Decent article on the longstanding concept of "American exceptionalism," the doctrine that the United States is chosen, peerless, and transcendent. Correctly, the piece mentions, quoting an historian: "the sanction of God is always the ultimate justification." This sense of superiority and moral righteousness (inherited from Europe) has both inspired as well as provided an explanation for the general drift of US foreign relations. In a sense it has bookended the various decisions down through the generations: pre-event motivation and post-event rationale.
This thinking applied to the barbarous policies carried out during the continental expansion of the nineteenth century and its guiding ideology of Manifest Destiny, just as it did to more modern US projections of global power such as Vietnam. And no matter how dreadful the outcome and consequences of a given policy decision, the Executive Branch has always been able to claim magnanimity and virtuous objectives.
What the article leaves out is the effect American exceptionalism has had on the domestic realm. Its role within the nation's borders is far less dramatic. With this exceptionalism running deep and existing primordially in the culture, a kind of hyper-patriotism is created. As a result, the population becomes protective in the extreme of the country's good name, and naturally so: when the entities of the country (i.e., the people) and the government become conflated, a strong and inappropriate connection develops between the self and the state machinery. Therefore, in this misconception, to criticize the state is to criticize one's self, or one's family, or one's friends and neighbors. And because of this national experience of "referred pain," the populace tends to be protective of the state via the self.
There is also an ancillary effect, which produces the same behavior, namely, not wanting to appear ungrateful. If America is truly chosen, peerless, and transcendent - or at least broadly and strongly considered as such by the culture - one is instinctively discouraged from voicing criticism. This experience is revealed in the tragic and sad exhortation to "love it or leave it."
The United States is indeed unique in its freedoms of speech and access to information. It is also unique in the degree to which the government belongs to the population. Shielding the state from substantive criticism only helps sustain the status quo; being critical, vigilant, and dictating our terms, on the other hand, places the state's distinctive attributes in our service.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/30/despite-fights-about-its-merits-idea-of-american-exceptionalism-a-powerful-force-through-history
