Unexceptional Americans

Who are the Unexceptional Americans. Unexceptional Americans are those pseudo-Americans who strive to place the brass ring of mediocrity within reach of every fellow citizen.

I’ve been reading up some on the concept of American Exceptionality. It’s probably easier to explain than define as shown by this quote from Wikipedia:

American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States and the American people hold a special place in the world, by offering opportunity and hope for humanity, derived from a unique balance of public and private interests governed by constitutional ideals that are focused on personal and economic freedom. Political science defines it as a presence of unique traits in the United States, such as high levels of religiosity and the failure of socialist parties, that do not correlate with national characteristics in other industrialized and democratic countries.

Or, in a nutshell, we’re a unique people doing things in our own unique way, and it works for us so well that we think that we should serve as a role model for the world. If you’re a Leftist, this is a bad thing. Even if they aren’t aware of it, I believe most Americans operate under some form of this philosophy. Unfortunately, few of them own networks or newspaper conglomerates—or have tenure for that matter.

As a nation, we’re pretty much the closest thing the world has ever seen to a meritocracy, though we fall far too short, far too often. If you’re a Leftist, this is a bad thing. The idea that things should be distributed to people on the basis of merit boggles many a Liberal mind. Just like the concept of a person who works twice as much getting paid twice as much.

Why would the United States be unique among nations? Because it is the Enlightenment’s only child. I found this best stated while reading some Objectivist material (Rand, Peikoff, and the like). It was said that the United States was “the last dying gasp of the Enlightenment”. Soon after that the intelligentsia would be thumbing their collective noses at Enlightenment ideals and the world would be hearing about the proletariat, class struggles, bourgeoisie, noble savages, etc.

The problem is that the Left, for all their education and worldliness, never really picked up on the fact that the institutions of the United States, with the possible exception of religion, are the new kids on the block. Throughout history, the Left, or their equivalents in other times, keep “repainting” and “renaming” the same old crap and then convincing themselves it’s “new and improved”. In the Leftist Nirvana, some people exist for the sake and convenience of other people and are coerced to due their duty in that regard, usually those cursed with intelligence and ability.

In our nation of course we have (at least partially) capitalism, property rights, universal suffrage, democratically elected representative republicanism, checks and balances, a civilian controlled military, limits on police power, and too much more to mention. These are the new ideas historically speaking. No matter how hard the Left tries to convinces us otherwise.

This is all a good thing. I like the idea of living in a country where I can make my own mistakes and make my own way and even start all over again if need be. I have never understood why most people want to blend into the herd, seem to crave the anonymity in fact. I don’t know. Maybe being a Liberal in the United States is like being a Muslim in the 21st Century. It’s hard to hang onto your most basic values and beliefs when everything around you proves that it’s a lie. What do you think?

A Gold Watch for Hitler

I think it has been pretty firmly established that Hitler was a pretty rotten guy. After all, we’ve been badmouthing him since the 1930s, the 1920s for some of our older folks. As a matter of a fact, he’s been dead for 60 years and we just can’t shut up talking about him, even though his government has been defunct and unable to implement policy for all that time.

I once read some sage who stated that a problem of modern society is that old Adolf was evil made flesh and that with his death Hitlerian evil was effectively banished from the Earth. That’s not true. Adolf wasn’t the first “Hitler” and he wasn’t the last. Compared to gems like Pol Pot, Hitler’s percentage of his own population wiped out makes him look like a piker.

I, for one, am getting sick of Hitler references when there is so much fresh evil in the world. How refreshing would it be if the next time someone who couldn’t refute one of your arguments called you a “damn mullah” instead of a “damn Nazi”. I’ve even heard on some Internet forums they have a Hitler Rule that says whenever someone compares someone else to Hitler or calls him a Nazi, the discussion thread is considered officially dead.

So, I say we give Adolf and his Scary Men a metaphorical gold watch and move on to current and fresher hells. A wonderfully descriptive term has been coined for our most worrisome enemies: Islamofascists. Never has a new term captured its target concept so well. Naturally, the Left (big fans of the Hitler/Nazi analogy) objects to the term. I think it’s illustrative to review what Fascism is. My dictionary defines it as:

A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

If one substitutes the term religion for the phrase nation and often race, you will find a description that sounds creepily familiar. I have read of Islamic clerics who state explicitly that the American idea of separating church and state is incomprehensibly ludicrous, because (paraphrasing) “Church IS the State.” This is a political philosophy, movement, or regime that has been known to execute women for wearing make up.

Political Correctness be damned. It isn’t a sin to know who the Boogeyman is.

It’s Not Racism—It’s a Software Problem

It’s a pity that we don’t teach rhetoric in school anymore. Not too long ago it was considered one of the 7 constituents of a good classical education. These days not much is left of that curriculum and what is left has been bled dry of substance by pseudo-enlightened teaching methods.

I’ve taken a course on rhetoric, which was helpful, but I’ve learned the most about it by countless hours of pondering mind-bendingly inane pronouncements trumpeted by people who should have known better, and the enthusiastic and unbelievably uncritical acceptance by all the nodding heads in attendance.

The best working definition of rhetoric that I’ve come across is as follows: The art and science of persuasion. Note that word: persuasion. This has nothing to do with logic or logical argument whereby, if properly done, one arrives at a correct conclusion. Rhetoric is convincing someone that some conclusion is the correct one whether it is or not. Considerable rhetoric has been expended talking teenage girls out of their virginity in the backseats of cars. Just about any abandoned single mother struggling to get her life back on track will tell you that going along wasn’t the correct conclusion.

It’s been a long road for me, but I’ve figured out our adversaries well enough that I can spot the flaws in the reasoning and their rhetorical legerdemain fairly easily. However, I see many good folks around me struggling with the Left’s tricky arguments, then shrugging their shoulders and going on, leaving the asinine pronouncements unchallenged. For all our good qualities, American’s lack of ambition toward intellectual rigor is a serious national flaw. One that scares me more than a little.

Leaving the jargon aside for the time being, I’ve noticed two things that people on the Right/Conservative/Libertarian side need to watch out for. First are false dichotomies, or taking something that has to be considered as a whole and splitting it into parts that can’t stand on their own so as to knock them down more easily. Second is the flip-side of the first. Taking separate elements and deliberately conflating them so as to use valid (maybe) criticisms of one to drag down the other. All of which brings me to my point. Racism, culturalism, nationalism, and any other number of –isms are frequently entirely separate issues that need to be considered, debated, and accepted or rejected as separate entities.

Conflating racism and culturalism is one of the biggest problems today and a current favorite rhetorical tap dance of the Left. The Left insists on treating these as two sides of the same coin making it impossible to condemn one without condemning the other. This, of course is insane in general, and never more insane than when it is applied to the United States.

Racism against Hispanics? Hispanics are not a race. The word itself has traditionally meant Spanish-speaking, thereby referring to a linguistic group as opposed to a genetically similar group of people. A conveniently forgotten fact is that Spain, the source of Spanish, is a Western European country, further west than England, the source of the “Gringo” language. Spaniards are Caucasians.

What about Latinos, as in Latin America? Well, what about it” In Latin America ethnicities range from pure Caucasian (who are the elites that run the show and own just about everything), through pure Amerindians, through Mestizos (mixed race people) to black folks. Besides, I’m not so sure we should call it “Latin” America. After all, for the Amerindians, they didn’t pursue anything Latin, it came and conquered them.

What about Islam? The same principal applies. Racially, Muslims range from the whitest of Caucasians in Eastern Europe, a relic of Islamic imperial conquest, to the darkest of Africans on that continent. Islam is not a race; it is a fascist ideology masquerading as a religion.

When I try to explain the difference to someone, I usually use a computer analogy. Culture is to race as software is to hardware. Despite what poverty pimps and professional grievance-mongers may tell you, racism is all but beaten and progress is still made everyday. If the Republican Party is the Party of hate and the status quo, why are so many of them begging a black woman to be their presidential candidate in 2008? Why did Walter Williams, a famous and distinguished black economist, go on the radio and announce to white liberals, “You’re forgiven, you can stop acting stupid now”?

You would have to have been living under a rock to avoid people of minority persuasions that have long since disproved the “hardware” theory of racism. I have met people of all races who are significantly smarter than I am, and I dwell on the lonely fringes of the right side of the bell curve.

So what is the crucial difference? Software. Or as it applies to human beings—culture. Millions of people want to immigrate to the United States to partake in its freedoms, material wealth, and opportunities. Sadly, many of these folks no longer want to assimilate. In fact, they consider it an outrage that they would be expected to do so. Rather the existing culture is expected to change to accommodate their presence. In essence they expect this country to load their cultural “software” over our own. All this reminds me very much of my experience teaching in a rural school. Frequently, parents would move there hoping to get their children away from the bad big city influences. More often than not, those children were the big city influences. I recall one girl in particular who lasted only 4 days before being arrested for dealing cocaine.

So, what does this all mean? I suppose somebody has to have the guts to say it, so I will. Mexicans, your hardware is fine, just as good as anybody else. Your software, on the other hand, sucks. When you come here, legally of course, check your cultural baggage at the door.

There’s an old saying that says something like, “If the people knew what it was that they wanted, they wouldn’t want it.” The same applies here. If American culture is swamped and displaced by Mexican culture, or just about any other for that matter, in 10 years this country will be a “has-been” like France. In 20 years it would be a Third World nation. Then who would the rest of the world “borrow” money from then?