I guess Im still a little fuzzy as to exactly what American

Exceptionalism means to you, and how it fits into our foreign

policy. What Im really after is an explanation of how A.E. can
be used to justify nation-building and empire.

I see youve quoted Noam Chomskys argument that a nations

ability to survive depends upon its ability to expand its borders
and absorb other nations, especially their natural resources.
Thats a flawed argument economically; but to say there has never
been a superpower that has not engaged in nation-building, or
Pax Romana like tendencies, and and to draw from that a
conclusion that in order for America to do good in the world we
must do the same, simply because others have done so, is a cum
hoc ergo propter hoc argument. I hope youre sufficiently intimidated
by the Latin quote. It just means a faulty assumption that
correlation between two variables implies that one causes the
other - in this case the idea that in order for America to have a
positive impact on the world it must engage in the same foreign
policies of every other empire or superpower in history. The
fallacy is as follows: a.) every superpower in history has expanded
beyond its borders to occupy foreign lands and steal their natural
resources, b.) the United States is a superpower and wants to free
the world, c.) therefore - the United States must expand beyond
its borders, etc... The conclusion doesnt follow from the
premises. The argument that the US should engage in nation-
building because it helps us do good in the world can only be
made by showing historical examples of previous nations effecting
good by way of nation-building; which brings me to my next
point...

Pause a moment to consider the fate of every single country that

has attempted the nation-building policies you mentioned, and
you will find not a one exists today. The pages of history show us
that nations that attempt empire go through a series of cycles that
always end with the nation collapsing of under its own ambition,
inefficiency, greed, and ignorance. The fate of those empires
should be a sufficient argument against any attempt to duplicate
their actions. Trying to foresee a possible objection, I would
caution against the possible objection that we live in different
times, that were different, that things have changed sufficiently ,
etc... and that therefore the lessons of history may be placed to
the side and ignored. That is a very difficult argument to make
considering how many times its been used by antecedent
generations, never once having proven true (except perhaps for
the Founding Generation, but even that deteriorated in less than a
century.)

As to the idea that democracies are somehow incapable of

initiating violence, or being guilty of wrongdoing I quote from an
excellent essay by Paul Gottfried

The view of democracy as producing peace-loving and stable

regimes has become a settled opinion of our time. Almost
every day, editorialists and commentators in The Wall Street
Journal, New York Times and in other respected national
newspapers stress the correlation between democratic values
 and perpetual peace...Walter Bernes, Olin Professor at
Georgetown University, has insisted that democracies never
fight wars with each other, a problematic statement that has
now acquired the status of a truism. R.J. Rummel, a friend of
Bernes, has recently altered this assertion to the equally
suspect one, that democracies have fought each other for
150 years. What exactly, one might ask, was a democracy
like 150 years ago? There were in fact no governments at that
time more democratic by current egalitarian standards, than
was South Africa under apartheid...Any hostile actions taken
by self-described democracies, moreover, are now routinely
described as advancing peace by containing or punishing non-
democrats. Of course, demanding that the entire world be
made to conform to their values is by no means a pacifist
stance.1

Because of our current foreign policy,

By now there is no question that the second form of

democracy has prevailed, as a globalist, bellicose ideology
often representing the ambitions of a well-organized political
class and its journalistic adjuncts. There are many reasons for
this development: economic, administrative, and geopolitical
causes have all played a role in turning de Tocquevilles
America as a shrine to local self-government into the
aggressive behemoth spouting therapeutic bromides that all of
us have come to recognize as the perfected version of
American democracy. Real self-government has been
supplanted by electoral inclusiveness, so that every deadbeat is

1The Costs of War: Americas Pyrrhic Victories, Is Modern Democracy Warlike?, Paul
Gottfried pp. 425-31
 urged to vote as a testimony of the expansiveness of our
system.2

He goes on to talk about how

...human rights have become the rhetorical pretext for

governmental inroads at home and abroad. Not everyone,
mind you, is equally authorized to distill or apply these rights.
Journalists, administrators, experts, and the spokespersons
for designated victims are presumed to have a privileged
understanding of governing. Thus American intervention in
Somalia took place after the media and black civil rights
leaders stressed the urgent need for sending American forces
into that troubled area. The President consulted with an
undersecretary for human rights before dispatching American
lives and treasure to Somalia.

Even now media celebrities and journalists are belaboring the

President with demands to expand NATO, to micromanage
the internal politics of Russia, and to be even more decisive
about Bosnia. Human rights require all these entanglements
and more, including the punishment of China for not
respecting the political sensibilities of American journalists.
Though some of these same journalists had jubilated over the
tyranny of Maoist China, today the situation is obviously
different. Maos successors are less brutal than was the leader
so long revered in the New York Times and the Washington Post,
but also less socialistic, and therein lies the rub. By 1994, all
major TV networks were featuring scenes of unemployed and
ill-housed Chinese, who ware the supposed victims of Chinas
rush into capitalism. We are told these people are angry at
the system because of the lack of a safety net. China then is a

2 Ibid.
 country to which the American government is being urged to
send a message. Meanwhile Ben Wattenberg, among
legions of other journalists, insists that we stand tall for
human rights.3

I think its important to remember that we can make mistakes as

easily as anyone. American Exceptionalism can sometimes blind
people to the idea that the US could ever be wrong about
anything. There are just as many fools and knaves in our
government as any other government. We engage in just as much
tomfoolery like assassination, torture, and propaganda as anyone
in the world, and arguably more than anyone in the world. I
become wary when people start issuing a class exemption to
democracies on the basis of nothing more than the fact that
theyre democracies. Some of the stories that come out of our
mainstream media are almost as comically propagandistic as
some of the things that came out of Russia during the Cold War.

As I see it, we are agreed on the idea of American Exceptionalism

in the sense that the United States is special and in many ways set
apart from the rest of the world. I think we further agree that the
US should in some way influence the world for good. The
question Im trying to hit at throughout our conversation is: do we
effect that influence for good by forcing our way of life on other
countries? To say that those countries may have a dictator that
needs to be replaced with the American brand of democracy is
to oversimplify the matter. Will an Egyptian respond with the

3 Ibid.
same answer as you or I, if asked the question What is
freedom? or What is the best form of government that will
allow you and your countrymen to govern yourselves? Is our
notion of freedom, individualism, economism, and our outlook
on the way government should be set up the same as the people
marching in the streets in the Middle East? And if it isnt
materially the same, how can we practically expect to know what
is best for those countries; to the extent of invading them and
using force to compel them to our way of thinking? Is it possible
that our attempts to shape the political structure of another
country, as well-intentioned as they may be, in the end do more
harm than good? And do our actions in that vein for the last 50
years or so have anything to do with the overwhelming universal
distrust and dislike, bordering on hatred, of the United States
today?

As to the argument that in the absence of the United States being

the reigning superpower of the world, that China or Russia would
pounce on the world like a tiger lurking the shadows - can reality
really be that cartoonish? That argument has been used
throughout history to justify all kinds of international adventures;
most notably in WWI and WWII. Germany, it was said, would
take over the whole world. Propaganda was purposely used
during WWI by the Wilson administration to convince the
American people of the terrible nature of the Germans, going so
far as to make up entire episodes of barbarity, and again in
WWII when it was claimed that Hitler would invade the United
States barring our entry into the War. Such a thing wasnt even
feasible, but nevertheless it was believed then by many, and the
same mentality prevails to this day. Something as militarily
impossible as an invasion of the US or the takeover of the entire
world by China or Russia is reduced to an absolute certainty for
no other reason than that is the way people have viewed the world
since the Cold War.

Even if were not talking about invasion of the US and only

colonization by China and Russia of other countries, its very
difficult to imagine a scenario in which the US or our immediate
interests would be subject to a legitimate threat; and I do mean
legitimate. In his farewell address, Washington said,

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with

any portion of the foreign world...Taking care always to keep
ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive
posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for
extraordinary emergencies...The great rule of conduct for us in
regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial
relations to have with them as little political connection as
possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let
them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.4

He went on to warn,

...against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you

to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people
ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience

4 Washingtons Farewell Address: The View From the Twentieth Century, Burton Ira
Kaufman, pp. 26-27
 prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of
republican government.5

Is Washingtons advice to be consigned to the dust-bin of history?

Think of how weak the newly-formed America was in the late
1700s and early 1800s, and even then the founders told us to
mind our own business. Nowadays, if the US isnt in complete
control of everything in the world, people go into hysterics;
shouting from the rooftops that some nefarious superpower is
going to creep over the face of the earth like the shadow of an
eclipse and enslave us all.

Were after the same thing I think, but we may differ on what is
the best way to get there. I view American Exceptionalism as
being a way to lead the world by example only. Focus inward. I
mirror Washingtons and the Founders advice that we should be
friendly with all nations, trade with anyone who wants to trade;
build up a defense that is second to none, and totally annihilate
anyone who dares attack us directly. Straightforward, honest, and
clear. I think more harm is done by our attempting to get in the
middle of every little tiny thing that happens anywhere in the
world at any given time. Our current position seems to confirm
the wording Jefferson used in his first inaugural address ...peace,
commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none.6 Jefferson was a wordsmith and used

5 Ibid.
6 The Chief Executive: Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, Fred L.
Israel, p. 16
entangled purposefully. That word calls forth visions of being
caught in a briar bush. Once youre in the middle of it, no matter
what you do, or which way you move, youre caught; and the
more you struggle, the more entwined you become. This is the
position we find ourselves in now. This why I believe it
sometimes seems as if there is no possible way to effect any
meaningful change in our foreign policy or our relations with
other nations, because weve entangled ourselves to the point of
no return.

I dont think any better quote can be given by any more able
statesman that what J.Q. Adams said on this subject. He talked
about how the US had for 50 years prior,

...respected the independence of other nations while asserting

and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference
in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for
principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits
the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come,
all the contest of...the European world, will be contest of
inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard
of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled,
there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But
she does not go abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She
is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.7

He goes on to say,

7 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. 4, pp. 437-39

 She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners
than her own, were they even the banners of foreign
independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of
extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual
avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and
usurp the standard of freedom. 8

Once embarked upon this course,

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly

change from liberty to force...She might become the dictatress
of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own
spirit. 9

It seems difficult to totally repudiate the foreign policy positions

that we had from the founding of the country up until the end of
WWI (really the end of WWII, because the US population was
overwhelmingly opposed to military action against Germany until
Pearl Harbor, which seems to have been made possible by
political wrangling by Roosevelt who openly stated he wanted to
get American into the war). A popular response might be that
times have changed, but thats a thin reed that cant possibly
support the amount of military, economic, financial, political, and
social intervention the US govt engages in every day.

Weve made our own bed in this respect, and I think now were
paying the price.

8 Ibid., pp. 44-45

9 Ibid.