American Acceptualism

I’m really pleased that my daughter Sarah has created the idea of American acceptualism, which I adore, to replace the idea of American exceptionalism, which I despise.

Now Mitt Romney has just written a book espousing American exceptionalism. Does that mean I despise Mitt Romney? Christian Buddhist though I am, I have to say, “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

American exceptionalism, as I’ve learned from Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post in her February 1 column titled, in my local paper, “President Needs to Face Exceptionalism Question,” is the doctrine that America is uniquely qualified to lead the world.

President Obama, asked if he thought America was “uniquely qualified to lead the world,” replied, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Parker writes, “I remember thinking at the time, “Bzzt. Wrong, Harvard.” Be sure to make reference to the original column, which I cannot summarize here except to say that I remember thinking at the time how dangerously ignorant a person can be and still write a column for the Washington Post.

This column has been on my bathroom floor for six months and it makes me madder every time I look at it. In fact America is uniquely unsuited to lead the world for the simple reason that the American public is criminally uninformed about the consequences of our actions.

In Europe and Asia and Africa and Australia, they see footage of damage cause by American  bombing. They see the terror in the eyes of a little Iraqi girl driven from her home in the middle of the night. Americans are like children who are not allowed to see R-rated movies.

Until recently we were not even allowed to see flag-draped coffins.

When the American news media were beating the drums for war, I could see that each and every one of those reporters had one thing on their mind: “What am I going to wear?”

We saw just a bit of the Vietnam War before the curtain was closed, but we never saw the devastation in North Vietnam from the bombing of schools and hospitals.

A thousand people lie dead in Gaza and there are shell fragments in the streets marked “Made in USA” and we truly have no idea why people hate us.

And not only are Americans uninformed; they’re also selfish and afraid. They know their addiction to oil is destroying the world, but they still NEED to get from zero to sixty in less than ten seconds and they NEED to go to monster truck rallies.

They are completely unwilling to recognize and acknowledge their mistakes, like the relocation of the Cherokee, considering such a thing to be unpatriotic when in fact it is the highest form of patriotism.

Add all this to their adherence to religious absurdities like worshipping the war god of Israel, and you can see there is no absence of evidence that America is uniquely suited to shut up and sit down and listen to other nations when it comes to leading the world.

And if our economy is to survive, it is all important that we promote immigration. It’s the one thing that can save us from the consequences of population decline. That’s where Sarah’s new doctrine of American acceptualism comes in. I expect it will be a cornerstone of her presidency.

By the way, don’t take my word for it about American exceptionlism. Ask Andrew Bacevich who served in Vietnam and lost a son in Iraq. He has written a book about it  which Mitt Romney ought to read but probably won’t.