Is the U.S. unique and is it the 'greatest country in the world'?

[Common Sense Party]

I can't post this as a poll, unfortunately. But this is from this week's Gallup poll. The question is:

"Because of the United States' history and Constitution, do you think the U.S. has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world, or don't you think so?"




The whole poll and its findings are here:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145358/Americans-Exceptional-Doubt-Obama.aspx?version=print

[HEyHEY]

1. No

There's no such thing as the greatest country in the world. They all have good and bad points.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. All empires have this sense of Exceptionalism.

Yet another trend to the end of it, when there is a need to prove it.

[alex cross]

3. I don't know if it's so much empire as it is human nature for people

to "imprint" and identify with their country, state, hometown or where ever they were born and raised.
Hell, I know people in Arizona who moved here from Louisiana, a state that ranks like 50th in most areas of quality of life, that still call it home and bristle at any criticism of their native state.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Exceptionalism is part and parcel of imperial behavior

Whether it is the pax romana, or the Habsburg belief that the sun did not set in the Spanish Empire, or Englsh bluster to the same effect 100 years later.

This is not run of the mill nationalism. On the fall it is very depressing as the nation discovers history also applies to them too.

[alex cross]

5. I was only replying to the results of the poll not as to whether

societies and cultures advance or decline. I would venture to say that if the same survey was to be conducted in any country or region in the world the results would remain remarkably constant.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. No they would not

But Empires behave in predictive ways. The fact that a poll was done is a marker in itself.

It is not my nation is great. It is we're chosen, we're special and we're outside history that is a characteristic of imperial behavior.

[alex cross]

8. Oh, I think you under estimate the nationalism and pride of

country that exists in the world. Pay attention to World Cup Soccer, The Olympics or even Manny Pacquiao when he beat the crap out of Antonio Margarito. Even the rescued miners in Chile wrapped themselves in the flag and where chanting their home country's name. Ask anyone of them what the greatest most exceptional country in the world is and what do you think the answer would be?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I did not grow up in the us

It is different...

Oh and you mean Chile by the way.

[alex cross]

11. But I'm sure you retain a certain amount of pride and patriotic

feeling for the country you did grow up in, it would only be natural.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. I retain pride for the humanitarian work I dd

Goes beyond nation.

As I said, it's different.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. That's not what American exceptionalism is about...

I thought I'd give my AU$0.02 cents worth seeing as how I'm not American and have always lived in another country. I can understand people feeling some patriotism, but that's not what US exceptionalism is all about. It's about believing that the US is the Greatest Place In The World and unique and about feeling sorry for all the rest of us unfortunate folk who by an accident of birth aren't able to experience the freedom of everything and the sheer wonderfulness of the US. While the belief of uniqueness is unique to the US, nothing else that gets bragged about as being unique to the US is. Freedom? Yeah, no other country has freedom, just the US. Only place in the world you can start with nothing and make millions? Never EVER happens anywhere else. A wonderful healthcare system that the rest of the world is jealous of? A fantastic and solid housing market where you know that the bottom's not going to fall out of the market and yr house now being valued at a few thousand dollars is about to be foreclosed on by some bank you've never heard of coz they weren't the guys you dealt with 15 years ago when you bought the house. The freedom to travel to Cuba whenever you want for whatever reason you want? I know I'm absolutely exuding jealousy at all those freedoms I don't have!! ;)

[Iterate]

24. I've been lucky enough

to know students from all over the world, quite a few actually, and not one of them ever so much as hinted that they thought their country was the "greatest". In fact, whenever the issue would come up in reference to the American attitude, they thought the very idea nonsensical or repugnant.

Culture though was different. While never considering theirs the "greatest", they were all eager to share their food, stories, holiday traditions, language idioms, manner of dress, and so on.

The only one I can remember who I thought was even defensive about it was a young gay man from Yemen who felt the world wasn't giving Arab and Islamic traditions and learning their due respect -and that was in 2003 or 2004, so he was probably right. We sat at a bar, got drunk together, and he gave me a flawless four hour history lesson. I left feeling certain that Yemen was the greatest country.

[Bluenorthwest]

45. Of course in Yemen it is illegal to be gay. So the irony factor

is rather large. Additionally, in Yemen it is illegal to drink in public, and you can be lashed for it. Did this young man have anything to say about either subject? He's sitting in the west being openly gay and getting drunk in a bar, but he would rather be home, in the closet, subject to prison, not drinking in a bar?
He was defensive because he knows these things.

[Iterate]

50. We didn't discuss it much, as it didn't seem to interest him.

With an atheist American and a Yemeni Muslim attending a German Christmas party at an Italian restaurant, we had about every difference that a western political and sociological perspective would consider important, and in a setting where the differences were accentuated. On the face of it we should have been arguing something or other for weeks.

And yet none of those things mattered to him or seemed interesting. He didn't seem troubled by the contradictions you mentioned (or didn't wish to share them, as they were his business), but one that did matter above was respect, something that the western perspective doesn't place in the top rank of importance and I wouldn't have guessed beforehand would have been the topic-of-the-day. For that reason the notion of American exceptionalism got under his skin and he made sure I was schooled whether I needed it or not.

His main point was that what Americans saw as a exceptional claim of moral superiority was largely hypocritical, and that attempts to install a system of morality or democracy at the point of a gun were self-contradictory, doomed, and blocked a more substantial cultural understanding. I thought it a pretty sophisticated understanding for a 23 year-old, agreed, and could only offer an explanation of American history and politics.

[LibDemAlways]

7. Greatest country? Hell no. Our infrastructure is crumbling. We have laughable or no

public transportation outside of major cities and piss poor public transportation even in some major cities. We don't provide basic health care for our citizens. We turn our backs on millions living in poverty. We train our kids to be test takers rather than thinkers. We pay way too much attention to movie stars and celebrities and crap tv and too little to anything that requires a working brain. We waste millions on empire building and bailing out corrupt bankers, but we can't afford even a modest increase in social security benefits, and we stupidly elect millionaires who have no problem with destroying what little safety net exists for the poor.

Country with the most over inflated ego, perhaps. Greatest? No way.

[jaysunb]

9. There may be some validity to the "unique" aspect.

America's ever evolving experiment in multi-culture society, is certainly unique in history, for good or ill.

I'm actually glad to be a part of it. :)

[white_wolf]

13. The Constition and our ideas

and principles were great, but those have long since been cast aside. Now were on the road to becoming the new Rome. Except were going to skip the whole "Pax Romana" and go straight into the decline.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. We did the pax romana already

The cold war

:-)

[white_wolf]

15. I wouldn't

really consider that an ear of peace seeing as how their was Vietnam and Korea. Not to mention the possibility of Nuclear Holocaust. Oh and I apologize if that was meant as a joke answer I have a hard time telling when people are serious through text. Though if it isn't I do see how in some ways it could be considered a pax romana since we did rather well economically for the most part, well until Regan but I kind of consider him our own personal Nero.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Pax romana didn't mean peace either

:-)

Reagan as Nero that's funny though.

[white_wolf]

19. I thought

about going with Commodus, but I believe Nero went insane in the end and lets face it Regan was losing his, well lets call it "mind" during the last years of his presidency so I thought Nero was a better fit.

[treestar]

41. No they have not

We still function under that same Constitution.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. The answer is no

And the US Constitution is not unique; it embodies in a single document ideas from Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights of 1689, and various other sources. None of them is original and most of them have their origins in the long history of the development of individual rights and constitutional government in England. America's history as a nation of immigrants is one shared by several other countries in the Americas. And in terms of power, America is merely the latest empire on the global stage. Was Britain the greatest country in the world at the height of the Victorian age?

[white_wolf]

17. If your responding to me

I didn't see it was unique I just said it was a very good document, but you are absolutely correct it isn't unique at all.

[Indi Guy]

20. Unfortunately...

...the multinational cooperations & banks have bought D.C. ...and are in the final stages of totally evisceration our Constitution.

[Peace Patriot]

21. It's a stupid question, stupidly framed as a yes or no opinion. The results are meaningless.

They might as well be asking a child, "Do you love your Daddy?" Who knows what the answer would mean? The answer may be "yes" but the child, in truth, is suffering "Stockholm Syndrome" in an abusive situation.

The question is furthermore intended to feed off of intense, jingoistic, stupid-making, corpo-fascist propaganda throughout the corpo-fascist media. The co-opted Fifth Estate has utterly failed to promote intelligent discussion and a "ferment of ideas," as the Founders of our country hoped would occur. They instead promote shouting matches between rightwing and far rightwing views. Huge amounts of critically important information is missing, black-holed, ignored, marginalized--for instance, the entire history of the labor movement in this country, or the artificiality of private property as opposed to "the commons"--the foundation of capitalism--brought over from England, just after the disastrous "enclosure" laws in England (disastrous for the English poor, for the Irish poor and disastrous for Native Americans) As a consequence of these MANY MISSING PIECES in the corporate-run national political discussion, and the extremely distorted character of that discussion, few Americans have knowledge and understanding of our history. At best, they have a highly superficial notion of our history. In addition they know virtually nothing of the history of anybody else--a failure of our school system and of the corporate propaganda machine. So how can they answer the question, is the U.S. "unique" or "the greatest country in the world"?

And how many Americans can describe even the bare outline of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, let alone the details, debates, and legal and political history of those documents? And what do they know of OTHER constitutions to be able to say that "because of" the U.S. Constitution the U.S. "is the greatest country in the world"? With the barest historical understanding and the barest understanding of foundational documents and premises, how can Americans answer that question or grasp how stupid--and even insulting--the question is?

Please understand that I am NOT dissing my fellow and sister Americans. I do NOT think that it is our peoples' fault that they are so disinformed. And I also think our people do surprisingly well in forming opinions under a virtual "Iron Curtain" of corporate disinformation, propaganda and brainwashing. But to put a question to them designed to elicit a jingoistic response, based on their two biggest areas of induced ignorance--history and foundational law--is bound to produce a meaningless answer.

What is Gallup trying to gauge here--how much ignorant "cannon fodder" they have in the U.S., to waste on corporate resource wars? How many slaves they have created who believe that they, too, can become billionaires? How many have swallowed the goddamn lies of our multinational corporate/war profiteers?

Here's a question they SHOULD be asking: Do you know WHO is counting your vote, and HOW?

What has become of "the greatest country in the world"? Is it even a democracy any more, if one, private, far rightwing corporation--ES&S, which just bought out Diebold--is 'counting' almost all the votes (80%) with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, and with virtually no audit/recount controls?

Is that what should be happening in "the greatest country in the world"? It may, indeed, be "unique," but is it democracy?

[Kalun D]

23. 6TH?

I think we're ranked about 6th right now in overall quality of life etc.

[Laelth]

25. It is what it is.

It can always be made better.

-Laelth

[hobbit709]

26. No and No.

[WinkyDink]

27. OFGS, not even CLOSE to "greatest," for liveability!

[Javaman]

28. If this "poll" was in regards of an election it would be push poll. it's a BS question. nt

[kctim]

29. Yes and Yes

Unique because we do for ourselves rather than rely on government and that has led to us becoming the greatest country.
A very hard pill to swallow for the very small minority who wish us to become just like any other country.

[marmar]

34. ............

[kctim]

38. Care to explain

why you falsely believe our individualism has not been the main contributor to our culture and success?

Or maybe even why, as usual, the vast majority of Democrats disagree with the far-left assertion that we are not?

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. I'll explain this to you, which you will not like by the way

Empires believe they are exceptional and unique, even with a sense of being chosen by God. In fact, Imperial Citizens believe the nation lives outside of history. It does not matter if this is Rome.. .which had this feeling of being unique and chosen and damn it the Empire lasted four centuries. Spain, where the sun never sets... and indeed it never did... and they were chosen by God and they were unique and they were going to guide the world to a new era... and save millions of souls. England, where the Sun never sets, and damn it we are going to be above history and we are unique. This is AN IMPERIAL TRAIT.

The Us is the latest in a slew of Empires to believe this. Even twenty years ago you could say this with the cocksureness of any imperial citizen across history. Alas we are on our way down as an Empire, and like any Roman Citizen of the Fought Century, any Spanish Citizens of the 19th, all the way to the early 20th, and any British Citizen of the 1950s, we are about to learn just how much part of history, and not outside it, we are.This is not a left right issue. It is almost a law of history. Empires rise, and Empires fall, and citizens caught in the process have delusions about how great they are.

You'll see, it is happening in OUR lifetime the fall that is. In fact, we exhibit all the sighs and symptoms that it is already here... and this poll is a joke, as it is exactly one of those trends that point to it.

Have fun.. disparaging those you don't like. But history is not something we can escape. What is it that Santayana wrote?

[kctim]

44. I actually agree with much you say

But I do not believe individual love and belief in, of their own country is the cause of fall. Of course, such sentiment is dangerous when the people of a nation rely more on government than they do themselves, and of course government will take advantage of the people when the people are dumb enough to place themselves in that position, but our nation has not yet reached that point.

There is nothing delusional about how unique and great we are. What is delusional though, is throwing it all away in false hopes of becoming just like every other country where government takes care of us instead of working for us.

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. You are telling me we are not an empire in decline?

We are.

Oh and I will add this, social programs are not socialism... or communism or wrong. We may actually get it AFTER the fall, and the fog lifts.

[Spider Jerusalem]

48. Right-wing ignorance much?

What exactly do Americans do for themselves? And what exactly do people in other countries rely on their governments for? I can't really think of a lot in most Western European countries that's substantially different in a lot of respects. Apart from the fact that Europeans don't have to worry about going bankrupt over healthcare costs or student loans when compared to Americans, that is. And that European workers still for the most part have stronger trade unions than their American counterparts.

[Cutatious]

30. Not as much as it used to be

Work ethic is awol and laziness has become an epidemic.

[rucky]

31. We are unique in the way "we the people" seem to accept our mediocraty

as exceptionalism.

[marmar]

32. No. It's another country that morphed into an empire that's now in decline.

quod erat demonstrandum

[RegieRocker]

33. Greatest at pulling the wool over peoples eyes?

People think it's the greatest country therefore doesn't need to look at what other countrys are doing and how it might benefit them. Not willing or interested in making the country better because it's good enough? Want to take it back to 40 year life span?

[sinkingfeeling]

35. No and no.

[deaniac21]

36. There is nothing exceptional about the United States other than

the fact that it has, as citizens, nadin and zbigniew brzezinski! Everything else is below average.

[BlueCheese]

37. Unique: Yes. Greatest: Who knows?

It's silly for any country to claim to be the greatest country in the world. It's a silly question. You may as well as someone if his or her children are the best children in the world.

But the United States is certainly unique. Like it or not, because of our economic and military strength, the world often looks to the US to solve certain global problems. For example, consider the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The US and Bill Clinton are frequently criticized for not intervening during the horrific massacres. Why us? To the extent that external influence helped cause the genocide, it was the result of European (Belgian) colonization. So why do people blame us for our inaction, and not Canada, or China, or Australia for theirs? Because rightly or wrongly, by virtue of our strength, we are expected to provide a leadership role when it comes to international affairs.

[DavidDvorkin]

39. What country is not unique? And what's the measure for "greatnes"?

[treestar]

40. Yes , but then so is every other country

Everyone is going to feel that way about their own country.

[dmosh42]

43. It has become a 'great oligarchy'! n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

46. No. Just another in a long line of washed up has-beens on it's way to Palookaville.

[Iggo]

49. Too soon to tell.

[patrick t. cakes]

51. Makes me think of a billboard I noticed today

while delivering flowers for my uncle.

A picture of a child, wrapped Christmas present in hand, giant Disney eyes,
you can almost hear Bing Crosby,

And its captioned with

"A Christmas Tradition, the Enchanted Forest now at............. Menards"



Menards? Tradition? :puke:


Sorry this country blows and is gong to keep blowing.

Try delivering flowers in the burbs for week, you get a real sense of just how much of a corporate
wasteland this place has become.






(Italics added)

[hunter]

52. We built the most nuclear weapons first...

... and the tools to deliver them anywhere, any time.

We attached our dollar and financial system inextricably to oil.

We built the greatest military empire ever.

We invented consumerism. We want, want want! Mine, mine, mine!

We're Number One!

Until Mother Nature gives us a big kick in the face...

Peak Oil, climate change, and overpopulation... it is now.

We're face down on the floor with the cartoon stars and little birdies circling our heads.

We just don't know it yet.

We could figure out how to live in peace with ourselves and our environment, but we won't, not until we hit rock bottom.

We are unique, but "greatest country in the world???"

There can be no such thing. Nationalism carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

When we humans are one people living on one earth, living in harmony with ourselves in a sustainable environment...

...then we will be great.

If not we are just a bunch of clever murderous apes headed down the path to extinction.

[cherokeeprogressive]

53. Yes

I can't think of another country whose boundaries have the same shape as those of the United States.

Unique among nations.