It’s nice of Andrew Ferguson to admit that conservatives like to prattle on about ‘American Exceptionalism,’ at least in part, because it irritates liberals and it polls well. But he still doesn’t really explain why he thinks it’s true. Obviously, it has something to do with personal liberty and freedom. It has something to do with making a lot of people very wealthy. We have enjoyed a lot of material success as a nation. We’ve led in many fields. But Ferguson doesn’t really get specific.
We obviously had an exceptional beginning, leading the way in decolonization and representative government. But we’re hardly alone in that now. What makes us exceptional today is largely mere happenstance. We emerged from World War Two in the strongest position, and we took it upon ourselves to take a lead role in rebuilding the world on terms more consistent with our values than the values of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Hirohito. And we’ve agreed to maintain a lead role, which means everything from hosting the United Nations in New York, to being the enforcement arm of the U.N., to funding the IMF and The World Bank, to policing the world’s shipping lanes. Sometimes these roles are special because they make people exceptionally pissed off. But we do these things, and it does set us apart.
However, I never know if conservatives hate Europe’s socialism because they think it’s only possible because they are sissy-boys who rely on us to protect them, or if they actually feel like Europe is under the jack-boot of authoritarianism. In other words, do the people at the Weekly Standard think we can’t afford to police the shipping lanes and patrol Afghanistan and provide people with a solid social safety net? Will the cost of Medicare and Social Security and ObamaCare eventually compel us to leave those onerous tasks to the Chinese? Is that their fear? Or do they honestly think it’s a matter of personal liberty to have to buy health insurance from some for-profit corporation?
I don’t know. Maybe they just like stuff that polls well and pisses off liberals. What I do know is that our exceptional role comes at an exceptional cost. I don’t want to turn everything over to the Chinese. But, if our outsized international role is what’s preventing us from sharing Europe’s standard of living and security, then I think we should ask Europe to do more to help us shoulder our burdens. I think we’ve earned that right. And I think we’ve proven that, as exceptional as we may be, we make a lot of mistakes. We have not earned the right to continue on this way. Our track record is too mixed to say we have cornered the market on wisdom or virtue.
Where are not exceptional we are the melting pot of every common element. The only thing exceptional about the U.S. is that we are unexceptional. Its our strength.
What do you think, Booman? Do our international responsibilities prevent us from having a robust social safety net? Or can we cut our military spending and still do a good job providing our unique services to the world? Of course Britain’s recent austerity measures have resulted in cuts to its military budget, thereby forcing us to shoulder even more of the burden. And I think a lot of folks would get the historical willies by letting Germany (or Japan) take a greater international role. But maybe that wouldn’t be as big a deal in reality as it seems on paper.
Well, let’s talk hypotheticals. If we weren’t capable of doing an airlift to tsunami victims, who would do it? If the UN needed to move 100,000 peace keepers fast into some trouble spot, who would do it? Europe could start by developing the air cargo capabilities to move their own divisions, instead of relying on us to do it. Don’t worry, we’ll gladly build the planes for them.
Our military is absurdly over financed, but we do have large responsibilities that most of the world honestly wants us to continue to carry out.
Who wants nuclear proliferation and more nuclear-armed nations? Well, who is going to prevent that? Germany? Japan? Brazil?
It’s us, or it’s China. That needs to change.
We’re not good at being an imperial power. And it not only leads to terrorism and general resentment, but it does so unfairly because we’re carrying out a role that needs to be carried out. Partly, that’s why Bush’s move into Iraq was disastrous. We have enough to deal with just carrying out the responsibilities people want us to carry out. It’s insane to take on responsibilities no one wants us to carry out.
I think we can afford universal single-payer health care because it’s less expensive that what we have now. But it’s not clear that we can afford to exist in the role we’ve been assigned and that we’ve assigned for ourselves. If not financially, then morally, we cannot remain the country we grew up in if we’re seen as a lone cop, and a cop that occasionally goes rogue at that.
I’ve never really understood the argument that the world “needs” a policeman. If there was no airlift capability to move 100,000 UN peacekeepers, they would not be moved. And the world would be pretty much exactly the same. (We’ve never done that, anyway.)
The United Nations is pretty toothless as it is. How could their edicts mean anything if the United States wasn’t willing and able to back up their edicts? The only alternative is for other nations to build more capability. Think about this in terms of what the IAEA does.
As for cargo planes, we had to move Europe’s division into Afghanistan after 9/11, and nothing has changed. We were the only ones capable of moving humanitarian relief to the tsunami victims in a timely manner. And we were the only ones who could have prevented the Rwandan genocide. We didn’t, but we could have. No one else could have gotten enough people there in time.
So, I think the world does need those capabilities and the political will to accept the associated costs. I just don’t think the burden for it should continue to fall on us.
I should say “the full burden.” I accept that we must bear the bulk of it for the time being.
Your examples have about 2 percent relevance to the bloated and mostly useless US military. Being part of UN rescue and intervention forces is a pittance compared to what we spend on assholery like the Iraq invasion, for example. The world doesn’t need that.
Well, notice that I am focusing on dual-use stuff. The same planes that allow you to move peace keepers and humanitarian goods, allow you to move armed soldiers. I don’t want a new arms race in Europe. I want shared responsibility and costs for the legitimate roles that need to be played on the international stage. I did not defend the Pentagon’s budget. I did not say that we need hundreds of bases all over the world.
“But he still doesn’t really explain why he thinks it’s true.”
The only thing I wonder is whether or not people on our side will ever realize that conservatives just say and think shit, with absolutely no significant reasoning behind it.
Some things are only mysteries because we freely choose to ignore the obvious and correct answer.
Exactly.
Amen.
I think conservatives are challenged by the counterexample of Europe, which manages to offer healthcare and reasonable social benefits to its citizens. That’s why they’re always trying to denigrate Europe, saying that “it’s only because they get a free ride”, or “their economy is stagnant and about to collapse” or “they are a bunch of effeminate pu**ies, we don’t want to be like them.” (The last bit is actually the theme of a recent Charles Krauthammer column that somebody forced me to read.)
On a a different note, it is clear that stating a belief in American exceptionalism is a kind of patriotism test. In the Ferguson column you linked to, he writes:
“Liberalism in its present degenerate form is reactionary–a gesture of irritation at the backward quality of ordinary American life, at its culture, its food and dress and amusements and politics, and especially at the mindless and sentimental patriotism that unsophisticated Americans are so quick to embrace.”
Although I don’t agree with this, I wonder if many people on the left would actually, on some level, accept the idea that the southern and midwestern “heartland” is somehow “real” America, which they don’t like and really want to change. Or, failing that, want to leave behind (“I’m going to Canada!”) Unfortunately, I think that we have been too quick to accept conservative memes about the essential “individualistic” and “capitalistic” nature of this country, in part because more communitarian aspects of our history (for example, the labor movement) are so rarely discussed. Which leads to a strange irony. The NY Times book review had a piece on Rush Limbaugh recently. Six of Rush’s ancestors fought in the Civil War – all of them on the Confederate side. Somehow the traitors to this country ended up being the ones who call themselves the superpatriots.
We’re exceptional because we’re the bullies at the top of the heap right now. So the constraints on other countries don’t apply to us. Whatever the neo-fascists might want, that’s changing radically even as we blather. Militarily we’ve done nothing but lose or draw for the last half century. Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that we’re stupid and incompetent. We’re done as the world’s superpower, like it or not. The only real question is whether we make the transition intelligently and suvivably, as the Brits mostly did, or do we resist until the rest of the world demotes us on their terms? Of course Europe et al would rather keep their free ride. So what? They’ll adjust. The issue is, will we?
As to the mind of the “conservative”, as you insist on mischaracterizing them, it’s kind of like pondering the mind of a paramecium. They want Team America to be Number One because then they can think the specialness rubs off on them. It doesn’t go any deeper than that.
I was watching a program on the History Channel tonight about marijuana laws around the world, and there was a conservative woman on who opposed decriminalization or legalization of pot. And they asked her why Portugal’s good experience with decriminalization wouldn’t transfer to America. She said basically that it was because we’re a superpower.
How’s that for logic?
Good points overall, but this part is not historically accurate: “we took it upon ourselves to take a lead role in rebuilding the world on terms more consistent with our values than the values of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Hirohito.”
On the contrary. We interfered with the democratic process in Italy to keep socialists from coming to power. We supported dictatorships all over Latin America and the Middle East. We supported a fascist dictator in Greece right after WWII. The CIA stole Marshall Fund money and used it to set up right-wing dictatorships in many corners of the planet.
I can’t think of any place where we actually succeeded in putting a better government in place than the one that was there originally, with the possible exception of Saddam. And that’s not an action we really had any justification to perform, regardless of the outcome. I do not believe the end ever justifies the means. The whole effort should be justified, or not.
Japan. Germany.
Durr.
I think it’s much simpler than most of they hypotheses posted.
It’s about envy, jealousy, and perceived intellectual and cultural inferiority.
It’s the same reason the conservatives get all bent out of shape about “coastal elites”, “ivory tower academics”, etc.