The US has no claim to moral leadership and should stop pretending otherwise

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

One cliché that invariably makes me roll my eyes is when US politicians start going on about “American exceptionalism” (in what area?) and, particularly, how the country purportedly represents moral authority around the world. As with any non-American, my only reaction to that is mild amusement. More reflective Americans are of the same mind; here’s PZ Myers’s blunt take on Sen. John McCain’s recent speech extolling the US as “the last best hope of Earth” (no, really):

He’s promoting the tired old claim that America has been idealistic for the last three quarters of a century, that we are the ‘the last best hope of earth’? Tell that to the people of Vietnam and Cambodia that we napalmed, to the countries of Latin America where we have supported dictators, to Cuba that we embargoed when they didn’t support American imperialism, to the people of Iran where we maintained a tyrant to protect our oil interests until a theocratic revolution cast him down, to the nations of Africa that suffered under our exploitive neglect, to South Africa where we aligned ourselves with the perpetrators of apartheid, and on and on and on. This is the America that still treats Henry Kissinger as a distinguished elder statesman. This is a nation that lashed out with violence and war in response to a terrorist attack, and demolished a country that had not been involved. America is a country that enables war criminals and then reveres them as heroes.

His speech is just more American exceptionalism, and it will be well-received by the yahoos and the journalists who will praise it as statesmanlike. Notice, though, how he assumes that we possess “international leadership” — that of course we run the world, so we must continue to bear the paternalistic burden of solving everyone else’s problems. The problem is just that one bozo currently in office…but never forget, that bozo is the epitome of Republican policy.

Oh, and remember how one president tortured people, and how the next president chose not to prosecute anyone for it, both in violation of international law? Can’t forget that.

The US is a nation that was founded on genocide, built by slaves, grudgingly gave nominal rights to minority groups whilst finding creative ways to screw them over on every level, and industrialized through endless wars (one of which ended with dropping nukes on fishing villages) until it grew powerful enough to declare itself the global police that no-one else asked for.

The US and its people have a lot of admirable qualities and have undoubtedly come a long way. But any claims of superiority, moral or otherwise, should only be met with laughter, considering most modern countries do almost everything better than the US does – life expectancy (Japan), infant mortality rate (Monaco), poverty level (Taiwan), science literacy (South Korea), crime rate (Nepal), general happiness/quality-of-life index (Norway), and so on and on.