American Exceptionalism

Posted by Buck68 on May 23rd, 2010 filed in Uncategorized

by Buck68™, May 23rd 2010
©2010 by Buck68™, all rites re-served. Each use whatsoever requires prior written permission from the author [email: abuck68@yahoo.com]

Finally, a simple issue!

A simple illustration of how applying a Divine moral differs from any man made standard.

On to the Question: Is America ‘exceptional’ or a nation among nations?

Corollary Question: if a nation is “uniquely founded or justified”; or, “submits itself to Ultimate Moral Authority” …does that origin and that allegience make it ‘better’ than others, i.e. ‘exceptional’? Does this corollary sound a little like “the Chosen People”? Or “God is on our side”?

Discussion.

1-Both our Declaration of Independence and Constitution identify the Ultimate Authority for our independence, our constitution, and indiviudal inalienable rights as the “Creator/God”. The declaration “all men are created equal”, includes…all…men. It does not exclude any individual anywhere. A person does not have to believe in God, in order to rationally recognize Who alone legitimizes and justifies America the nation and individual rights.

2-Where is “Exceptional” status stated, assumed, or implied in our Declaration and Constitution? No where.

3-Where do individuals, groups, nations assert some form of “we’re ‘exceptional’”? Yes. Such assertions take many forms. Such assertions are, to use a biblical term, “legion”.

4-A few familiar versions of “exceptional”:
I’m better than you.
My group is better than yours.
I/we am/are ‘right in my/our own mind’.
They’ are ‘to blame’
My ends justify my means
I tell you/they what is ‘just’ and ‘right for you’. AKA ’social justice’, ‘our justice’.
You/your group I pick is/is not “special” [both positive and negative forms of this assertion].
My country is right / wrong.

5-Consider: whether religious, social, rational…any means of human relations …the presumption of “exceptional” STATUS is a judgment of ‘who’s better’.

6-Is Jesus Christ’s moral distinction here, both unique to mankind and congruent with the distinction between our equality in His creation, and any person’s opportunities at any time during this gift of life?

7-[NASB version] Matthew 7:11. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father Who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?”

8-Mat 7:11 identifies the key relationships between people, God, good, and evil. It declares every individual is in the same STATE OF BEING: evil. Therefore, NO person either starts or becomes “exceptional” [moral, right] on his own. Therefore, NO person possesses/gains moral authority OVER another person.

9-Yet, our world is full of religions, societies, philosophies, ideologies – of individuals and groups – dedicating themselves to how they are ‘exceptional’ and therefore justified in ‘doing to others whatever they feel is right’. AKA revenge, getting even, or taking from them and giving to us.

10-Our human history is full of the same.

11-Yet amidst all this evil justified by the common evil of “I’m exceptional” … any person is at liberty at any time, place, circumstance, to ‘give good gifts’.

It is this individual exercise of ‘giving good gifts’ – to self, family, others you choose – that is a lifelong proof of your individual inner liberty given you by God – that the organizings of men, seek to control for their own ends.

Consider the forms of deception to gain advantage: imaging, advertising, marketing, blaming, intimidating, fearmongering, inciting, enticing, bribing, rationalizing, misspeaking…. All forms of LYING. And, of course, LYING no longer “rises to the level” in this America by vote of Congress and acquiescence of the Supreme Court since 1998. America is a free for all, survival of the fittest territory where any person or group can descend to any level and do whatever they can get away with.

The only thing ‘exceptional’ about our present country…is the amount of self-deception necessary to sustain our foolishness in this former Republic. As Shakespeare put it: “oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”.