Another Perspective
Loss and Remembrance
The loss of national sovereignty, the loss of our history and the loss of national exceptionalism.
(Page 2 of 4)
This June, the 65th anniversary of D-Day was celebrated. For most Americans and most Europeans it is simply another day in late spring. Some octogenarians may remember that fateful day when the liberation of Europe began. Many, however, knowing nothing about history will be disinclined to pay any special attention to the day.
I recall seeing Steven Spielberg’s film Saving Private Ryan, in which, with extraordinary verisimilitude, the director recaptured the events at Omaha Beach. As the film began and the bloodshed was evident, a young lady seated behind me asked her friend “what war do you think this is?”
For the fallen heroes lying in their graves this ignorance is lamentable. Perhaps it explains why President Obama can apologize and apologize again for the sins in American foreign policy and many Americans can applaud, or at the very least, accept his gesture for foreign consumption. I cannot. I am appalled that we can ignore, forget or rationalize away American heroism.
I don’t think we should ever apologize for what the United States has done to extricate millions from the yoke of totalitarian control. It is not arrogance to recall the limbs that were shattered and the bodies broken to set history on the course of democracy, imperfect as it is.
3. Loss of Exceptionalism
Godfrey Hodgson, a British journalist and associate fellow at the University at Oxford, has a new book, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, that is an attempt to undermine the deeply held belief that the United States is a morally and politically superior nation.
In his treatise he accuses Daniel Boorstin, Frederick Jackson Turner, Perry Miller among others as perpetuators of a self congratulatory myth, a myth that has shaped the popular imagination of Americans throughout history. From Hodgson’s perspective the apostles of exceptionalism see the United States as a nation of “unrivaled virtue, a chosen hand with a special destiny and a duty to spread liberty, democracy and the rule of law, ‘a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom’ in the words of President George Bush.”
Hodgson sees himself as a debunker. He notes, “Not all ideas about America exceptionalism are untrue, but important pieces are untrue, and it is very unhealthy for a society to believe things about itself that are not true.”
As I see it, Hodgson has created a red herring and then beats it till it is disfigured. The United States is an imperfect nation. Its government has made mistakes, overplayed its hand at times, even corrupted its principles at various moments in the past, yet a case — a valid case — can still be made for American exceptionalism.
After all, only one nation on the globe has assimilated millions of immigrants who sought refuge on American shores. The Europeans are generally incapable of integrating new immigrants into their nations as enclaves across the continent suggest.
The United States is the only true racial laboratory on the globe, notwithstanding its history of Jim Crow. Could a Barack Obama be elected anywhere in Europe? Could a Jamaican be the next prime minister of Great Britain or an Algerian president of France?
When the demonstrators at Tiananmen Square built a monument to their aspirations was it the Eiffel Tower they tried to duplicate or perhaps a tribute to the Prophet Mohammed? No, they constructed a statue of liberty because the American symbol embodies the spirit and vision they hoped to achieve.
No major nation on the globe has distributed wealth across the board as effectively as the United States. Even the poorest elements of the American population enjoy privileges and material things that are the envy of most Africans and many Asians.
While Hodgson glibly asserts “the thuggishness” of American foreign policy, he consciously overlooks the sacrifices the United States made in two world wars to save Europe from dictatorship and, despite his criticism of the Bush foreign policy he calls imperialistic, an argument can be made that the United States today is attempting to create a stable democracy in the midst of backward tyrannies.
Notwithstanding the obvious fact that Europeans have at long last come to love freedom, they still seem to be incapable of defending it. They depend on the United States to provide the backbone for NATO and whenever there are wars or battles somewhere on the globe, Europeans ask what will the Americans do.
About the Author
Herbert London is president emeritus of the Hudson Institute and the author of America’s Secular Challenge: The Rise of a New National Religion (Encounter Books).
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Melvin| 7.16.09 @ 8:18AM
The United States has been the burr in the saddle of every dictator, despot, tyrannical regime since our beginning.
Europe, EU or whatever the hell they call themselves now has been jealous, angry, and resentful to the fact that those American Cowboys had to come across an entire ocean to bail their sorry backsides out twice and defend them from themselves after WW2 ended, and fight a war in the Pacific to boot.
Well, the despots, dictators, and future tyrannical regimes in training joined forces and created the United Nations that was designed to keep US exceptionalism in check and to crack the wall of American unity from within by indocrinating future generations of young skulls full of mush into the kinder and gentile ways of Euro snobbery that created two world wars.
So like Europe, we will become a nation of babbling whiners that expect government to wipe our noses and give everyone one of us a wheel chair parking permit at the local market.
Thinking back, one European that was interviewed shortly after 9/11, and his remarks are burned into my memory. "It's about time the Untited States felt war upon it's shores to know what it feels like from the Europeon perspective of having to have suffered through two wars."
My arrogant American response to that my European friend, "You can kiss my American backside and the next time your European elite decide to get themselves into trouble and call us to bail them out. Go and take a flying leap into the Atlantic beause your pleas will fall deaf upon these American ears."
Oh, excuse my my opinion isn't being very multicultural is it?
Barack Obama| 7.16.09 @ 9:04AM
I still haven't figured out which war that "Saving Private Ryan" movie was supposed to be about.
Steve| 7.16.09 @ 10:07AM
Hello, Melvin: as to the idiocy of your European *friend*, have the fool take a tour of the Southland and count the battlefields. America has most assuredly felt war upon its shores -- that's why we fight abroad now. And yes, your opinion was most decidedly not multicultural. Thank you.
Hello, Barack: Mr. President, I'm not surprised at your confusion. You were no doubt taught (Howard Zinn, perhaps - or your grandparents) during your Boshevik upbringing that all of America's wars have been of an imperialist nature, and it is soooo difficult to tell one imperialist adventure from another.
GSP| 7.16.09 @ 10:26AM
We have been screaming about teaching these very things in our schools for twenty years now....and no reversal is in sight.
Chris Matthews | 7.16.09 @ 10:26AM
I felt a thrill go up my leg reading that speech by Beria to the American Communists about how to subjugate a nation in one generation.
Melvin| 7.16.09 @ 10:43AM
This Euro snobbery seems to be a generational thing for the most part. But, for the sake of argument the succeeding generations of Europeans have to had learned this Euro attitude from someone and it wasn't us.
I suspect there always has been this jealously toward us because we are a younger country and able to project our power over vast expanses due to us being united and Europe once a world power has a certain attitude of, "Damn, that could have been us."
Europe still has this dream of being united, and this may have been the driving force of creating the European Union, but unfortunately for them old habits and arguments take precedence and that will be the single biggest reason in why Europe cannot emulate the United States.
I don't care what Europe does it will never ever be United under one banner. It hasn't worked the past and it sure as hell won't work in the future.
So to make themselves on par with us, they have to knock us down to their level and that is what is the driving force of all this Obama nationalization.
A person doesn't have to look far to find Euro-fingers in the mix.
Old Texican| 7.16.09 @ 11:42AM
Melvin
I certainly appreciate your thought here.
I shall caution us to remember that we should not project our own failure last November on to Europeans though.
We Americans have brought this calamity upon ourselves...by our votes...an by many of us failing to vote at all.
I am afraid it is going to have to get vey bad, before it can begin to get better.
We boomers are going to have to get off our dead arses, get busy mentoring our younger citizens, even if they do accuse us of "lecturing them", and get our arses out on the streets...right the hell now!
TennesseeVolunteer| 7.16.09 @ 11:59AM
Huzzah! Huzzah!
David Govett| 7.16.09 @ 12:48PM
Consider the number of people freed from tyranny by Americans. Now consider the number freed from tyranny by Europeans. Notice the difference?
Seek| 7.16.09 @ 1:06PM
Hey Barack,
"Saving Private Ryan" is about World War II. As much as "Black Hawk Down" is about Somalia.
rssg| 7.16.09 @ 2:15PM
It's already too late......the limp-wristed libs/progressives/socialists like Barry al Hussein (and much of the democrat party) have dreamed of this for decades.
They always whine and cry for "the other". They never loved the USA for what it was. They are obsessed with racism and "correcting" the sins of the past.
Well ladies and gentlemen, for most of the history of the USA, caucasians constituted about 90% of the population - that's the main reason why most politicians, business leaders, military leaders, scholars, etc. were............ caucasian.
Duh.
With Barry al Hussein in charge, kiss the United States good-bye. We're well on the way of becoming just another Euro-wimp, craddle to the grave, statist "utopia".
Al Adab| 7.16.09 @ 2:25PM
As I write across the street is a gathering of TEA party people in front of our Congrassman's office. All of us need to remember that it is we the citizens who are the government and that we police our govetrnment not it which controls or dictates to us.
While increasing taxation, including mandated costs for everything under the sun, represents one issue, the issues of sovereignty, Liberty and our individual rights all under increqasing assult by our own government are others.
What actions must we take to defend our Constitution against the attacks from our government? That is the issue of the day. Will free men find the will and the method to once again stand for their Liberty or will mankind face a long dark night of tyranny? Future ages will look to us and thisd moment whatever choice we make. Pray that we make the right one.
Conrad Spiracy| 7.16.09 @ 9:22PM
Mr. London,
If your point #1 is spot-on, then the "agreement" has no validity.
Per the Constitution (Article II, Section 2) the Senate must vote by 2/3rds majority to ratify any treaties entered into by the President.
Anyone who seeks to support or otherwise enact the agreement without satisfying the above is guilty of both Sediton and Treason.
Con Spiracy
Old Texican| 7.16.09 @ 11:05PM
RSSG...screw you!
We olde fartes may be crippled up...but we are sneaky...and our trigger fingers work splendidly.
We will take our country back.
GENE HAUBER| 7.19.09 @ 6:56PM
IT'S ME AGAIN FOLKS,
I DESPISE OBAMA AND EVERYTING HE IS TRYING TO DO TO THIS GREAT COUNTRY THAT HE AND HIS UNGRATEFUL WIFE HAD NO HAND IN FORMING.
HE IS AN UN-AMERICAN PIECE OF SHIT AS IS HIS WIFE. THEY WERE DOING FINE IN CHICAGO BUT, CHI TOWN IS NOT AMERICA.
THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT "LOVE" OBAMA ARE THE "MOST" STUPID AND UN-EDUCATED OF ALL AMERICANS....THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION FOR HIS ELEVATION TO THE PRESIDENCY OF THE USA THAN THAT.
WE ARE, AT PRESENT, BEING GOVERNED BY IDIOTS....OBAMA, PELOSI, HARRY REID......ALL AMERICA HATERS AND CRIMINALS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH US AMERICA?
AMERICA DESERVES MUCH BETTER THAN THIS MUSLIM NIGGAR IS WILLING TO GIVE US.....HE HATES US
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