American Exceptionalism
Approximately a century ago Teddy Roosevelt said that to leave Hawaii in the hands of Chinese laborers would be a crime against the white race. One Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy followed an earlier day of infamy when a talented, good-looking, intelligent and spectacularly aggressive white population took the islands from the “natives.”
Well, nothing that remarkable there: It is the story of every large political entity. They inevitable have ethnic dimensions. Cowboys and Indians. One guy wins, the other guy gets killed or moved on to a reservation. True here, true everywhere. The first structure of Americans moving west was a fort. The first structure of the Russians moving east toward the Pacific, across an unfathomably large land mass, was a fort. Studies have been done analyzing the ancient history of China through studies of baskets and cooking utensils. One sees a population with distinctive crafts expanding at the expense of other populations. Africa, which is inevitably portrayed as a population that was victimized, reflects a successful displacement of various groups, by a population that looks like it could play in the NBA. Everywhere, inevitably, that first important structure is a fort.
The melody from Republican candidates has a certain consistency: They see the great qualities that make America as successful as it is, but they do not see the fort. It is a perspective that the British might have had. England turned into Great Britain when a big, smart, tough talented population devoured Wales, devoured Ireland, devoured Scotland. One guy wins, one guy loses.
Understand this: That if the central message of this blog is right, and nuclear weapons should best be seen as an IQ test; Republican investment in American exceptionalism has the potential to become spectacularly dangerous for all those future Republicans for generations untold.
In previous generations white people who spoke English could interfere with other peoples’ forts without risk to the white homeland. That is no longer possible.
There are encouraging signs: Congressmen Paul, Pat Buchanan and those Republican legislators who are expressing reservations about another adventure in Libya, deserve praise. But, without the IQ argument, they will never see the large scale attitudinal change that will be forced by the nuclear terror that is on its way.
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