Do You Believe in American Exceptionalism?

I don't think we ought to be that dismissive of the notion of philosophical superiority as a whole, but obviously there are several degrees of separation between that and the fanatical kinds of American nationalism that are based on warped notions of Americanism in the first place.

edited 21st Nov '11 9:27:27 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Unique yes, special no. Unless you count simply being large special.

Fight smart, not fair.

In which case, Canada has it beat as far as land area goes, and China has it beat as far as human population goes.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

And the EU in terms of economy.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

AND MOTHER RUSSIA MAKES YOU STRONG!

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Not even, unless you count the UK.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

The UK most definitely is in the EU. It's not a question of "counting" it as such, that's like "counting" Texas as part of the United States.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

Financially the EU is respresented by the Eurozone, which the UK and other countries are absent from, and therefore the US remains #1 on that list.

It depends on whose list you use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

But this is pedantic semantics.

edited 22nd Nov '11 5:56:22 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

The Eurozone is by no means an exclusive representative of the EU. The entire organisation began as, and still mostly is, an economic co-operation treaty aiming to get rid of boundaries between each country's market to create a huge single market with individual countries as slightly distinct (for economic purposes) parts of it.

It doesn't make any sense to claim that only the countries with the Euro are central to or part of the EU's economic policy.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Especially considering the UK is one of the "Big Three". It is disingenuous to discount it on the basis that it doesn't use the euro.

</derail>

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

Not counting non-Euro countries as representative of the EU would be like excluding India and Canada from the Commonwealth of Nations in economic comparisons because their money isn't called the pound.

Oh, uhhh... Yeah. Sorry.

edited 23rd Nov '11 7:10:23 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Topic is American Exceptionalism, ladies and gents, not EU membership validity.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

There seems to be plenty of social mobility. At least in the part of California I live in. My dad went from poor ass immigrant to rich as fuck pretty fast.

I was wondering why frisbees got bigger as they got closer then it hit me.

The research suggests the opposite but stats don't mean squat to the individual.

Dutch Lesbian

As has been said n amount of times before, a couple of cases of someone rising to the top doesn't mean that there's healthy social mobility. For every success story, there are hundreds of equally talented, equally smart people who missed their chance due to dumb luck, and the system isn't designed to make it possible for everyone to increase their standard of living through their own effort.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

The income quintile spread is long enough in America - and the bottom quintile rich enough - that there's only a comparative lack of social mobility in the sense that fewer people can run a marathon than a five-minute mile. (Aside from the very real inadequacy of K-12 education, but on the other hand, European hiring policies are if anything prey to even more idiotic groupthink than American ones.)

That's not what makes America exceptional, though, and American exceptionalism doesn't make the country flat-out invulnerable; I don't know where the OP got that. American exceptionalism has more to do with the fact that all those cushy countries like Sweden get most of their swag from us, and even more of said swag is based on our inventions.

If you feel like reading for the next twenty minutes or so, Bill Whittle explains it better than I ever could.

edited 28th Nov '11 5:49:25 AM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

And America got most of its swag from the Industrial revolution happening in the North of England so its swings and roundabouts mate.

Dutch Lesbian

We have four Wikipedia pages for inventions to one for the English, and the latter is lumped together with discoveries. We started our Industrial Revolution with a lot more tolerance for the mad upstart enterprise than the Brits had, and I still don't think they've entirely caught up.

(Not entirely sure you're not Australian and messing with me, if you're wondering why I'm not addressing you directly. EDIT: Wait, so you're specifically from the Elizabeth Gaskell North of England? Another facet of American exceptionalism, and the most imperiled one, is that we tend to find that sort of factionalism silly.)

edited 28th Nov '11 6:00:06 AM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

Depends on how you define inventions, Doma; not every new development is something you can define and slap a patent on. Also, are you counting the number of inventions in English Wikipedia?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Nope. Not every development is something you can define and slap a patent on. But that number-skewing is on the English side of the equation here. As for ideas, Americans owe John Locke and John Softsword big, but we're the ones who really took the ideas and ran with them. Every published author who's ever been interviewed will tell you about the difference between an idea and its execution.

Also, I didn't say no country besides America can ever do something worthwhile. Wikipedia is boss. It's just that we do it a staggering amount of the time given our population.

Also, because you piqued my interest and I didn't actually know that, Wikipedia's first server was technically hosted in Wales. That's British, but not English.

edited 28th Nov '11 7:04:37 AM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

I mean the English language, not the country. I'd imagine if you looked in the Chinese language pages, for example, the count might be different.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

To answer the OP (too late of course, as usual):

FUCK NO.

This is where I, the Vampire Mistress, proudly reside: http://liberal.nationstates.net/nation=nova_nacio

On Wikipedia, no doubt. This is why Bill Whittle chose the more reliable measure of citations in the nicely polyglot scientific community; Wikipedia is merely a more colorful illustration.

edited 28th Nov '11 7:52:58 AM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!

Sweden is hardly cushy.

And America is helped immensely by its size.

edited 28th Nov '11 2:02:10 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

"For tropers that live in America, and perhaps some non-US tropers, I have been wondering if you believe in the belief that America is inherently different (NOT NESSESARILY BETTER) than other countries. I mean do you think America will eventually fall like so many other nations in the past? "

America is different only in the timing of its rise to power in an age where such a large state can rise up and (as we shall soon see) fall in so short a period. It's going through the same cycle as any other nation, but at a greatly accelerated rate.

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'