We are exceptional...exceptionally lucky:
We were able to amass a territory of several million square miles with only negligible resistance by the few stone age level inhabitants that were already living there. In fact there were hundreds of thousands of square miles upon which no one , white or red, had ever set foot on. This vast territory was gained with a minimum expenditure of blood and treasure. Within its boundaries virtually every crop could be grown , save for a few tropical exotics and virtually every mineral and metal was found with ease and abundance. We were protected from any would be aggressor by two vast oceans that cost us nothing, while other nations, great and small, had to expend considerable treasure to defend their borders with expensive standing armies and fortifications. Our immediate neighbors, Mexico and Canada never posed a significant threat. In the case of Mexico , we waged a brief imperialist war that netted territory that rivaled in size the entire Roman Empire at its height. As for Canada, geopolitically it exists largely as a semi- autonomous republic under American suzerainty.
But we are also exceptional in other ways:
Slavery was a legal institution until 1865 when it was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.
Only two nuclear weapons were ever detonated in anger and the United States was responsible for both
About two million civilians have been killed by strategic bombing since its inception , the United States is responsible for at least 80% of them
We carpet bombed virtually every German and Japanese city in World War ll into rubble and in the post war era we added a few dozen more in Korea , SouthEast Asia and the Middle East .
The United States was the innovator of virtually every weapon of mass destruction since the 1940's: atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, neutron bomb, nuclear submarines , multiple war heads, stealth air craft , cluster bombs etc
We spend more money on our military than the rest of the world combined .
We are the world's largest exporter of weapons
We lag behind virtually every industrialized nation in literacy, literacy, life expectancy and infant mortality
Our legislatures have incumbency reelection rate that rivals the British House of Lords.
We have the Kardashians
We have exercised our UN veto in defense of Israel dozens of times while preaching to the world about human rights.
We have transferred hundreds of billions of US tax payer dollars to Israel , a racist theocracy , who by any standard is the most dangerous country on the planet.
During the Cold War we supported a variety of mainly third world thugs in the name of anti-communism.
We permit our President to target any one any where in the world that he deems a threat to our security..even American citizens.
From: GiuseppeFurioso@aol.com
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 9:31 PM
Subject: American Exceptionalism
