What makes 'Murica, land that I love

Most Americans have never left the United States, and those that have, usually to Canada or Mexico. Most Americans do not even have a passport. To understand America, as an American, you must understand how exceptional this fact is, especially among developed nations. Indeed, Australians are arguably even more isolated than we are, geographically, yet they are massive world travelers.  (And Aussie tourists are loved pretty much the world over.)

As a Midwesterner by culture (technically part of the South) who now resides once again in "flyover country" after having lived and traveled abroad extensively, I can tell you that having been abroad does not carry with it here the same cache as it would on the coasts.  Nay, here it even breeds some suspicion.  For instance, I can remember a hysterical family member asking me at Christmas, "Why do you hate America so much?" I was shocked and bemused. I guess it was because I had chosen to live abroad for so many years, and, at that time, I had been a vocal opponent of Dubya's administration and especially his foreign wars of choice.

I say all this as prelude, to establish some credibility, but also to make a point: We call ourselves exceptional but most of us don't know, or care to know, what we are exceptional to.  We have never gone out and seen the rest of the world.  What we know about the rest of the world we learn second- or third-hand, unfortunately. But this is mostly an accident of geography -- the same accident that has lent much to our greatness, granted. So it's a double-edged sword; but one edge gets sharper as the world gets more global... more on that later....   

This is not about me saying I'm superior. The fact that some Americans don't quite know what makes us great doesn't negate America's greatness; it's more of a pitiful lack of self-knowledge, really. And  I include myself in that group.  I feel the pull to travel not only to discover the world but also to patch over my ignorance and, more importantly, to re-discover my homeland. Regarding the latter, anybody who's spent significant time abroad knows what I'm talking about....

(I digress, but when foreigners start asking sincere but specific questions about your hometown, your home state, your country, your history, and suddenly you realize you cannot answer them well or completely.. you feel immensely foolish. You feel like you let your entire country down, like a flunky ambassador.  Here they are asking out of sincere interest and... you cannot answer them. This has happened to me so many times I can't tell you. But the truth is, you don't know what you don't know until somebody asks you to explain it.)

Nevertheless the bottom line remains: Americans don't need to be global citizens to be themselves, to be a great country. Our country is what it is.  On the other hand, what irks me is: We could be even greater if we did know.  More on this later....

So now let me get to the nitty-gritty. Why is America great?  Forgive me if I tell you what you already know....

1. Stuff works in America.  For all the complaints you hear about this or that in America, about inefficient government, lazy people, terrible customer service -- stuff gets done here. Things work.  And they work for the good of most people.  I'm talking about both the public and private sector here.  If you make a noise in America, stuff gets done.  Somebody reacts.  We take that as simply the way it should be, but it's definitely not the case in many countries.  Notice that I said, "If you make a noise."  Things don't always work like clockwork on their own. But Americans are responsive; and we have institutions that respond. Yes, we complain a lot. Thankfully there are people whose job it is to listen and react to those complaints. The mere fact that somebody sometimes must complain is often taken by us as a sign of disorder or neglect, but... compared to many other countries, I can say with 100% certainty this is not  the case. 

(An aside: many Americans simply don't know, or don't feel empowered, to complain and stand up for their rights as a citizen or a consumer; this is true more so for the poor, minorities and immigrants. It's a cultural thing, a parent-to-kid thing, and it's a shame because being capable of complaining effectively is a very important part of being a fully-fledged American!)  

Indeed I often cite this to foreigners as one of my favorite aspects of America. A cavernous pothole that is covered with a branch for 6 months while nothing is fixed; or an elected official who is obviously corrupt yet nothing happens to him; or a complaint to a reputable business yields nothing -- these are all cases when I've told my foreign friends, "This would never happen in America."  

2.  Americans are results-oriented, not process-oriented or hierarchy-oriented.  This gets back to point #1. And again, if you're an American who hasn't traveled much this won't make much sense to you, but believe me, many cultures/countries put much more value on process, hierarchy and consensus than on actually solving problems and getting things done.  I can't tell you how many foreigners have complimented me (well, Americans) for this aspect of our culture. Even they get frustrated with the slowness and tediousness with which they analyze and tackle problems, especially those foreigners who have visited America or worked in U.S. companies.  

This also jibes with our innovative spirit. You can't be innovative if you always adhere to strict procedures, hierarchies, castes or established ways of doing things.

Another point: In Eastern Europe, with which I'm most familiar, the adjective "democratic" is used in the sense of egalitarian. When a company or group or even an establishment is described as democratic, that's almost always a good thing, it means everybody's treated equally, and there's no putting on airs.  The mere fact that this needs to be said is significant.  In America, capability, expertise and hard work are accepted as anybody's pole -- if you are able to hoist it -- to vault over class, money or geography.  And almost everybody accepts this as right and just.    

3.  Most Americans are optimists.  I may sound like Rush Limbaugh here, but it's true: almost to a fault, Americans are optimistic about the future.  In many countries, pessimism is taken akin to being wise, street-smart or realistic. But with each new American generation, despite the f**k-ups of the past, Americans retain their optimism about better days to come. Sometimes, frankly, I don't get it.  Yet I'd much rather live among hopeful optimists in a mostly hopeless, pessimistic world, and the U.S. is one of the only countries where you can do that.

4.  Most immigrants to the U.S. want to, and do, assimilate.  If you listen to talk radio or watch Fox you might doubt this fact, but compared to many developed countries, where immigrants live for generations in segregated ghettos and never participate fully in the economic, political and cultural life of the country, America is light years ahead of Europe and the rest of the world. The reasons for this probably merit an entire book or anthology, but the fact remains: Our immigrants want their children to learn English and "be American" as fast as possible. Thankfully, our public schools, libraries, charities and other institutions offer them myriad types of assistance to do this. I can vouch for it firsthand. My daughter was an ESL student in first grade who couldn't speak proper English. In second grade she was one of the top readers-writers in her class. That wasn't my doing; that was her school and the "specials" (special classes), including summer classes, that they offered her. And it was all free of charge. Amazing. 

5.  We have professional, contract-based armed forces.  Before you say duh, remember this wasn't the case until after Vietnam. Granted, most other Western countries also have professional armies, but our armed forces offer our troops what could only be described as socialist Big Government benefits: free education, health care, housing, disability insurance, etc.  Plus we have a federal system of employment preferences for veterans.  This makes us a country that takes men and women who might not be very well educated or disciplined in their teens or 20s and turns them into great leaders, great team workers, great students and, when they return to civilian life, great workers, technical specialists and managers.

Before I have criticized those conservatives like Michelle Malkin who, when pondering America's greatness, always cite the world's most powerful aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and the like -- as if our military might is what makes us great.  Firstly, it's our economic might that allows us the luxury to spend about a half trillion dollars a year on such military might. But secondly, and more importantly, its a very patriotic class of people who sign up voluntarily to fight and get killed or maimed overseas, often in the pursuit of doubtful political ends conjured up by feted and comfortable politicians back home.  This is not the case in most Western countries; there is not a very good chance you'l be sent into combat to die, unlike in America. And yet the fact that those Americans have not become, frankly, fed up and disillusioned with America and the politicians commanding them into battle is comforting, gratifying, humbling, mystifying and challenging.

So let me take this chance to say that "supporting our troops" with ribbons, a pat on the back or kind words is not nearly good enough. Our first and most sacred responsibility to our troops comes at the ballot box, and after that, in pressuring or elected leaders to send our troops into harms way only when it's absolutely necessary to defend our values and interests. To pretend otherwise is patronizing and disrespectful to our troops.

6.  Geographical diversity.  Many times I have heard foreigners describe their trip to America, and it's always so different. Cities, beaches, deserts, farms, borderlands, coasts and thriving metropolitan hubs.... Many foreigners visit a few places, most often New York, Miami, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, maybe the Grand Canyon, then draw conclusions from what they've seen there. Their conclusions about the U.S. are all valid; but they are incomplete. America is a vast and great country, geographically, by any standard, and extremely diverse culturally. It's all "America," but it's hard to generalize from just a few places. It's just as hard for native-born Americans to generalize about their country. That's OK.  That's our strength -- and our challenge. Bi-coastal, Southern, Midwestern, Western, Plains, Rockies, Appalachian, Red State, Blue State, urban, rural... It's all part of the great American pageant. The closest country I can think of in sheer size is Russia, (albeit much, much larger), but Russia is much less diverse, or at least, that diversity is much less accessible to the casual traveler.  

This always leads to the curious and interesting discussion, "What is the real America then?" Foreign visitors want to know. They want to experience it. It's a legitimate question. TV, popular culture and chain-franchise consumerism have certainly made America much less diverse (think what you'll find on any Interstate exit across the country). Yet the truth is there is no one answer. This is America's charm -- and its challenge. For just as visitors struggle to grasp its vastness, so do native-born Americans. For simplicity's sake we too fall back on geographical or political generalizations, yet the truth is much more rich and complex.  This question merits a whole series of books in and of itself.  The upshot is that there is no one "America." America is less a melting pot and more a patchwork quilt.  The charm and the challenge in understanding America is in understanding the stitches that bind that quilt together. And only Americans can tell that story.  

It also bears mentioning that America invented the concept of national parks and nature preserves, during the Progressive Era.  This has since become an accepted norm all over the world. This is something America contributed to the world.  

7.  Faith in technology and science.  This is becoming the norm the world over thanks to the Internet and globalization, but let's not forget that this was America's contribution to the world. Almost to a fault, Americans believe that technology can or will solve all the world's problems. Thankfully, we have very smart and daring people -- and an infrastructure of universities, government-funded basic science research, government-protected patents and IP, and venture capitalists -- who bring that technology to the world.  

8.  Great colleges and universities.  I'm not going to trot out statistics here. It goes without saying that, despite Americans' moaning about the decline in standards of education, American higher education is still the best in the world, both in terms of teaching quality and research (including government-funded basic science).  And many of them are public, land-grant universities.  The Internet was invented on an American college campus, the same with Facebook.  Need I say more?

    

9.  America is a work in progress.  This is true in so many ways: legally, culturally, scientifically, morally.  The true greatness of America is that it's not a country set in stone; it's a set of ideals in pursuit of their perfection and ultimate realization.  Most Americans share the same values, even if we express those values in different ways. This is how we are able to move the country forward, even when we disagree with one another. For instance, modern civil rights leaders appeal to Martin Luther King; Martin Luther King appealed to the Founding Fathers; and the Founding Fathers appealed to European Enlightenment thinkers and Greeks and Romans like Cincinnatus; and so on.  

Although some (a minority) in America would constantly call us to hark back to some mythical Golden Age that never existed; the tradition in America is to take older ideals and adapt them to present and future realities.  Hence America is more flexible than just about any other Western democracy.  "The past is prologue" applies least to America than any other major Western power.  

10.  Americans want to be liked.  This gets us in trouble sometimes ("We will be greeted as liberators" anyone?), but overall it's one of our great strengths. We don't want to rest of the world to fear us, or simply to respect us, we want the rest of the world to love and emulate us. Not always have we behaved in a way worthy of emulation; nevertheless, unlike most countries, the U.S. thinks in those terms. We see ourselves as a "shining City on a Hill." Maybe we have not always been a shining example; nevertheless, to be such an example is something we strive for.  

Now that we've enumerated our strengths, how can we augment them, and make America even greater?  That's how we should think and strive to be exceptional.

There are many more things I could add to this list, but these are the major points that come to mind. You're welcome to leave your own comments. 

I'll update and edit this list as time goes on. Peace out and happy 4th of July!

Applebaum: Ukraine needs MORE nationalism, not less

Yes, exactly!  Nationalism -- called patriotism in most contexts -- is necessary for any country to form its own identity and stay together.

Nationalism is not a scary word by itself; and it is certainly not synonymous with "fascism," "jingoism" or "xenophobia," as Russian media, politicians and academics would have us believe.

Concludes Anne Applebaum [emphasis mine]:

Thus do the tiny group of nationalists in Ukraine, whom perhaps we can now agree to call patriots, represent the country’s only hope of escaping apathy, rapacious corruption, and, eventually, dismemberment.

And this should be no surprise: In the nineteenth century, no sensible freedom fighter would have imagined it possible to create a modern state, let alone a democracy, without some kind of nationalist movement behind it. Only people who feel some kind of allegiance to their society—people who celebrate their national language, literature, and history, people who sing national songs and repeat national legends—are going to work on that society’s behalf. This goes for Russians, too, though tragically they insist on looking to their imperial traditions as a source of national pride, instead of to their liberal leaders in the early twentieth century or to their outstanding Soviet-era dissidents, the founders of the modern human rights movement.

In the West, we know this, but lately, we rarely admit it. That’s in part because we remember very well the disasters that ethnic nationalism, cloaked as fascism or sometimes as communism, brought in the twentieth century. Europeans in particular now go out of their way to downplay national differences, which is usually good. Territorial disputes in Europe have dissolved, since open borders make it simply less important whether Alsace is French or German. But European democracy would fail if European politicians did not also appeal to patriotism, did not take national interests into account, and did not address themselves to the special problems of their particular nations, too.

In the United States, we dislike the word “nationalism” and so, hypocritically, we call it other things: “American exceptionalism,” for example, or a “belief in American greatness.” We also argue about it as if it were something rational—Mitt Romney wrote a book that put forth the “case for American greatness”—rather than acknowledging that nationalism is fundamentally emotional. In truth, you can’t really make “the case” for nationalism; you can only inculcate it, teach it to children, cultivate it at public events. If you do so, nationalism can in turn inspire you so that you try to improve your country, to help it live up to the image you want it to have. Among other things, that thought inspired the creation of this magazine 100 years ago.

Ukrainians need more of this kind of inspiration, not less—moments like last New Year’s Eve, when more than 100,000 Ukrainians sang the national anthem at midnight on the Maidan. They need more occasions when they can shout, “Slava Ukraini—Heroyam Slava”—“Glory to Ukraine, Glory to its Heroes,” which was, yes, the slogan of the controversial Ukrainian Revolutionary Army in the 1940s, but has been adopted to a new context. And then of course they need to translate that emotion into laws, institutions, a decent court system, and police training academies. If they don’t, then their country will once again cease to exist.

Incidentally, the leader of Ukraine's most nationalist party, Svoboda, recently wrote an op-ed saying much the same thing: that given Ukraine's history and geography, nationalism is much more about national defense and preventing any future dismemberment of the Ukrainian state by outside powers. See: "Oleh Tiahnybok: Rescue nationalism from 'Pandora's box'."

Nationalism Is Exactly What Ukraine Needs

By Anne Applebaum

May 12, 2014 | New Republic

URL: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117505/ukraines-only-hope-nationalism

U.S. health coverage is too categorical

Here's a clear example of "American exceptionalism," albeit not the kind we should be proud of:

In other advanced industrial democracies, especially in Europe, health insurance, pensions and even certain amounts of income support for working-age adults are considered rights, to which everyone is entitled by virtue of their membership in society and their shared vulnerability to life’s vicissitudes.

 In the U.S., where health care is not considered a right, many do believe in "Work or Starve," as well as, apparently, "Work or Be Sick." What's even more bizarre in the U.S., Lane believes, are the exceptions we make to that:

This helps explain the oddest aspect of the nature of U.S. health insurance: It’s categorical. In the United States, people get coverage based not on membership in society but on membership in a discernible segment of society: elderly, disabled, military, employee, union member, child living below the poverty line and so on.

Everyone else — from relatively well-to-do self-employed consultants to dishwashers at small restaurants, for whom even tax-subsidized insurance is unaffordable — falls into the category of “other.” They make do with no insurance or with whatever is available on the dicey market for individual coverage.

Because health insurance works best with a broad risk pool, and because “everyone” is the broadest possible risk pool, the categorical U.S. system is plagued by obvious yet intractable inefficiencies and inequities.

Sadly, many Americans still believe that it's perfectly OK for an able-bodied but poor adult to go without health coverage.  Them's the breaks!

The U.S. insurance model doesn’t work

By Charles Lane

February 11, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/1faXlrP

Conservatives ruining 'American exceptionalism'

Beinartfeb argues convincingly that conservatives, who say they defend "American exceptionalism," are actually doing the most to destroy Americans' feeling of having a special place in the world that diverges historically and culturally from Europe.  

How?  First, because of conservatives' politicizing religion. Feelings of exceptionalism are strongest with those who attend church regularly and identify with a particular religious denomination. By politicizing religion, starting in the 1980s, conservatives have steadily turned off generations of Americans from churchy Christianity. They believe church has gotten too political.  (They're right).  We have an increasing contingent of "spiritual not religious" Americans who never hear the pastor's or televangelist's politicized sermons.

Secondly, because of Dubya. A belief in American exceptionalism goes along with an aggressive, "unapologetic" U.S. foreign policy. Thanks to Bush's avoidable debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq, two generations have been turned off from an active, interfering U.S. role in the world; and they are less likely to believe in "going it alone" and more likely to trust the UN and international institutions.

Third, because of economic inequality. Republican policies have limited class mobility, have encouraged accumulation of wealth at the top, and have made more Americans class-conscious: they are more likely to look at their country just like any other, where the Haves rule the Have-Nots -- not the land of the "American Dream" where anybody who works hard can live comfortably and even strike it rich. 

The End of American Exceptionalism

By Peter Beinartfeb

February 3, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-end-of-american-exceptionalism/283540/

Prager: Sad conservative parents REDUX

In a previous post, I took more time than necessary to destroy Dennis Prager's flawed conceit that somehow college -- not reason or life experience -- is what turns kids into liberals instead of conservatives (or more importantly, voting Democratic instead of Republican).

Note that words here matter. Are conservative parents sad because their young-adult kids decide to vote Democrat, or because they espouse certain beliefs like support for gays?  

In his follow-on column, Prager provides a lot of, er, helpful advice for conservative parents who want to successfully indoctrinate their kids.

The trouble is, a lot of this "character-building" stuff that Prager preaches is indeed apolitical. I mean, I'm a far-left liberal and I agree with a lot of it. It's stuff that I was taught. And I'll teach the same to my kids with no fear that it'll transform them into Tea Party Republican zombies.  

As I said before, one's values are not the same as voting habits.  Most Americans hold very similar values; but we express them differently in our politics.  

Finally, I could pick apart at least half of Prager's "traditional American values," for instance: "...that American military strength is the greatest contributor to world peace and stability, or ... American exceptionalism."

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson certainly never dreamed that America's military strength was going to ensure world peace and stability. Washington didn't even favor a standing army.  America's superpower status was born after WWII.  So we're talking about a "traditional" state of affairs that is only about 70 years old -- not even one-third of our nation's history.

And the term "American exceptionalism" was coined by... Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1929. And he didn't mean it as a compliment. 'Nuff said about that "traditional" value.

If You Want a Conservative Child

By Dennis Prager

November 12, 2013 | The Dennis Prager Show

URL: http://www.dennisprager.com/want-conservative-child/

U.S. is off the chart on health care

Wow.  The best health care system in the world, huh?  That's exactly what it is, according to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner!

The Singular Waste of America's Healthcare System in 1 Remarkable Chart

By Matthew O'Brien

November 22, 2013 | The Atlantic

We are an exceptional nation. At least when it comes to healthcare spending.

We spend much more than any other rich country, but we certainly don't get more for it. We get less. We get about the same health outcomes, but don't cover everybody like other rich countries do. Now, there are a lot of statistics that show how singularly wasteful our healthcare system is, but the chart below, via Aaron Carroll, is maybe the most visually arresting. It compares life expectancies with healthcare spending per capita for rich and near-rich countries. There's a pretty predictable relationship, with diminishing returns for more spending—and then there's the U.S.

See that dot that's almost off the chart? We spend more than four times as much as the Czech Republic does per persona, and live about just as long.

The problem is everybody wants the system to change, but nobody wants their corner of it to change. Doctors don't want their pay to change. And patients don't want their coverage to change. Obamacare tries to change both at the margins, and even that is politically fraught.

Russia and American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism in foreign policy is valid only if we believe that U.S. leaders, regardless of party or ideology, always act out of the best interests of the world.

If you're a Republican: do you think President Obama (or Clinton, or Carter) meets that criterion?

If you're a Democrat: do you think Dubya, Bush, Sr., or Reagan met that criterion?  

No, of course not. This alone should give the lie to the myth of American exceptionalism. The bulk of the evidence shows that the U.S. does what's best for itself, according to the judgment of current partisan administrations.

Now here's an interesting historical tidbit that I didn't know, courtesy of Tom Engelhardt.  Did you know? [emphasis mine]:

I’m talking about actual property rights to “American exceptionalism.”  It’s a phrase often credited to a friendly nineteenth century foreigner, the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville.  As it happens, however, the man who seems to have first used the full phrase was Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.  In 1929, when the U.S. was showing few signs of a proletarian uprising or fulfilling Karl Marx’s predictions and American Communists were claiming that the country had unique characteristics that left it unready for revolution, Stalin began denouncing “the heresy of American exceptionalism.”  Outside the U.S. Communist Party, the phrase only gained popular traction here in the Reagan years.  Now, it has become as American as sea salt potato chips.  If, for instance, the phrase had never before been used in a presidential debate, in 2012 the candidates couldn’t stop wielding it.

Engelhardt spends some time talking about Putin and Russia.  I know a little about both.  We're oddly connected, America and Russia, although we may not realize or acknowledge it.

I mean, if there are two countries on Earth with delusions of exceptionalism, they are the U.S. and Russia. That's the irony of Putin's recent denial of American exceptionalism.  I have confirmed this in many conversations with Russians. They are always curiously eager to convince me of Russia's enduring greatness, its parity with America, what their country means to the world, and so on.  Nobody I've ever met from any other country suggests much less seeks out a conversation like this. A few times Britons, wistful for empire, have told me, "It's your problem now, you deal with it."  As if that's what we've volunteered for! 

The U.S. perspective is a bit different. Since 1992, we have taken our hyper-power status for granted. We basically stopped paying attention to Russia 20 years ago. So what I usually tell Russians, both to enlighten and provoke them, is that the average American doesn't think about Russia at all.  Many ignorant Americans still think the USSR exists; and yet Russians don't figure in our worldview anymore.  (For the mere fact of 8,500 nuclear weapons still in Russia's arsenal, Americans are quite mistaken in their disregard).

What most Americans don't realize is that Russians, like Americans, take inordinate pride from their country's foreign policy, and perceived military prowess. Just as in America, where rednecks who can hardly spell their own names feel an out-sized sense of personal pride for being the citizen of a country that can bomb, drone or nuke anybody on Earth, so do Russians -- who are mostly poor, without basic liberties and cut off from the outside world -- augment their self-esteem with pride in being citizens of a nuclear-armed super power that can bully its near neighbors with impunity and occasionally stand up to the U.S. in the UN Security Council.

So my rhetorical question is: are Americans just Russians with a different political economy? Or are we indeed different?  Is America exceptionally exceptional?  And if so, in what ways? Taking pride in our civilian-controlled (read: political) military can't be the reason why.

UPDATE (30.09.2013): FYI, here's a report on a recent Gallup poll of Americans' attitude toward Russia, "Poll: Half Of Americans See Russia As 'Unfriendly' Or Worse".  Looks like Putin is successfully lowering Russia's rating in the U.S.

Bragging Rights 

By Tom Engelhardt

September 26, 2013 | Tom Dispatch

URL: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175752/

Tea Parties, 9/11 and 'American exceptionalism'

What an insightful and refreshing meditation on 200 years of American history, and meanwhile, Americans' psychological relation to their history!  

To give you an example: Smith's fascinating recognition of the unlikely affinity of two American "losers" who could have re-shaped America's relation to the world: Republican Wendell Wilkie post-WWII; and Democrat Jimmy Carter post-Vietnam.

Now to summarize....

First, Smith argues, as I have, that the Tea Parties are about perpetuating a certain myth about American history, but he goes even further [emphasis and italics mine]:

Whatever the Tea Party’s unconscious motivations and meanings—and I count these significant to an understanding of the group—we can no longer make light of its political influence; it has shifted the entire national conversation rightward—and to an extent backward, indeed. But more fundamentally than this, the movement reveals the strong grip of myth on many Americans—the grip of myth and the fear of change and history. In this, it seems to me, the Tea Party speaks for something more than itself. It is the culmination of the rise in conservatism we can easily trace to the 1980s. What of this conservatism, then? Ever since Reagan’s “Morning in America” campaign slogan in 1984 it has purported to express a new optimism about America. But in the Tea Party we discover the true topic to be the absence of optimism and the conviction that new ideas are impossible. Its object is simply to maintain a belief in belief and an optimism about optimism. These are desperate endeavors. They amount to more expressions of America’s terror in the face of history. To take our country back: Back to its mythological understanding of itself before the birth of its own history is the plainest answer of all.

The Tea Parties' constant harking back to a mythical point in time that never existed is a mark of fear of the future, Smith believes, a fear that all Americans share to some extent, and yet to "win the future" (to stupidly quote Newt Gingrich) we must face this fear:

I do not see that America has any choice now but to face this long terror. America’s founding was unfortunate in the fear and apprehension it engendered, and unfortunate habits and impulses have arisen from it. These are now in need of change—a project of historical proportion. Can we live without our culture of representation, our images and symbols and allusions and references, so casting our gaze forward, not behind us? Can we look ahead expectantly and seek greatness instead of assuming it always lies behind us and must be quoted? Can we learn to see and judge things as they are? Can we understand events and others (and ourselves most of all) in a useful, authentic context? Can we learn, perhaps most of all, to act not out of fear or apprehension but out of confidence and clear vision? In one way or another, the dead end of American politics as I write reminds us that all of these questions now urgently require answers. This is the nature of our moment.

Smith thinks we Americans must face our psychological defeat suffered on 9/11/2001, the realization that they did not like us, and did not want to be like us:

What was it Americans reiterated through all the decades leading to 2001—and, somewhat desperately, beyond that year? It was to remake the world, as Condoleezza Rice so plainly put it. It was to make the world resemble us, such that all of it would have to change and we would not. This dream, this utopia, the prospect of the global society whose imagining made us American, is what perished in 2001. America’s fundamentalist idea of itself was defeated on September 11. To put the point another way, America lost its long war against time. This is as real a defeat as any other on a battlefield or at sea. Osama bin Laden and those who gave their lives for his cause spoke for no one but themselves, surely. But they nonetheless gave substantial, dreadful form to a truth that had been a long time coming:The world does not require America to release it into freedom. Often the world does not even mean the same things when it speaks of “freedom,” “liberty,” and “democracy.” And the world is as aware as some Americans are of the dialectic of promise and self-betrayal that runs as a prominent thread through the long fabric of the American past.

Look upon 2001 in this way, and we begin to understand what it was that truly took its toll on the American consciousness. Those alive then had witnessed the end of a long experiment—a hundred years old if one counts from the Spanish war, two hundred to go back to the revolutionary era, nearly four hundred to count from Winthrop and the Arbella. I know of no one who spoke of 2001 in these terms at the time: It was unspeakable. 

9/11 wasn't about killing, or even creating terror; it was their way of screaming, "We reject you!"

Does America have a democratic mission?  Was it meant to be a shining City on a Hill?  It never did; it never was, argues Smith, convincingly. Which seems obvious to most non-Americans, but a bit frightening for us born-and-bred Amuricans to mull over.  If we were not chosen, if we are not special, if we do not have any special mission -- and with it, special prerogatives -- then what about all that "bad stuff" in our history?  Didn't it mean anything?  Wasn't it all for a greater purpose?.... No, it was just about Power.

And here's what Smith has to say about U.S. power:

Power is a material capability. It is a possession with no intrinsic vitality of its own. It has to do with method as opposed to purpose or ideals—techne as against telos. It is sheer means, deployment. Power tends to discourage authentic reflection and considered thought, and, paradoxically, produces a certain weakness in those who have it. This is the weakness that is born of distance from others. In the simplest terms, it is an inability to see and understand others and to tolerate difference. It also induces a crisis of belief. Over time a powerful democracy’s faith in itself quivers, while its faith in power and prerogative accumulates. 

Power and strength are not the same; we should resolve to possess the latter, Smith avers:

To reflect upon those final years before 2001, it is not difficult to understand in our contemporary terms the distinction between a powerful nation and a strong one. Strength derives from who one is—it is what one has made of oneself by way of vision, desire, and dedication. It has nothing to do with power as we customarily use this term. Paradoxically, it is a form of power greatly more powerful than the possession of power alone. Strength is a way of being, not a possession. Another paradox: Power renders one vulnerable to defeat or failure, and therefore to fear. Strength renders one not invulnerable—no one ever is—but able to recover from defeats and failures. The history of the past century bears out these distinctions very clearly. Most of all, a strong nation is capable of self-examination and of change. It understands where it is in history—its own and humankind’s.

And here's Smith's call to action at the end of his remarkable essay:

I propose the taking of an immense risk. It is the risk of living without things that are linked in the American psyche: the protection of our exceptionalism, the armor of our triumphalist nationalism, our fantastical idea of the individual and his or her subjectivity. For Americans to surrender this universe of belief, emotion, and thought may seem the utmost folly. A century ago Americans flinched at the prospect. What followed was often called heroic, but in many cases it was just the opposite, for the American century was so often an exercise in avoidance of genuinely defined responsibility. True enough, it ended as it began, with uncertainty and choices. But the outcome need not be the same now, for there is too much more to be gained than lost this time.

Are we brave enough to change, or do we prefer to revert to a mythical childhood of ourselves that never was?

American exceptionalism is a dangerous myth

By Patrick Smith

May 26, 2013 | Salon

URL: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/26/american_exceptionalism_is_a_dangerous_myth/

Costas, Belcher and gun-rights idiocy

Yeah, I agree with Will Bunch, the whole, "It's too soon," line after NFL player Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and then himself in order to put off public discussion of overdue gun control measures annoys me as well, since multiple-victim gun crimes happen all the time in America. What's too soon for the latest shooting is indeed just a few days or even hours prior to the next shooting. Indeed, a multiple-victim shooting happens every 5.9 days in the U.S.  So it's always appropriate and timely to ask why Americans need so many damn guns -- especially semi-automatic handguns and big ammo clips.

In preemptive response to this latest shooting, conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and AEI's John Lott (FOX's go-to gun apologist after high-profile shooting rampages) have been trotting out the usual statistics about the high rate of gun crime in cities with stricter gun control, like New York and Washington, DC, hoping that we'll pretend America isn't wide open, as if somebody couldn't easily buy a gun in another city or state and take it into NYC or DC... which is exactly what they do.  

They also point to relatively lower gun crime rates in right-to-carry (RTC) states; however, they fail to cite gun crime statistics before & after concealed-carry or RTC laws were passed, so that we can analyze the before-and-after effect. In fact, these were places with lower incidence of gun crime beforehand as well. Based on all the evidence, Yale Law School professor John J. Donahue concluded that:

All we can really say is that we know that there is no evidence of reduction in violent crime when RTC laws are passed, and that, although there is evidence of increases in property crime, the theoretical basis for such a finding is weak. We do know that anything that increases the number of guns in circulation will increase the number of guns in the hands of criminals, since about 1.5 million guns are stolen every year. [Emphasis mine. - J]

These same conservative commentators are also lying to us that countries with stricter gun control see gun crime increase. It's simply not true. According the PolitiFact, the U.S. has about 3.0 firearm homicides per 100,000 population; while other affluent nations like Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, etc. "typically have rates...far less than one-third the frequency seen in the U.S."

So once again, there is no debate if you're not cherry-picking your facts. People who want guns simply want guns. Their selfish desire for a gun is the only non-BS justification for their ownership, besides our antiquated 2nd Amendment. 

And let me throw in another factoid to stir up to pot. Yes, most gun murders do occur in urban areas, as conservatives love to point out, and they are mostly committed by racial minorities in drug-related disputes. However, most multiple-victim shooting rampages -- those evil, senseless murders that leave us shaking our heads and questioning human nature -- are committed by white guys (or white boys) in suburban and rural areas.  I'm not ready to say one crime is worse than the other, but at least in the case of drugs crime, we can say that there is some kind of reason... and some hope to mitigate it, like legalizing some drugs, fighting gangs or encouraging drug-addiction treatment. However, there is no such hope to stop multiple-victim shootings, because they happen everywhere, and, almost as a rule, they are committed by white guys with no prior criminal history. The only uniting factor in all multiple-victim shootings is easy, legal access to deadly firearms.

Bob Costas Learns the Right Time to Talk About Guns in America: Never

By Will Bunch

December 4, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bunch/bob-costas-jovan-belcher-guns_b_2234732.html

Progressive tax + public goods = National happiness?

Statistics from all over the world are all well and good, but hey, psychologists, there is a little thing that's proven and it's called American Exceptionalism. Which means the rules for everybody else don't apply to us Yanks.

In America, the pursuit of happiness isn't in building good public transport, education, health care, etc., it's in chasing that one-in-a-million lottery ticket to rich assholedom.

And I don't know about you, but it's gonna happen for me, just you wait! I'm gonna be the exception.

Progressive Tax Rates Linked To National Happiness: Study

By Alexander Eichler

September 8, 2011 | Huffington Post

Detractors of Warren Buffett take note: The more a country taxes its richest citizens, the happier everyone in that country will be.

Such are the findings of a new study, led by University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi, which compares 54 different countries and finds a correlation between progressive tax policies -- that is, higher tax rates for higher tax brackets -- and overall contentedness.

It may not be the case that a progressive tax system automatically leads to a happier population, however. The report emphasizes that what matters is what governments do with the tax dollars they collect.

"[A] key to a happy society is quality public and common goods," a draft of the report notes. "[E]ven if a society does not adopt a progressive tax, as long as it can afford good public transportation, education system, health care, and so forth, citizens are likely to be happy."

The study observed the highest rates of "life satisfaction" in Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands and a number of Nordic countries, including Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden -- all nations that consistently rank high whenever countries are compared on the basis of happiness.

The study also noted that many of these nations tax their richest citizens at a much higher rate than their poorest. Several other nations displayed a correlation between progressive tax rates and happiness, including Israel, France and the U.K.

A number of organizations have ranked nations by happiness in recent years, and offered a raft of explanations for why certain countries seem more satisfied than others. An extensive Gallup study in 2010 concluded that while rich countries are generally happier, so are societies where interpersonal relationships tend to be strong.

In June, 24/7 Wall St. analyzed a quality-of-life survey performed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and noted that natural resources, economic stability, a strong services sector and "a good balance of work and leisure time" are all correlated with national happiness.

In the study examining the link between happiness and progressive taxes, the U.S. ranked fairly high among nations for happiness, but has only a mildly progressive tax policy. Some two dozen countries have tax policies more progressive than the United States', including Belgium, Mexico, Germany, Pakistan, Vietnam, Japan and Morocco.