There’s a phrase I’ve heard more than a couple of times recently, and I don’t like it. The phrase is American exceptionalism.
Leave aside the fact that it’s obviously a right wing talking point – you know that because birther idiots who’ve never read a book in their life are suddenly quoting this like everybody knows what they are talking about.
It doesn’t really make any sense, though. What, do Americans have two heads or something? Biologically, ethnically, Americans are no different from anyone else in the world. Two eyes, two legs. In fact, since pretty much all of the races of the world are represented among the 300 million people who hold American passports, Americans are actually less exceptional than most.
Perhaps they mean America as a light unto the world, where the Statue of Liberty welcomes the world’s wretched refuse, yearning t
Perhaps they mean because of the unique nature of our government, the fact that the age of kings ended with our revolution. That made America in the late 1700s, to be sure, but the world is chock a block with democracies now , and America is not really exceptional among them.
Perhaps they mean exceptional in the sense of America, light unto the world where the Statue of Liberty welcomes the wretched refuse, yearning to be free. But it would be a bit two faced of them to argue that while urging an impenetrable fence on our southern border and police harrassment of anyone who has brown skin and an accent.
Perhaps they mean exceptional because we are the world’s only superpower (which is another cliche phrase I’m tired of hearing, even if it is true). Even though we are the only superpower at the moment, others have been there before us. Britain, Rome.
We could learn a lesson from them. The lesson is that empires end.
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