1740. American Exceptionalism Originated with Women

Election day is a good day to draw this picture of American Exceptionalism. Morals are the province of women. Christianity is based on loving one another. Freedom and other rights come from God via the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States. Leading by example, women put God first, subordinate their self-centeredness to husband and children, and exemplify moral imperatives that bring out the goodness in people. Men dance to the kind of womanly music they respect and admire the most, which basically women perform in the key of chasteness, beat of fidelity, and notes of marital sex only.

Liberty, In God We Trust, and e pluribus unum (out of many, one) make up the American Trinity.* Combined with those spirits, American Exceptionalism flowed out of political and economic freedom, rule of law, entrepreneurial spirit, belief that Americans are good, and the creed that America is the greatest nation and place to live. The reputation of American Exceptionalism began and grew to worldwide prominence on the backs of responsible husbands and the moral and religious spirit of their wives.

Cultural exceptionalism empowered American Exceptionalism. Christianity and Judaism are male-dominated religions. Americans merged Old and New Testament values into our Judeo-Christian culture, which has turned out to be female dominated. Not female dominated, you say? Culture represents the values that govern what we all do in society. Men conquered the West but civilized it at whose insistence? Men don’t promote civilized behavior except as women insist. Men don’t need it, but they will accept moral discipline. Men don’t need a supreme being but find their lives enhanced when their women insist on religious observance. Men have an abundance of self-love but it takes women in many roles to teach men how to share and express it.

Men have always dominated the workplace and society (aka what we all do). However, American wives came to dominate the home and cultural values. Wives pressured husbands to improve happenings in society in order to meet the expectations and happiness of women and children. Wives sent husbands from breakfast with orders to put crooks in jail, keep filth out of the public eye, and to educate children. If not from the mouths and expectations of wives, from what set of masculine values did American Exceptionalism arise? Who else but women could smooth the rough masculine edges of capitalism, individual freedoms, and pursuit of property for men and happiness for women and children? Consequently, we should all feel indebted to American women for producing the foundation of American Exceptionalism. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, we have exceptionalism, if we can keep it.

If you haven’t already, please go vote. Our children need their future brightened and today’s a good day to produce it and extend our exceptionalism.

* After a close examination of the U.S. penny, Dennis Prager coined the term American Trinity.