American conservatism is often derided by the Left for exceptionalism, or the belief that as a country, we’re different and exceptional (which sometimes leads to unilateralism on the order of Mark Steyn’s America Alone.) And there are always the two dangerous ditches– one of vanity and hubris which blinds one to the faults of his country and the other, self-deprecation which blinds one to the virtues of it. The ditch which the Left all too often falls into is knee-jerk apologizing for America.
Now with the proper sophrosyne and balance, let me quickly dispense with the customary precursor and invocation which must precede, “I’m proud of America,” and that’s, “Of course, America isn’t perfect. We have our faults.”
I supported Mike Huckabee in the Republican primary. He ended up in second place. I supported John McCain for the presidency. He ended up in second place, which doesn’t bode well except if you want to have bragging rights over Bob Barr. Heck, I lost my own House race by 55 votes (again 2nd place), and I might be jinxing the Cornhuskers just by rooting for them against Clemson.
While I’m obviously disappointed with the outcomes and hope that Obama is constrained by promised moderation, let’s take a look back. Collectively in the primaries, we saw a guitar-playing former Baptist minister, a Mormon business executive, a Kansas farmer, an Italian-American twice remarried district attorney, a decorated Vietnam Vet, a female lawyer, a black community organizer, a Hispanic gun owner. Now, the descriptors obviously are simplistic tags, but they aren’t meant to be reductionist or divisive.
The labels are meant to show that we have diversity and social mobility and one cannot compare Europe (much less Asia or daresay Africa) to America. Where is there such a diversity of candidates for executive office?
To extend the analogy, remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when Charlie and his Uncle Joe go and try some Fizzy Lifting drinks? Think instead of a dangerous fan that Charlie and Uncle Joe instead see the proverbial glass ceiling. From below, they would actually only look up and see the sky for how could either one know how high he would reach until the ceiling stopped them from going higher? This year’s crop of candidates show that for all the supposed glass ceilings in American life, maybe the reason that the ceilings look clear is that they no longer exist the way they do in many parts of the world today.
[...] December 2008 in Culture, Politics From Jeremy Taylor, who is back blogging after a long hiatus, points out something I’d heard before but is good to remember now that we have a new group leading our [...]