American Exceptionalism Threatens Civil Liberties

As I’ve clearly argued before, American exceptionalism has been a major justification in nearly every conflict the United States has entered. Many United States’ representatives and political voices would argue that the United States’ selfless obligation to protect freedom around the world is what makes it exceptional. For them, American interference has been a burden that it has taken on for the sake of preserving all that is good. If I was to attribute anything positive that has made the United States exceptional, it would be the individual rights guaranteed in the constitution. The contemporary notion some American’s have of American exceptionalism have slowly been used to whittle away these individual rights.

A characteristic often attributed to the United States as being unique is the belief that it was formed on the principals of Christianity. Sure, many of the founding fathers identified as Christians, (though most of the popular ones were deist) but what would you expect from 18^th century, upper-class, white males? Yes, many of the indignities defined in the Bible are illegal in the United States, but they are also illegal in every other civilized country. The founding fathers were explicit in their determination to separate church from state. They were all learned men that understood the endorsement of a state religion meant the suppression of individual liberty. The belief that the United States’ Christian foundation is under attack has caused a huge amount of pressure to insert Christianity into every form of society. Things like teaching Creationism in schools, state organizations participating in group prayer, “In God We Trust” stamped on currency, and “Under God” crammed into the Pledge of Allegiance are all efforts to define religion as part of the American way. If they were so apparent in the country’s foundation, efforts to fulfill them would not have all surfaced in the last hundred years. The determination to jostle Christianity into American life only opposes American’s individual liberties.

Many of the same people would also argue that the United States has always fought for democracy and freedom and all of the clichés that are most noble in the world. The first settlers’ illegitimate claim to the continent, the cruel treatment of Native Americans, slavery, Jim Crow, opposition to Women’s suffrage, and (currently) opposition to the equality of all sexual and gender identities are each characteristics of the leader of the free world. The United States’ ability to overcome each of these things is great, but it is not the result of American exceptionalism. It would be remarkable to attribute the United States as the leader of progressing individual liberties. Instead, it has taken the lead of other nations, accepting progress to preserve its legitimacy as a free nation.

The type of liberty the United States has fought for is characterized by American businesses having the largest global market possible. Liberating other countries and introducing democracy is a selfless deed, never mind the benefits to American economic interests. Many Americans like to believe that all of the United States’ wars are indications of American exceptionalism. I would argue that many of the conflicts the United States has entered since WWI have directly transgressed against American individual liberties. In the name of national security, American citizens have been treated as criminals for expressing their right to freedom of speech. Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for criticizing the Wilson administration and the war. In 2013, Chelsea Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for exposing atrocities carried out by United States’ soldiers. The United States’ global war on terror has brought the Patriot Act and the NDAA, both threats to American civil liberties.

Some American political voices spend time worrying whether there is a war on Christmas, or if certain groups of people will have the same rights as them, but also argue that United States’ military intervention is necessary and noble. These people confuse the liberties they should be fighting for. They believe that treating everyone equal somehow destroys the constitution, but support the conflicts and the movements that have directly contributed to the corrosion of American liberties. Rather than American exceptionalism being defined by American military might and economic superiority, it should be defined by the Americans that have fought to create a more equal society. What is a more impressive result of the “Great American Experiment”: a final realization of “all men are created equal? Or the world’s strongest military being used to protect the investments of the world’s most successful businesses?

No Means No!

In terms of literature, a tragedy is typically defined as a drama that depicts hardship often as the result of the protagonist’s fatal flaw. In tragedies, the audience is often aware of the misfortune that awaits the characters, creating a sense of irony. Fortunately, for William Appleman Williams, the retrospective act of studying history allows a sort of omniscient perspective. His use of “tragedy” in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy perfectly establishes his argument against The United States’ idea of frontier-expansionism and the Open Door Policy he felt resulted in the deterioration of American domestic and foreign prosperity.

Williams’s most apparent example of the tragedy of American diplomacy, as he points out, is in the United States’ relations with Cuba from 1898 through 1961. [1] In freeing Cuba from Spanish tyranny, America’s supposed intentions were to give Cuba independence, encourage economic success and reassure its development into a democracy. One can easily understand through Williams’s argument that the defining incentive for American influence was instead always motivated by domestic capital gain. The United States dominated the island’s economy resulting in control over the sugar industry and prevention of any deviations from its one-crop economy. [2] Furthering that argument is America’s acceptance of corrupt Cuban leaders, but immediate response to civilian transgression to the “economic and political restrictions established by American leaders.” [3] The tragedy that Williams finds is America’s gracious idealistic intentions juxtaposed with its actions’ devastating consequences. The irony in place comes from the obvious expectation — especially apparent when reexamining history — and repetition of these failures.

Though Williams never uses the phrase, a feature of American social and political thought that only enhances the tragedy of American diplomacy is the concept of American exceptionalism. This notion is a self-righteous assertion of American superiority to other less developed, or economically different, states. While the motivation for expansion was always economical, the philosophical justification, recognized by American citizens, business leaders, and policy makers, was the idea of spreading democracy, self-determination, and American ideals. This idea can be seen first in the concept frontier expansion. In his Frontier Thesis, Frederick Jackson Turner argued that “prosperity and representative government were tied casually to expansion.” [4] Thus, part of the American character relied on the nation’s ability to grow.

The irony of America’s idealistic self-conception and its need to spread this idea is in the reality of its effects.  Americans promoted self-determination and laissez-fair capitalism —which implies personal responsibility — in rhetoric, but in practice denied these freedoms to other societies. Williams provides the reforms made in Morocco, China, and Nicaragua as examples to this argument. The process of making fundamental changes in these societies created unrest. Rather than allowing these places to determine their own path and participate in a type of free market they chose, the United States wanted to “stop or stabilize such changes at a point favorable to American interests.” [5] As Williams goes on to criticize: “That attempt can only be describes as a selfish violation of the idea and ideal of self-determination, and even an evasion of the moral obligation to accept the consequences of one’s own actions.” [6]

American exceptionalism begins to play an even larger role beginning in Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. Despite a history of ineffectiveness in United States’ foreign policy, Wilson did not consider a different system. [7] He continued in America’s tradition of the Open Door Policy, which as Williams points out, was “America’s version of the liberal policy of informal empire or free trade imperialism.” [8] Rather than reassessing the best approach to participating in the economic development of the global market, Wilson’s attempt was to adhere to traditional American economics and apply those to the global market, which he believed would lead to prosperity. [9] This strategy, which combined “American supremacy with the political theory of classic liberalism,” was manifested in Wilson’s idea of the League of Nations. [10]

The Bolshevik Revolution on 1917 is important in understanding American diplomacy in the 20^th century, though Williams suggests it is for reasons not traditionally considered. [11] Williams’s observations focus more on American rhetorical and political reactions to the revolution. He argues that because of Wilson’s fear of “the general feelings of revolt,” “The Bolshevik Revolution became… the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.”[12] The tragedy of this, according to Williams is the revolutions Wilson speaks of were reactions to the policies the West had been imposing.

With F.D.R came the conception of the New Deal. Williams argues that the New Deal only strengthened the traditional system of diplomacy by operating within the outdated order of business and politics, emphasizing trade expansion and the Open Door Policy, and worsening the arrangement of free trade imperialism. [13] According to Williams the New Deal’s policies contributed to the tragedy in that defining “overseas economic activity as essential to the welfare of the United States, American policymakers were exceedingly prone to view social revolution in those countries as a threat to the vital national interests of their own nation.” [14]

Where American exceptionalism acts as the enabler to America’s tragic foreign policy, the need for constant growth in a capitalist market serves not only as the purpose for continuous interference in foreign affairs, but as the catalyst to those states’ reactions. Many small conflicts the United States has participated in throughout its history has been in response to radical revolutions. Williams suggests that perhaps America carries more responsibility in this than previous thought. This is apparent in his description of the relationship between informal empires and their weaker counterparts. While nations were allowed local rule, it was within the limits set by imperial power. [15] This meant, in practice, that one part of society ruled, leading the proletariat more inclined to join a cause that promised them a greater influence in their economic welfare. [16]

Williams argues that United States’ diplomacy is tragic in that its complacency and determination to maintain traditional economic policies have been the detriment to its foreign and domestic welfare. Beginning with frontier-expansionism and manifesting itself in Open Door Policy, America’s relentless hunger for wealth — behind the guise of its supposed exceptionalism — has attempted to spread American economics, democracy, and ideals across the globe. It does this while, at the same time, inhibiting foreign economics, governmental policy, and self-determination — all in the expectation of maximum financial gain for the United States. Williams suggests many foreign political movements have been reactionary to American diplomacy. Thus, through the distribution of “freedom,” America has unintentionally manufactured its own enemies, which it must then destroy to protect the “freedom” it produces. The tragedy of American diplomacy is in the ironic, and America’s inability to perceive it.

1. William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy ( New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1959, 1962, 1972), 1.
2. Ibid, 2.
3. Ibid, 2
4. Williams quoting Turner, 32
5. Williams, Tragedy, 67
6. Ibid, 67
7. Ibid, 96
8. Ibid, 97
9. Ibid, 97
10. Ibid, 101
11. Ibid, 104
12. Ibid, 106
13. Ibid, 173
14. Ibid, 174
15. Ibid, 96
16. Ibid, 96

American Exceptionalism as a Rhetorical Devise

A large part of American political rhetoric since before the constitution was even formed has been built around the concept of American exceptionalism.  For centuries Americans have believed that the part of the North American continent eventually chiseled out to be The United States is a gift from god. This rhetorical device has come in handy over the years starting with European’s “right” to live here in the first place. Up until the constitution however, this concept could be attributed to Europe’s general sense of superiority that was used to justify imperialism. The concept of eurocentrism that existed then could be seen as a precedent for American exceptionalism.

When the constitution was first written, early American’s felt they had accomplished something without model.  They had started a new nation on what they felt like was essentially an uninhabited continent, with much of it still not even explored. This new nation was meant to be true democracy and support individualism, laissez-fair capitalism, and egalitarianism. One often hears it called “The American Experiment.” From manifest destiny, to the Cold War, to the War on Terror, American exceptionalism has long been used as an excuse for action, even when the action is in contrast to popular American opinion. To me, the concept of American exceptionalism is no more than a nationalistic rhetorical devise implying that those in support are “true Americans” while those indifferent (or with more realistic global expectations) are considered unpatriotic. This inhibits free thought in a nation supposedly built upon libertarian ideals.

Although the concept of exceptionalism is used by both political parties in American, it is particularly endorsed by the right. In 2006, when Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he stated “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” This received considerable backlash from pundits on the right including Sarah Palin who stated that perhaps because of his lack of faith in American exceptionalism “we see a president who seems to be much more comfortable with an American military that isn’t quite so dominant and who feels the need to apologize for America when he travels overseas” Apparently America’s ability to kick anyone’s ass is what makes us exceptional.

It is not just our military that is cited as what makes us exceptional, it is every positive thing that one could conceive to attribute to a nation including, but not limited to: liberty, upward mobility, healthcare, education, innovation, and culture. The truth is, political rhetoric and unbridled patriotism blind many Americans from seeing the world as it is. Perhaps distancing itself from the tradition of religious and military superiority, and instead looking objectively at global relations, American could find a reason to be exceptional. Most political or historical qualms leave me thinking of particular folk songs. In the case of American exceptionalism, this song comes to mind, though i prefer the Bob Dylan version more.

J. Todd Moye’s Use of Class Struggle in Let the People Decide

The civil rights era in the United States is often perceived as a national movement occurring between 1954 and 1968. The common known features of the civil rights movement include civil disobedience, sit-ins, boycotts, and peaceful marches, as well as a series of court cases fought by the NAACP. The examinations of these events often focus on the cities that gained more attention from the media and the public, e.g. Birmingham, Greensboro, Little Rock, Selma, and Montgomery. While all of this is true, J. Todd Moye, in his book Let the People Decide, presents a different perspective by examining the civil rights movement by focusing on Sunflower County, Mississippi from the mid-forties until the 1980s.  Moye’s examination of four decades in a rural community illustrates the periods of transition into and out of the small period that is often exclusively considered the civil rights era. In addition, Moye ties the race struggle to economics, demonstrating the influence of class struggle on race relations, and depicting the impact of the civil rights era on a single rural community.

 

Moye decided to examine civil rights through the perspective of a southern rural community, but he chose Sunflower County for several reasons. Sunflower County, Mississippi was the birthplace of Senator James Eastland, one of the most powerful desegregationists, who served the U.S. Senate from 1943-78.  Sunflower County also happened to have one of the densest populations of blacks at nearly seventy percent.  Although a large percentage of the population in Eastland’s hometown was black, his idea of representing the people of his state was strong opposition to human rights. In 1957 he appeared in an interview with Mike Wallace, where he claims that segregation was a choice made by both blacks and whites, “It’s a matter of choice by both races…I’m suggesting that the vast majority of the Negros want their own schools, their own hospitals, their own churches, their own restaurants.”  However when Mike Wallace asks, “Their own buses?” Eastland responds “It would be impractical to operate two sets of buses, certainly.”  

 

In 1962 the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee began organizing in Sunflower County. Their initial goal was to gather blacks to vote. Among those willing was Fannie Lou Hamer. The dozen or so blacks who attempted to vote were denied however. Fannie Lou Hamer was evicted after defending her effort to vote to her boss, and as a result became a full time activist. Moye’s story focuses on the disenfranchised blacks that made up the majority of the community in Sunflower County.

 

Sunflower County was majority blacks, but all of the money and power was in the hands of the few white landowners. Robert B. Patterson formed the Citizens’ Council in Indianola. Patterson’s Citizens’ Council, a white supremacist organization, was made up of middle and upper class white men of Sunflower County. They formed after the Brown decision and used economic intimidation to subvert the collective action of African American’s to achieve social equality.

 

 

J. Todd Moye, in Let the People Decide analyzes the effects of the civil rights movement in rural communities, as well as the effects those communities had on the civil rights movement. The juxtaposition of disenfranchised blacks and powerful white men such as James Eastland and those that made up the Citizens’ Council shows a unique view of class and race struggle within a community. It is, in fact, Moye’s inspiration for the book: “This project began one day around 1993 when I learned that Fannie Lou Hamer… and James Eastland had lived within spitting distance of each other” (269).  Moye chooses to follow the oral stories of African American’s who made up the majority of Sunflower County’s population. The history of race struggle in Sunflower County is still very much a part of history, but as is always the case, the white people involved wish to leave it in the past. Blacks and whites always see history of racial tension in different perspectives. Blacks acknowledge that they come from a culture that was oppressed in a country they helped build and fought wars for. Whites however, always wish to distant themselves from their past oppression. Until whites can acknowledge that the things they did were wrong, and that they are not that far in the past, perhaps a common truth will smooth over modern tensions. This is Moye’s intention by relating race struggle with class struggle.

America’s Need for a “Common Truth”

There are many people today who, when addressing race issues, inevitably bring up slavery. The phrase often heard is “it was so long ago, why are we still talking about it?”  As ignoble of a characteristic slavery is for America’s history, these people somehow miss the much more recent and brutal Jim Crow era. When Southern Democrats “Redeemed” Southern politics during Reconstruction, an entirely separate problem was created which established black Americans not as property, but as citizens of the United States who were inferior. This period was categorized by exploitation, disenfranchisement, threats, and violence at the hands of Southern whites. Laura Wexler’s book Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America addresses these issues in an impressively detailed report of a lynching that happened in rural Georgia on July 25, 1946.

 

The Tuskegee Institute recorded that between 1882 and 1968  3,445 black Americans were lynched. Where lynching was a somewhat popular system of extra-legal “justice” and happened to whites as well, it doubled as a tool of terrorism against blacks. Often the victim was accused crimes relating to theft or some type of sexual assault against a white woman, though guilt was never proven in court and the reason always boiled down to “transgressing the rules of white supremacy” (Wexler, 76). In the case of the 1946 Georgia lynching that Wexler writes about, motives for the crime were established as revenge for the stabbing of   Barnett Hester, though she theorizes several ulterior motives.

 

So what makes the 1946 Georgia lynching a case worth investigating fifty years later?  At this time lynching was on the decline, but news organizations all around the U.S. were reporting it, and the NAACP was at its peak. The morning after, NBC reported “One hundred forty million Americans were disgraced yesterday, humiliated in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world by one of the most vicious lynchings to stain our national record in a long time” (Wexler 81). Public outcry and pressure from Walter White of the NAACP swayed President Truman to deploy the FBI on the case. However, the problem, which was constantly addressed by White, was that there was no distinction between lynching and murder, and unless it could be determined that a state official was involved, the federal government had no authority to prosecute. This left local police responsible for pursuing cases of lynching the same as murder. However, lynchings in the South often took place with the support of the community, leaving local authorities uninterested, and cases closed on “death at the hands of persons unknown” (Wexler, 66).  Though Truman failed to enact a federal law against lynching, this case in Georgia showed that while lynching may be tolerated in the rural South, the American public and the Federal government would condemn and pursue charges against any case of lynching. Wexler attributes the decline and disappearance of lynchings to “the rise of  black political power, the transformation of the South from a largely agrarian society to one industrially based, a lessening of the prevailing isolation of rural communities, and an increasing knowledge on the part of lynchers that they’d face investigation, if not punishment” (Wexler, 205).

 

In an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition Wexler says that her inspiration for writing was the question of race relations she was left with after the beating of Rodney King and the trial of O.J. Simpson. Her search for honest truth lead her to a four-year investigation in Georgia, where she interviewed over one hundred people, and read uncensored FBI reports. She learned that the attitudes of many white people today are often the same as those of the whites of Walton and Oconee counties in 1946. Wexler summarizes the segregated views of the lynching: “For many black people, the lynching was the most horrific thing that ever happened in Walton or Oconee counties, but for many white people, it was mainly an annoyance, an event that smudged the area’s good name” (Wexler, 267). The answer that Wexler found was that our segregated memories and perspectives on events “destroy our ability to tell a common truth” (Wexler, 267).