On American Exceptionalism

[rodney_g_graves]

Not to be confused with Patriotism nor Nationalism nor Chauvanism.

Bill Whittle makes the case for American Exceptionalism, without confusing the term for nationalism nor chauvanism.

Comments

American Exceptionalism Defended

[rodney_g_graves]

First, I will take it as given that jetfx concedes Whittle's points concerning Military Dominance and lack of Imperial Ambition, while noting that those two items in combination are sufficiently un-precedented to make the case of American Exceptionalism in their own right,

Instead jetfx chooses to argue on the basis of capitation.

Which leads directly to another argument for American Exceptionalism: Net Migration.

The United States is a nation of immigrants. We have grown our population more from immigration than from natural growth. We have attracted not only the "poor downtrodden masses, longing to be free" but also the doctors, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians who longed for that same freedom.

We have a vastly larger population than any other developed nation because we are a shining city on a hill which beckons to those who long to be free, and who long to become American:

Americans are self selected.

Americans, or their ancestors, chose to come here. More importantly, Americans choose to identify ourselves as "Americans." Just that, and no more.

Theodore Roosevelt famously and brilliantly stated that:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

Truer words were never spoken.