American exceptionalism

It is hard to take Rickie Santorum seriously as a presidential candidate.  He is at one or two percent in the polls, he lost his Senate race in Pennsylvania to Bob Casey, and he is spending time in Iowa and New Hampshire making outrageous statements about President Obama, the Second Amendment, abortion, and racial issues. Nevertheless, when Donald Trump is polling as the most popular of the Republican candidates, perhaps we need to take Rickie seriously.

At an N.R.A. convention, according to the Pocono Record, Rickie criticized President Obama for failing to tout “American exceptionalism,” the idea that this country is the most exceptional country among all others in the world.  And we are exceptional. 

We have lower life expectancy than Greece, Spain, or Costa Rica although we spend more money on health care per person than any other country in the world.  We have one of the highest rates of mental illness, less social mobility than almost every European country, one of the highest rates of incarceration, one of the highest levels of obesity, one of the highest rates of drug addiction. We are so exceptional it makes my head hurt. 

Patriotism should never be confused with nationalistic bombast.  Love of one’s country should not be confused with a blindness toward its problems.   

At vespers at 4-H camp we sometimes sang a song to the tune of Finlandia by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.  When I was a teenager, I thought it was one of the most beautiful songs I knew.  I still think so.  Here are two of the verses from the 4-H songbook.  Maybe it can serve as an antidote to this exceptionalism rhetoric.

This is my song, oh God of all the nations, 

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is; 

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

This is my song, thou God of all the nations;

a song of peace for their land and for mine.