American Exceptionalism for Dummies

We Can Kill You, and You May Not Object

Shorter Tom Friedman:

It's perfectly okay, and even admirable and required, for us to invade and occupy countries that don't threaten us, murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, destroy entire nations, and destabilize the broader Middle East.

It is definitely not okay for anyone who lives in those other countries to object. If they understood what's good for them, they'd shut up and die.

It's sort of American Exceptionalism for Dummies, written by one of the chief dummies.

P.S. If you can't access the entire article, you may think I misrepresent Friedman's argument. If so, I provide one key sentence: "It would be depressing to see the jihadists influence our politics with a Tet-like media/war frenzy." In Friedman's world, you see, all those Iraqis who oppose the U.S. occupation and who seek to control their own lives are "jihadists." They just don't understand that we're trying to improve them, and bring them the blessings of liberty. powerofnarrative

Exceptionalism is a claim, a pattern of claiming, or an assertion that the subject under discussion is claiming, special exemption to commonly-held relationships or principles. It is used most frequently in historical surveys and in association with an assertion of destiny, i.e. that the supposedly exceptional character draws from or is intended or useful for a larger, perhaps ideological, purpose. Wikipedia