't despise my country, I just look at it with a bit more skepticism than you likely do. But yeah, a country that is wise enough to elect President Obama is exceptional in a positive way, despite the way some will flail away on the internet in vain about it until January 2017.

 

[Shekwan]

 

[NiRv4n4]

That sort of sentiment that anyone who disagrees with Obama or would like to see him out of office in 2013 is a redneck or ingrate is really puzzling and rather annoying to me. As someone who disagrees with Obama's economic policies while cautiously supporting his scaling down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I hate to think that people have the idea that, since I would prefer another president next term, I must be some socially backward moron. And the fact that many non-Americans have the view that American communities are dominated by right wing, extremist, and conservative theology is also concerning - outside of some rural areas, this is not the case.

 

[civver_764]

The only thing America is exceptional at is bullying the rest of the world. I guess that's something to be proud of for some, even though they had no part in it whatsoever.

Patriotism really does confuse the hell out of me.

 

[bathsheba666]

I guess America is exceptional...in thinking that it is exceptional.

 

[metatron]

I believe in American exceptionalism in the sense of the phrase that America has a highly different history and cultural background from any other nation, which makes America "exceptional". Which is what I believe the term refers to, not some sense of entitlement. The United States developed from the ground up (or at least from independence) with ideals and belief systems far ahead of its time. Besides the short-lived First French Republic and the short-lived constitution-based-Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, it really set a standard for a liberal Western world.

There is already one thread spit of about some wild historical claim supposedly supporting American Exceptionalism. Do you really feel we need a second one?

I'm not saying I'd rather live in America than Europe. Science, Art, and a rational sense of morality are more interesting and rewarding than money and guns. I'm just saying America does its job.

Wait...
Despite my searing criticism of American Exceptionalism i would to some extent accept these claims:
Science? USA #1
Art? USA #1

I would not accept any of those as evidence for being exceptional (see: Traitorfish), though.

I (and most Americans who agree with me) define American exceptionalism as the ability to do what other nations cannot, hence the word exceptional.

You mean like having a 20th century railway system, or better yet a 21st century railway system, like the rest of us?

Additionally, there are large portions of our populace here in America that advocate a strong national sovereignty, unlike Western Europe which for the past few decades has been slowly embracing globalism, which has resulted in a loss of national identity. Just look at France and Sweden and how the large influx of Muslims have changed their own culture and governance.

I have pointed that out in threads about immigration numerous times before: European "socialist" governance is more sensitive to big changes in the population. So you can't compare the publics' reactions and measure the underlying causes that way.
Most of the European Muslims aren't any more troublesome to integrate than your average Guatemalan.

I am not really sure how to understand your globalism-in-Europe claim. It's a bit vague.

, and at this point it would take a good genealogist to determine that an American had that ancestry.

Didn't most of the European Americans immigrate in the late 19th century? And didn't most of them marry within their own nationality in the first generation if not in the second as well?

America was generally free from the huge wave of nationalism that overran Europe in the 1800s-early 1900s, as a strong and homogenous "American nationality" didn't really exist.

All you really need to have rabid nationalism is a well integrated public arena (i.e. media used by the whole nation) and a set of common values that is deemed to be important by the populace.
You don't have to belong to some clearly defined ethnic group or anything like that.

I just believe that the way in which America developed as a nation makes is different from say, the U.K., which slowly evolved from a absolute monarchy to a semi-constitutional monarchy to a liberal democracy. This gradual development from authoritarianism to liberalism is present all over Europe, but not in the US.

You want to call the development from authoritarianism to liberalism in France or Germany "gradual" as well?

However, I do wish more countries would become like the US. That's been a trend in the last 50 years, though.

I'm not sure if it's that simple. Europe for one became increasingly more like the US until the 80s. And people generally appreciated that. Since than there is an ever increasing sense that we should not become more like the US, mostly because the US have largely discarded some of the ideals that were once elemental to the American Dream (upward mobility and other socialist stuff, at least a pretence of moralism in international affairs etc.).

 

[El_Machinae]

Moderator Action: Ease way off on the personalised nature of some of the posting, please
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[SerriaFox]

YES *

* American as a country, had no real history, however with every year this distinction is reduced.

** Native American history does not count because:
They were largely wipe out by plagues.
And more importantly to the discussion here, the white man choose to ignore it.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

As long as China continues to produce our happy meal toys with their underage and impoverished workers and India still remains the largest center of customer relation services for American products, America will remain the only truly exceptional country.

China practically owns you. USA would be bankrupt if China decided that it's a good thing for them. Also the Western wealth is very much based on the cheap labour offered by third world countries, meaning that we're extremely dependent on them.

Wait...
Despite my searing criticism of American Exceptionalism i would to some extent accept these claims:
Art? USA #1

Hollywood =/= art
Lady Gaga =/= art
Reality TV =/= art nor a US invention

Most of the European Muslims aren't any more troublesome to integrate than your average Guatemalan.

This. I find it weird that non-Nordic people try to be experts in Muslim immigration to Sweden. There's more to that subject than that old YouTube video of riots in Rosengård.

 

[SerriaFox]

China practically owns you. USA would be bankrupt if China decided that it's a good thing for them. Also the Western wealth is very much based on the cheap labour offered by third world countries, meaning that we're extremely dependent on them.

If you borrow 1 million dollars from the bank the banks own you,
If you borrow 100 million dollars from a bank you own the bank.

While the dollars amounts are debatable the sentiment is not. Our we owned by China or do we own them?

 

[Hitti-Litti]

If you borrow 1 million dollars from the bank the banks own you,
If you borrow 100 million dollars from a bank you own the bank.

While the dollars amounts are debatable the sentiment is not. Our we owned by China or do we own them?

If the 100 million dollars is only a small amount of the bank's wealth (in this case 10% of China's soaringly rising GDP), bank owns you.

 

[NiRv4n4]

Didn't most of the European Americans immigrate in the late 19th century? And didn't most of them marry within their own nationality in the first generation if not in the second as well?

Yes, and there is still a degree of non-assimilation, like New York and the southwest, but in general, even if an American nowadays is 100% Italian, and his great great grandparents came from Italy, he most certainly only speaks English, has never been to Italy, and is for the most part fully integrated. The point about ancestry that I made refers to modern day America, which is really a melting pot. For example, you could be named Jensen, but only be 1/4 Danish. This sort of "name-being-the-only-remnant-of-previous-nationality" is more common in America than Europe, because of different social climes and historical events. This wasn't entirely the case until the mid-1900s, but the percentage of monolingual English speakers, especially if you take out the more recent (past 20-30 years) wave of immigration, is telling. In contrast to this, Jewish and other minority communities in Europe (especially central and eastern, hotbeds for nationalism) maintained Yiddish/Hebrew/other for social purposes for centuries, while in America Hebrew is mostly ceremonial, like Latin.

All you really need to have rabid nationalism is a well integrated public arena (i.e. media used by the whole nation) and a set of common values that is deemed to be important by the populace.
You don't have to belong to some clearly defined ethnic group or anything like that.

But it certainly does help. Would imperial nationalism have worked so well if there wasn't a notion of white superiority? Would Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy have worked if they didn't believe in the superiority of their races? Same goes for imperial Japan and the Chinese/Korean/Southeast Asian, etc. America's modern day "nationalism" or "patriotism" is mostly based around values like freedom and democracy, which aren't as detrimental. Of course, we are in 2 foreign wars... However, even if this nationalism is bad, it still isn't like all Americans are rabid for the blood of some non-democratic country.

You want to call the development from authoritarianism to liberalism in France or Germany "gradual" as well?

Yes, gradual in that these places had an organized, centralized government for a long time before they became liberal democracies. If you count Prussia and the HRE as predecessors to Germany, their history stretches back at least 200 eventful years before some sort of democracy (Weimar Republic). Sure, there were tumultuous times like 1848, 7 Years War, 30 Years War, and WWI, but I mean gradual in that it took a long time for it to happen. France is similar - you can stretch their history back to the 700s/800s with the Carolingian, and about 1000 of those years were hereditary monarchies. Then you have a multitude of republics and empires/occupations that serve to draw it out more until finally we have Republic # 5.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Hollywood =/= art
Lady Gaga =/= art
Reality TV =/= art nor a US invention

But who are you, or anyone for that matter, to define "art"? Even if you limit art to paintings and architecture, most of that in Europe was done 400 years ago, and America has some good stuff in that genre as well. Maybe it would be more truthful to describe America as a center of entertainment.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

But who are you, or anyone for that matter, to define "art"?

Art cannot be perfectly defined, but (IMO) all art has some common denominators which can be used to somewhat define art.

Maybe it would be more truthful to describe America as a center of entertainment.

This.

 

[jtb1127]

Britain.

Defeated the French and saved Europe... three times
Colonised over a third of the planet.
Invented Democracy
Maintained the best military in the world for two centuries, and defeated colonial terrorism and extreme fascism

I would have had a similar post.

 

[Junius]

China practically owns you. USA would be bankrupt if China decided that it's a good thing for them. Also the Western wealth is very much based on the cheap labour offered by third world countries, meaning that we're extremely dependent on them.

This is a very common misconception. China owns more of our debt than any other single nation, but very little overall. Less than 10%. This link has a useful graph. http://seekingalpha.com/article/246958-guess-who-owns-the-most-u-s-debt-not-china

Britain.

Defeated the French and saved Europe... three times
Colonised over a third of the planet.
Invented Democracy
Maintained the best military in the world for two centuries, and defeated colonial terrorism and extreme fascism

Alright let me see if i can have as much fun as you did.
1. Thinking the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians who did most of the dying have a claim too. Also, same as the american thread that was split off, people have to quit saying that WWI "saved Europe". As has been said already it was hardly a battle between good and evil.

2. Of course there were already people there. Nobody on the moon. Not really the same thing. Also is it fair to say they "colonized" India or much of their african possesions? Not a ton of englishmen there.

3. How are you defining democracy? Parlimentary democracy i'll give ya. Plenty of examples of other represenative governments.

4. Best navy in the world without question. Hardly the best army in the world. What centuries are you talking about? I'd think again.

 

[aw3524]

China practically owns you. USA would be bankrupt if China decided that it's a good thing for them.

As vacuous as "my neighbor would be dead if I decided that it would be a good idea to kill him." Let's ignore the fact that the sheer amount of assets China would have to purchase to achieve such a position would cripple the country in taxes long before success; a large-scale liquidation of those assets would drive down prices and obliterate their own banks (where dollar-denominated assets are used as reserves). If we believe the Chinese government will completely ignore economic reality to advance politics, it might do this, but that's a very, very large "if."

Also the Western wealth is very much based on the cheap labour offered by third world countries, meaning that we're extremely dependent on them.

This statement is somewhat factually inconsistent (around three-quarters of our direct investment continues to go to high-wage places like Europe, Japan, Canada, NZ, Australia, and so forth), but you're still missing the point. I could live dependent on no one but myself, farming my own food, making my own clothes, cutting my own hair, etcetera, but would I be happy and healthy? Quite obviously not. If we're "dependent on [cheap labour offered by third world countries]," we willingly put ourselves in that position. We're all better off.

 

[gangleri2001]

Britain.

Defeated the French and saved Europe... three times
Colonised over a third of the planet.
Invented Democracy
Maintained the best military in the world for two centuries, and defeated colonial terrorism and extreme fascism

Defeated colonial terrorism?

The British Empire IS the definition of colonial terrorism.

BTW, what do you mean with invented democracy?

 

[CaptainF]

Defeated the Germans and saved Europe....twice

Was that all the United States? Nope. Not even close.

Put a man on the moon

So what?

Defeated Communism

No, no we did not.

Maintains the best military in the world, that even today is defeating terrorism and extreme Islam

That's why we were attacked on Sept. 11th almost 10 years ago, and are today in the process of retreating from Iraq and Afghanistan!

Also interesting that you brag of having the "best military". Is it really that important to you that we're able to kill a lot of people? Is that really "exceptional"?

Yes America is has a long list of achievements, and is unmatched by any other nation.

Another blatant falsehood. The United States hasn't been around for hardly 200 years while other nations/cultures have been around more or less since the beginning of civilization.

This whole "American exceptionalism" business is rather childish and small-minded, and the proponents always give the same answers. Sure, each country/nation may have unique characteristics and whatnot but to claim that we Americans are somehow "exceptional" to the rest of the human race/world is ludicrous. There really isn't much exceptional to this country at all, as any educated individual will tell you.