Kudos, Rob, on the distinction between blind nationalistic pride and what should really be meant by “American exceptionalism.”
 
A great article with further historical information on that subject was published on Salon last month, for those interested in further reading.

You’ll find chanting crowds at celebrations, war protests, political rallies, etc. It’s a fairly typical human behavior to show solidarity on something, regardless whether that something reflects well or poorly upon them. The ideas behind it can be good, bad, or whatever. National unity isn’t necessarily bad, though obviously blind nationalism is dangerous. It seems odd to equivocate the two.
As far as the football player goes, I don’t have anything against the sentiment we shouldn’t celebrate death. It’s a valid opinion. Others will disagree. I think it’s patently absurd to equate a celebration of the death of the murderer of thousands who provoked a war that has led to countless more deaths and unimiaginable suffering… to people celebrating the deaths of thousands of murdered people. His comment putting them on par with each other made no sense.
Being oblivious to the fact that we have heard Osama bin Laden speak and the fact that he revealed himself as a 9/11 ‘truther’ just makes him look like an ignoramus.

I wonder what real Americans make of this:
“Champion is a strong supporter of the government’s efforts to fight terrorism and is very appreciative of the dedication and commitment of the U.S. Armed Forces,” the company said in a statement.
Which is to say, “we like free publicity, not ideas…sorry Rashard.” 
 
 

While there are a lot of standard, non-factually based statements in this small article, I would like to focus on the following quote:
 
“Governance is intellectual, based on ideas and rule of law. The opposite is monarchy, government based on blood succession. Monarchy derives from brute force.
 
This distinction is known as “American exceptionalism.” We are the exception.  We were founded on ideas, rather than bloody battle.”
 
First off, “American exceptionalism” is a concept that was developed by the Communist Party in the 1920s to explain why it would take U.S. capitalism a particularly long time to fail.  As a true historical concept, it has almost nothing to do with American being a better country than all the other countries in the world.
 
Also, claiming that America is a country founded on “ideas” instead of “brute force” is pure fiction.  One need only give an hour of study to the conditions of African slaves in the southern colonies on during the late 18th century to understand the silliness of this notion.  Better yet, examine the impact of the great victory of republicanism on the lives of the Delaware, Shawnee, or Kickapoo tribes.  How one can come away from that history believing that America rejected monarchial use of “brute force” is beyond me.
 
It is possible to use a purely Anglo-American perspective when analyzing history.  And through that perspective we can somewhat rationally conclude that America is an exceptional country based on ideals of democracy and freedom, and rejecting of the rule of many by the few.  Of course even that perspective requires us to forget that only land owning men were allowed to vote in this country for the first 30 years of its existence.  And that most of the men who wrote the Constitution created the document to carefully protect their wealth (see Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States).
 
I always appreciate a Rob McColley article that is about something besides himself.  Unfortunately, the history here is quite poor, and the veiled stabs at people of faith is unfortunate and rather immature.  I hope Mr. McColley will do a bit more background research before he writes his next article, and refrain from the atheist proselytizing in the future.

Someone just sent me this and it seemed appropriate to share in this thread.

My hero: John Cooke
As Cromwell’s solicitor general, he drafted the Act which abolished the monarchy. Then, for good measure, he abolished the House of Lords as ‘useless and dangerous’

My hero is a man who did his best and gave his life to stop England becoming the kind of nation it will be over the next week. John Cooke prosecuted Charles I. As Cromwell’s solicitor general, he drafted the Act which abolished the monarchy (“the office of a king in this country is unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous to the liberty, safety and public interest of the people”). Then, for good measure, he abolished the House of Lords as “useless and dangerous”. For these heroic acts of republican faith, he was disembowelled at the restoration.

He was the son of a Leicestershire farmer. He defended “Freeborn John” Lilburne the Leveller, in a case that established the right to silence. Cooke was the visionary who first recognised poverty as a cause of crime, and was the first to suggest a national health service (in 1647) and abolition of imprisonment for debt (two centuries before Dickens). He proposed that barristers’ fees should be controlled and they should do 10% of their work pro bono.

When all the great lawyers fled from the Temple for fear of treason if they prosecuted the king, Cooke accepted the brief and mounted what became in effect the first war-crimes trial of a head of state. The “great lawyers” soon returned to frustrate Cooke’s reforms, so he accepted Cromwell’s offer to become chief justice of Ireland, where he speeded up proceedings and decided cases in favour of tenants rather than landlords. Come the restoration, however, he was arrested as a regicide, subjected to an outrageously rigged trial, and then hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross.

Cooke was a man of great courage and republican principle. In words worth remembering this week, he wrote to his wife from the Tower shortly before his execution: “We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not delighted more in servitude than freedom”.

Why does Concerned Citizen hate freedom?
 
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. His spanner relies on some heart-wrenching (if old-fashioned) bogeymen. But it doesn’t matter where the phrase derives. It’s the res that matters. For example, we had “trolling” in comments sections before someone gave it a name.
 
In this case, the concept came long before the neologism described it—de Tocqueville usually gets a citation. In any case, the Communists were prescient: It’s probably because of our founding principles that we were so hard to overwhelm, despite 1920’s worldwide fondness for socialist principles. Contrast the Russian Czar (who was still pretty hard to topple). Our masses couldn’t get as excited as their masses. Why not do you think?
 
 
But really, what’s in a name? This place was called America hundreds of years before American signified anything. And that’s okay. At the moment of ejaculation, how many men are thinking about their unborn son’s great penchant for fairness?
 
Contrast the insemination of ideas into the womb of  our Constitutional government. The founders certainly knew what they were doing. Those fighting in the subsequent war probably had some idea of why they were fighting.