Lately there have been arguments about whether such and such person running for office believes that the US is exceptional or not. They make it so vague that I'm not even sure what is meant exceptional and it exceptionality is supposed to be good or bad. Anyone else know what this is about?

Like this mormon art? http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/421

Right..... Mormons will fix everything:)

National Lampoon said it was McDonald's breakfast and burrito

I'm going to have to with

McNaughton fine and art

Belief in US exceptionalism means believing that the US is morally superior to other countries because of being founded on principles of democracy, individual freedom, capitalism, support for human rights, etc. It's the more traditional view where we see ourselves as the good guys.

America has a "Manifest Destiny". This is really an ancient concept shared with Imperial Rome, crusading Christendom, militant Islam, Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Israel. By virtue of God's will/superior ideology the chosen nation has not only a right to exist, but the duty to spread its enlightenment to others who might not be so willing to receive it.

Exactly: Manifest Destiny.

"As long as our economy dominates, our armies dominate, and the world recognizes our power, we have the right to do anything we want to anywhere in the known world."

That hubris can also continue as a national cultural meme for generations after the state itself has withered away, often providing great amusement to their neighbors who tend to see them as they really are rather than as they imagine themselves to be.

Right. Hubris in a classical Greek sense, alas.


Americans who believe in their country's exceptionalism forget that *calling* yourself a "shining city upon a hill" is very different than *being* a Shining City Upon a Hill.

Readers still believing in an America shining upon a hill need to go directly to Salon.com and read Glenn Greenwald. It's not just about what America does abroad, but it's that too. It's what America is doing to itself that is truly troubling.


To tie this in with Mormonism (which is different than LDSinc): how I wish to believe in the White Horse Prophecy! But Romney, while being the first man to argue for LDSinc, is the last man to argue *for* the Constitution of the United States of America.

God save America

Human

does that count?

My teenaged daughter (we are not American and don't live in the USA) thinks America is "conceited" for having this type of view. They think they're better than everyone else.

This superiority/entitlement complex which I think is taught to Americans in their schools from a very young age, is flawed. It should instead be taught that America is fortunate to have freedom, but mixed in with this is the concept that in being the best in the world at various efforts = moral superiority.

BTW, I don't think all Americans think they are better than everyone else - but the way they are taught about their country re. patriotism, Manifest Destiny etc. in school leads many to behave as though they are superior to others - even if they never really think about it in those terms.

That said, there are many many lovely Americans whom I know and have met. I'm just drawing attention to the mindset that comes from its history and the way it's taught etc.

so in the agregate, our exposure to the rest of the world may be limited.

::snicker::

I could live in other places but the US is a great place to live compared to say Somalia.

jacob Wrote:
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> I could live in other places but the US is a great
> place to live compared to say Somalia.

But when you put it like that, jacob, it isn't much different than saying "I could believe in other religions but Mormonism is great to believe in compared to, say, Nuwaubianism.

Granted, many are happy living in the U.S., for all kinds of reasons; but that doesn't make the U.S. exceptional.

No of course not, but it makes it better than some alternatives. In the US we tend to ignore the influence of the French and English revolutions and how they helped define our own political and social mindset. That doesn't make me want to live in France. All I am saying is that whether it is exceptional or not it is a great place to live.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2012 01:29PM by jacob.

This is one area where my thinking has changed over time.

I used to think of the United States as superior morally, politically, etc. - that the constitution was a product of god.

Now I just think of it as rich and powerful and not especially moral.

A few things come to mind:
- As has been mentioned before - slavery. Then even after slavery the legal segregation of blacks. There has historically been and continue to be can civil rights issues with the law. Fortunately we've improved.

- The atomic bomb. We dropped a crippling bomb on hundreds of thousands of civilians. Had we been the losing side it would have been considered a huge war crime. The United States is the only country that has ever unleashed a weapon of mass destruction on another country's inhabitants.

- The civil war.

Certainly some of the concepts have been effective. However, we are now seeing that the "popularity contest" approach of choosing leaders puts people in power who don't have the will to solve problems until they are already 2 steps past the crisis stage.

There are certainly good things here too. We are granted a lot more "freedom of religion"/"freedom from religion" than a lot of other places. Gay marriage rights is a clear counter example...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2012 01:51PM by bc.

I have to say that while the US hasn't always lived up to it's potential I honestly can not think of too many countries that do what we do for good. Several million illegal immigrants can't be wrong....

Slavery was a bad thing and truly a blight on our honor. The Civil War was bad too. Yes, the Atmomic Bomb was dropped on civilians, Civilians that would have drug on a bloody,brutal war for ten more years at least had they not been dropped, Killing far more than would of otherwise.

I spent a year in Iraq and saw the way alot of other people live. I honestly cannot think of another country I would rather live in. I am probably one of the arrogant though....

granted, the winners get to write history.

but I've read enough about that era to be comfortable with the assertion the only other way to have ended WWII was with a land invasion of Japan.

that would have been much, much worse.

The Bombs were the best course of action. Millions of American Soldiers would have been killed had it not happened, Japan had no plans to surrender and was willing to destroy it's country and kill ALL of it's civillians for the cause. The U.S.had faught several costly battles in the Pacific (Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Tarawa). The best indication from the U.S. was that eventually the U.S. would have won but millions more would have died civillian and military.

The war needed to come to an end...There was less and less manpower available to fight it. Exhausted soldiers that had survived the European Theater were being prepared for Japan. Supplies and logistics were depleted. Americans were tired of war and it needed to come to an end.

It is most likely that had the bombs not have been dropped then the Soviets may have led us into the next war that we were unable to fight. The bomb kept both of us in check.

I am very comfortable with the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb. It saved millions of lives.

Alright I'll bite and argue the other side of this a little.

I don't believe that morality in war can be defined by do whatever you have to do to ensure the least deaths on your side. Based on that criteria there can be no such thing as a war crime. If the criteria is do anything you want/can to win as easily as possible you basically say "all fair in love and war".

If that is the case Saddam Huessain should have been let off scott free. You could argue that his dictatorial tactics saved many lives. By being so heavy handed he prevented civil war and resultant geath. Same with Stalin & Hilter. They all thought they had a right to do what they did.

I recognize why the decision was made. I possibly would have made the same decision. I don't think that makes it ethical or moral.

They also could have dropped a bomb of the coast to flex their muscles a little. Or pick a military target. Or pick less populated areas. The selection was based on the same selection a terrorist would use - to create panic and terror by attacking civilions.

Face it, in this case the US was the terrorist.

The Atomic Bomb was the most moral way to end the war. It saved millions of lives. I have never heard anyone from that Generation dispute that.

I do not believe at all that the US was the Terrorist. Japan was a nation that was bent on destruction. In the end millions were saved. I have never heard a logical argument for not dropping the bomb. It really did save lives. Millions of people would have died. The war needed to end and it ended it.

I am probably the wrong person to have this argument with. I spent a year in Iraq and probably view war far differently than you do...I tend to view it from a soldiers view and believe that asking millions of Americans who had just survived a war in Europe to die in Japan when just two bombs would have ended it would have been immoral.

I also do not believe that killing millions of Japanese civillians in a land battle would have been in anyones best interest either. Civillians were going to die. The question was how many.

As for just dropping a bomb off of the coast as a demonstration, remember that Hiroshima was just that. It was a demonstration that the U.S had the power to destroy Japan.The bomb was dropped and Japan still refused to surrender. After watching an Atomic Bomb destroy one city. The Japanese government still refused to surrender. It was only afetr the bomb fell on Nagasaki that Japan agreed to surrender. Of course they did not tell their citizens that. They told them that fighting the war was no longer "in Japan's best interest".

The war needed to end and the bomb ended it. I am still convinced it was the right thing to do.

But again I view it probably alot differently...

is the most compelling indication that Japan was committed to fight to the last person to defend their celestial god on earth.

it took the second one to drive home the point.

and, of course, by that point the US was out of bombs.

so wasting one in a demonstration would have been pointess, and a disaster to the overall effort of ending the war.

What US President, after all that, could tell his country "Sorry about the land invasion. We had the means to avoid a land invastion entirely, but I had moral qualms about using them."

But Whiskey-Tango is holding his own in this thread, so I'll move on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2012 02:36PM by scooter.

If you base morality is based on:

- Might makes right
- If it is in your self-interest then it is OK to do
- Civilian targets are acceptable
- Anything you do in war to win with the least loss on your side is justified

Then the A bomb is justified.

Explain to me why that was different that Saddam or Osama? They both considered the US to be the "nation bent on destruction".

A terrorist is defined by the tactics and approach they take, not their motives. Nearly all terrorists consider their motives to be just from their point of view.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2012 02:35PM by bc.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki:

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:
In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.

Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.

I have.

My father was a marine who "cleaned up" the islands of the South Pacific routing Japanese holdout troops from hidden caves, etc. A Very Dirty Business. He was a member of the Occupation Forces and WENT to Hiroshima. He SAW what the bomb did - ON THE GROUND. To this day I own a roof tile from one of the ruined temples that was in the center-city of Hiroshima, brought back by my father. To the day he died he felt that what we did there was immoral and wrong.

So now you know of ONE FROM THAT GENERATION WHO WAS THERE who disputes your silly claim. And for the record, my father was no bleeding heart leftist commie sympathizer, either. He was just a very moral man.

Put that in your hat and translate it.

My understanding is that Japan had been looking to surrender since around December 1944. The primary sticking point was that they wanted assurances that their emperor would not be harmed, but the U.S. insisted on unconditional surrender. In the end, they surrendered unconditionally, and the U.S. left their emperor in place to maintain order while the country was rebuilt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2012 02:42PM by facsimile3.

Japan was at the end of its rope, and just a few more months of naval blockade would've had much of the population starving.

Just because a lot of people say it, Whiskey Tango, does NOT make it true.

We just wanted a quick end to the war as we were afraid the Soviets would grab Japan.

helamonster Wrote:
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> We just wanted a quick end to the war as we were
> afraid the Soviets would grab Japan.

Perhaps (I dunno).


But another reason for dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to say to the Russians, "you may have won at Yalta, but don't f.u.c.k. with us...we WILL use the bomb...see!"

I would venture to say that on 6 & 9 August 1945 China, SE Asia, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia could all make a better claim for "being tired of war" and needing it "to come to an end" than the United States could.

Hirohito capitulated based on the combined factors of the bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, AND the Soviet declaration of war on Japan on 9 August 1945, AND diminishing resources. Only Americans still believe that The Bomb ended the war in one feel swoop.

"I am very comfortable with the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb. It saved millions of lives." I'm glad you feel comfortable saying that, but please don't forget to wave the American flag while you do so: dropping atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima MIGHT have saved "millions" (based on extremely loose estimates) of AMERICAN and BRITISH SOLDIERS. The acute effects of those blasts killed 90,000–166,000 (Hiroshima) and 60,000–80,000 (Nagasaki) CIVILIANS.

Morality is not defined by "It is in my self interest to hurt you, therefore it is OK for me to hurt you."

Why didn't the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima? If the Japanese government was willing to sue for peace then why didn't they? Why did it take a second bomb dropped to get them to surrender?

And again, who would have brought this war to a conclusion? Where would the soldiers have come from?

Certainly you should feel pride in belonging to the worlds oldest modern democracy. It doesn't mean however that you are morally superior to everyone else.