"Apparently they don’t know what the term “exceptional” means. It means unusual, uncommon, atypical, extraordinary, rare, or unprecedented..."

America Was Once Exceptional
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Conservatives love to talk about how exceptional America is. What nonsense. Apparently they don’t know what the term “exceptional” means. It means unusual, uncommon, atypical, extraordinary, rare, or unprecedented.

How in the world does that describe America?

We’ve got a massive welfare state, by which the federal government is charged with the responsibility of taking care of people through such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, and others.

How’s that different from other countries, including Britain, Denmark, and Cuba?

We’ve got a highly regulated economy, as reflected by such programs as minimum-wage laws, insider-trading laws, and myriad rules governing private establishments.

How’s that different from other countries, including France, Mexico, and Nicaragua?

We’ve got a massive national-security establishment, including an enormous standing army and military-industrial complex, a CIA, and an NSA, wielding the omnipotent power to spy on, round up, assassinate, torture, and incarcerate indefinitely its own citizens.

How’s that different from other countries, including Egypt, Russia, and China?

We’ve got income taxation and an all-powerful IRS, an agency that has the power to seize people’s assets with no due process of law.

How’s that different from other countries, including Burma and Venezuela?

We’ve got immigration controls and trade restrictions.

How’s that different from other countries?

We’ve got fiat (paper) money and a Federal Reserve System.

How’s that different from other countries?

We’ve got public (i.e., government) schooling.

How’s that different from other countries?

When conservatives call America exceptional, they are engaging in wishful thinking, delusionary visions, or nostalgic dreaming.

What would a truly exceptional society be like?

It would be one in which there was no income taxation, IRS, Federal Reserve, fiat money, standing army, Pentagon, CIA, NSA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, welfare, minimum-wage laws, insider trading laws, immigration controls, foreign interventions, foreign aid, wars of aggression, torture, assassination, secret surveillance, and denial of due process of law.

That would truly be an exceptional country. It would meet the definition of the term “exceptional.”

What is remarkable is that there was once a society like that. It was, without a doubt, the most unusual, uncommon, atypical, extraordinary, rare, and unprecedented country in history. That country was the United States of America. Whatever else might be said about it, no one can deny that it was truly an exceptional country. Too bad America later moved in the opposite direction and became like every other country.

Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/20/america-exceptional-2/