American Exceptionalism Indeed

My good friend Joe Fab sent me his thoughts on the idea of "American Exceptionalism" that is being used as a foundational principle for Republican presidential candidates in 2012. The Wash Post did a piece on this unfortunate development yesterday and it prompted these thoughts from Mr. Fab:

I'm proud and feel very fortunate to be an American. But I know that I'm here by good luck, not because I myself am exceptional in an earned sense of any consequence. What I have done and am doing with my own life is the measure of my worth, and I feel a heightened responsibility to make that worth register positively in part because of the chance combination of time and geography that led to my birth in this country.

That's a far cry from the sense of entitlement that these new American exceptionalists (may we call them AEs?) often seem to feel. You'd think they'd fought the American Revolution themselves the way they wrap themselves in the Declaration of Independence. If one were to appropriately employ the hyperbole so popular in recent years -- the comparison to Nazi Germany -- this might be just the occasion for it. No matter what the AEs think, America is unique as in "one of a kind" and exceptional as in "set apart by certain unusual qualities." But we are not the kind of 'exceptional' that automatically gives Americans a seat above and before all others on the planet.

None of us living today created that unique aspect of this country. We are the beneficiaries of what some amazingly thoughtful people cooked up many generations ago. We are the trustees of their wise design. The design is what is exceptional; we are not. And the only way for us to strive toward being exceptional is to treasure, respect and responsibly carry on the values and principles contained in both the Declaration and Constitution.

A clear and precise distinction must be made between that mission and the shallow flag-waving, placard-carrying tantrums in evidence in AE America. To me, today's use of the idea of American exceptionalism is frightening and smacks of desperation and immaturity.

Mel Brooks' Two Thousand Year Old Man captured the AEs perfectly when he reminisced about the Stone Age and how neanderthals began to group together into tribes. He remembered with relish how everybody thought his own gang was the absolute greatest, just because, well, it was the gang to which he belonged. His group lived in Cave #7. Their rallying cry may sound primitive, but is it really any different from what the AEs are saying?

"Everyone can go to hell except Cave 7!"

Well said, Joe, well said -- and thanks for sharing.

"What if we are wrong -- again?"

The Old South is truly the heart of the Republican Party. The 11 states from the old Confederacy are represented in the US Senate by 15 Republicans, or 2/3 of the 22 Senators from the South. Republicans dominate the state legislatures in nearly all of the Old South states. The head of the Republican Governors Association is Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

Does that mean we are on the cusp of a new enlightened age? Hardly.

As every school child learns early, the Old South states were wrong when they seceded from the Union in the 1861; they were wrong when they opposed civil rights legislation in 1965; they were wrong about the need to go into Iraq in 2003 when we should have focused our national energy and military resources on finding bin Laden in the mountains of Bora Bora.

Could it be these same states and their Republican representatives are wrong about President Obama? What if he is not the anti-Christ; what if he is a US citizen? What if he is more of a Christian than they are? (Ask yourself who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ closer?) What if he is right about climate change? What if he is right about health care reform? What if each of us received our “bailout” when he took steps to keep the entire economy from collapsing?

In short, what if you are wrong – again? What if you are missing the opportunity to support the best President – popularly elected by the people -- in a generation?

What will you tell your grandchildren?