Open Thread

“very cold out so I kept it short and now legiondog is sitting here staring at me mad like he was shortchanged.”

Haha, Legion. I get this every day from CDog!

ok, I’m back,
very cold out so I kept it short and now legiondog is sitting here staring at me mad like he was shortchanged.

In other words she has a problem with American exceptionalism as defined by Palin and you and benson. She has never denied that America is a great country or its place in the history of the world. Why you insist on arguing points that were never made I don’t understand. Nor did she deny the Constitution is a remarkable document. really- you need to pay attention to what people are actually saying, not what you think they are saying.

I understand the concern of an unfettered “nationalism”.
The idea of the “ugly American” trampling all over the world because it’s Miller Time and “who cares about anyone else”.
That’s not what benson or I have been pointing out or putting forward.
We are stating something that has become understood on the world stage over the past 100 years, the idea that despite all of the flaws with our nation, there has not been another nation in the past century which has advanced the cause of individual liberty as effectively and as thoroughly as the United States.
It serves niether truth nor our fellow citizens to deny this idea. As I stated before, it does in fact, cause damage to our national discourse in that citizens start to believe that what we stand for may be just as good as living in Cuba or living in North Korea or in Iran.

Legion,

England – we got our basic ideas of Congress and the Senate, as well as the general running of the nation from the English system of governance. The Magna Carta, Parliament, House of Commons, et al. We just left out the King and the Lords. In between 1776 and 1941, they managed for forge a nice little nation for themselves. They are hardly second rate.

Israel’s government is based more on England’s than ours, and while we have helped them from day one, they do pretty well on their own. We are exceptional in our support of them, but that doesn’t make us more exceptional-er than they are. We help each other, and support each others like allies are supposed to.

Ok, France based their Revolution on ours. We based ours on ideas culled from many philosophies, going back to the Greeks, Romans, and the Renaissance, including the writings of French philosophers. They went on to adapt a parliamentary form of government, as did we, and most democracies. Like Israel, we supported them in WWII because that’s what allies do, and because we were opposed to the Nazi’s and communist aggression. That makes us decent, but not exceptional, as Canada did the same, as well as other countries.

Denmark, I’d have to look up, which I am not doing now, but their survival and prosperity has as much to do with them as a nation, also with a parliament, as with our involvement with NATO. That is a huge stretch, and if I were a Dane, I’d be really insulted.

Long story long, all of these countries are thriving because their people have as much pride and gumption as we do. We lead because of a lot of reasons, size, national wealth, military might being but a few. We don’t lead because we are more exceptional than they are.

I’m done for the night.

I’ll be back in a bit,
legiondog is pulling at my pants here
with his paw and if I don’t walk him
there’s gonna be an exceptional stench on my rug….