America Should Focus on Exceptionalism Not Imperfections
By: Michael Busler
America 🇺🇸🦅🗽is an exceptional and awesome nation. We are a shining city upon a hill. A beacon of light in a dark world. We were founded by divine Providence in 1776. Our founding document the Declaration of Independence states well who we are a nation recognizing a creator who is the source of all our inalienable rights and what we hope to be, a more perfect Union. We are not perfect. No nation is. We made some mistakes along the way but have overcome them to this point. We are one nation under God per our pledge and per our national motto, in God we Trust. We have inherited greatness and are duty bound to keep it and pass it on. America has no greater enemy than its own citizens who navel gaze at and obsess over every mistake we ever made while denying the good America has done and our exceptional nature as a God blessed nation.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Source: AP Photo/John Raoux
Starting about 15 years ago a trend began that convinced Americans to focus on this country’s imperfections rather than its exceptionalism. This now rapidly growing trend has resulted in long-term economic stagnation and a deeply divided country.
America’s astonishing growth and well spread generosity has resulted in the world’s most prosperous country. It has also resulted in keeping much of the world safe from unwanted oppression, mostly by leading the victories in World War I and World War II. America fought other wars around the globe that protected our security interests but mostly help preserve freedom in other countries.
America was however, not perfect. Slavery and racism had been common practices in virtually every country in the world since the beginning of recorded history. Tragically, and what today seems like obvious ignorance, people just accepted that as normal.
About 90 years after our country was founded, we realized the unjust treatment of human beings was not consistent with the principles that America followed. Slavery was abolished. Deep seeded racism would, however, take a lot longer.
About 100 years after slavery was abolished, America made civil rights the law of the land, so that all people, regardless of skin color, had to be treated equally. Finally America had corrected its system to reflect its values. Racism within individuals could not be fixed quite as quickly.
Sometimes there are people whose ignorant and negative beliefs span generations. Often when these people have not had success in life or have faced tragedy, they look to blame others.
Their prejudice makes it easy for them to blame people of color.
Sometimes it’s the circumstances and the behavior of the minority groups that contributes to the racism. Since many have not been afforded adequate education and economic opportunities, they tend to have lower average income levels and higher than average crime rates. That fuels the racists.
In spite of those and other imperfections, miraculous advancements have been made in every area that improves the quality of life and our standard of living.
In healthcare, we have eliminated major diseases, fought pandemics in record time and vastly extended the life expectancy. The quality of life has vastly improved since we cure or at least treat almost all major health issues. We even use robotic surgery to quickly and accurately replace knees and hips.
Americans loved to be entertained and are willing to pay handsomely. As such the free market economy has been able to satisfy all of those needs. Large-screen, easy to use televisions are in everyone’s homes. The choice of what to watch is endless. Cable companies now offer hundreds of channels. At least a dozen streaming services allow us to watch what we want, when we want.
America loves sports. Those needs were also satisfied by our free market economy. There are now professional sports leagues with more than 30 teams for baseball, football and basketball. Soccer continues to grow in the US. Add in the tv broadcasting of college football and basketball, golf, tennis, car racing and the Olympics and there something for everyone.
Then there’s technology which has revolutionized our lives. The personal computer hit the market in the early 1980’s. That led to the creation of the internet in the 1990’s. Then can cell phones and tablets which morphed into small computers with wide-ranging communication devices and a high tech camera. This technology has vastly improved the quality of life for the entire population.
We should focus on our achievements instead of focusing on our imperfections. Although we should recognize those imperfections and move to fix them without destroying anything.
Instead we vilify those who we should be thanking. Businesspeople who were able to provide the most satisfying goods and services, became very wealthy. Most are now millionaires and a few are billionaires.
We should be thankful to them for satisfying the needs of consumers and providing opportunity for workers. That’s the way a free market system works: exceptional but not perfect. It provides a fair distribution of income based on an individual’s contribution. Because contributions vary widely, we have an unequal distribution of income.
Focusing on the imperfections will continue to stagnate long term economic growth and further divide the country. Our system is not racist. Barak Obama and Kamala Harris would not have been elected if we have a racist system. There are racist people who need to be better educated.
In the meantime let’s focus on the three-quarter full part of the glass rather than the one-quarter empty.
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What is with this desperate need to say America is "exceptional" and "awesome" ?
I was also struck by the fact that the writer doesnt know how to spell Barack Obama's name, and that the article brags about professional sports when very few working class people can afford to bring their families to live professional, or even college, sports.
The writer marvels at how much people are willing to spend to be entertained, as if paying a ton for cable and streaming is a sign of an advanced civilization.
This is of course the kicker in the article
Uh, higher black crime rates does not mean you need to be a white racist. That is the moron's response.
I think this is the kicker:
Trump, conservatives and the seeder have claimed that during 2016-2019 was the 'greatest' economy ever.
Well that's a HUGE equivocation Xx.
Trump's economic numbers are no better than Obama's and in some criteria, they are worse.
Trump's economy was NEVER the greatest, not even close.
What is with this desperate need to say America is "exceptional" and "awesome" ?
It used to be....the greatest nation on Earth....as some would say
And not without faults and growing pains, which responsible people have worked for decades to rectify.
The radical left seemingly looks at it as divisive and awful....with no hope for renewal and healing.
They seem bound and determined to transform our great nation into a third world shithole
Trump lost 4 million jobs, destroyed most of our relationships with allies, doubled the UE rate and added 8T to the debt and the whole time? Golfed 4x as much as Obama did. Nothing trump did helped the USA...nothing..
Seriously, if you think trump was good for the country, you have been asleep for the last 4 years.
I guess you missed the whole China virus pandemic.
Did China make trump golf his way through the pandemic and lie about it constantly as well??
Canada
Spain
Italy
Germany
S. Korea
UK
Denmark
France
Netherlands
Belgium
Japan
Australia
That's what you asked, I gave you an answer, so now you want to change the question you asked?
Sorry, not going to play your, "bait and switch" question games today.
Seems like all he did was golf and rally...
You're right, he should have said "greatly damaged" instead of destroyed. But his point is valid, Trump severely damaged our relationships with most of our allies while he humped vile dictators legs like a brain damaged dog in heat. Agreeing with Putin over our own intelligence agencies, saying he and Kim Jong Un "fell in love", praising Erdogan and Duterte, letting MBS off the hook after he had a journalist viciously slaughtered, all while disrespecting and ridiculing our allies calling many of them "shithole countries" and ridiculing Angela Merkel, NATO and other European allies. Trump did more damage to our standing in the world in his four years than any other Presidents combined in the last sixty years. Those who refuse to accept this fact are likely just sad whiny bitter protectionists who think being a global leader is a bad thing anyway because they're poorly educated, don't how the world works, gripe about having to pay taxes but think the government owes them a job that doesn't require more than an 8th grade education like mining coal or assembly line manufacturing.
Actually, you only addressed the part of what he wrote that you could find fault with.
"Trump lost 4 million jobs, destroyed most of our relationships with allies, doubled the UE rate and added 8T to the debt and the whole time? Golfed 4x as much as Obama did."
That would be considered a mostly factual statement, except for the word "destroyed" which was too strong and gave you an opportunity to try and ignore the rest of the facts. His point remains the same regardless. Nit picking over one word that was easily understood (obviously we weren't completely cut off from all our allies) just shows how desperate some are to obfuscate the truth about our last President and his blatant failures. So yes, he should have better worded his statement so that it read:
"Trump lost 4 million jobs, greatly damaged most of our relationships with allies, doubled the UE rate and added 8T to the debt and the whole time? Golfed 4x as much as Obama did."
Care to take issue with any of the other facts he stated?
Conservative Republicans were still bitching about Bill Clinton 20 years after he was President, hell Trump even brought Clintons accusers to one of the 2016 debates, but four months after getting the Tangerine Mussolini out of office his supporters are claiming bringing him up as a comparison is "old and stale". Conservative Republican hypocrisy truly knows no bounds.
What does any of that have to do with the origins of the China virus?
You got that right.
China spreading a virus on purpose? Nahhhhh that would never happen ? LOL
Trump in now a private citizen and can golf as much as he wants. The Presidency is in democrat hands as well as The Senate and the House. What are they, the democrats, doing about COVID relief or the food lines or the evictions or the deaths.
Of course they do not believe in American exceptionalism the at diligently trying to bring America down to mediocrity.
Um, I was obviously talking about when he was president.
Why are you insisting of living in the past?
Because ignoring ones faults and shouting about how great you are always makes for a better person/people. /s