America is the Best!

American exceptionalism is the belief that America gets to tell the rest of the world what to do. Don't believe me? Check out Dennis Prager's latest article.

What is American exceptionalism? The belief that America often knows better than the world what is right and wrong.

Yep. We know what is right and wrong so the rest of the world can do what we say.

Why do we know what is right and wrong? Dennis Prager (who is cheering for a future civil war) has an answer to that as well.

And from where does this belief in American exceptionalism derive? Mostly from the religious beliefs that underlie American values.

What's interesting is how regularly the holy works underline the fact that those who consider themselves the most religious are often really out of harmony with God. Take the Pharisees vs. Jesus in the New testament. The Pharisees were pretty sure that they were exceptional and that they had the right to tell everybody what to do. That didn't seem to be Jesus's way, but possibly I don't have the same understanding of holy writ that Dennis Prager does.

He then goes on to explain how the Secular Left (who doesn't believe that America has the right to do whatever it wants in the world) and the Religious Right differs on the principle of law vs. morality. He types this astonishing bit.

This difference is easily observed in the way the two sides view the war in Iraq. For the opponents of American exceptionalism, generally the secular Left here and abroad, the greatest sin of the war is that it allegedly violates international law. Had it been authorized by the United Nations Security Council, as was the first war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it would have been considered legal and not have elicited nearly as much opposition as it has. But because the U.N. Security Council did not authorize this war, it is deemed illegal and therefore deemed wrong.

Yeah, in Mr. Pragers mind, the main reason to oppose the Iraq war was that the UN didn't sign off on it. This is partially true and largely false. Getting UN approval would have been difficult and would have required the Bush administration to make a real case for invading Iraq. They couldn't do this, obviously. So the war would have been prevented.

But the real reason liberals are pissed off about the Iraq war is that a lot of people have died unnecessarily. Let me repeat that; a lot of people (both American Soldiers and Iraqis) have died unnecessarily. That is what pisses us off. And if your morality doesn't lead you to get pissed off when people are killed unnecessarily, well than your morality isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.

Imagine if you will a Prager court of law. A defendant is brought in; the judge sizes him up, and condemns him to death. Very efficient. The Judge knows right and wrong. The judge knows and believes in Judeo Christian values. So why shouldn't he do what he knows to be right? So defendant X heads off for the gas chamber.

A secular liberal (or even a religious liberal) might say, wait a moment, what if the Judge has made an error? But to Dennis Prager and all modern day Pharisees the possibility of error does not enter into it. Condemning a man to death or invading a nation; the right answer is clear and anybody who doesn't support it is getting hung up on "the law."

I guess I'm hung up on the law.