American Exceptionalism bubble busted by a Republican?
Lawrence Wilkerson is a plain spoken outspoken man. He does not pull any punches. He has been hitting his party extremely hard for their intransigence over the last several years. Today at Lone Star College in Kingwood he said something that had many in the room temporarily shocked.
You see, Lone Star College Kingwood is in Kingwood Texas. It is home of the strongest Tea Party in the state. It is considered one of the most conservative suburbs in the Houston Metropolitan Area. There were a lot of Republicans in the audience at this event that was sponsored by Lone Star College’s Center for Civic Engagement.
Lawrence Wilkerson did not disappoint as he spoke about the demise of the United States Empire. What was shocking was his statement on American Exceptionalism.
“Show me an empire that survived,” Lawrence Wilkerson asked. “Show me where it is written in stone that the United States of America is guaranteed life for ever. And don’t bring the arguments out about us being an exceptional nation. We are an exceptional nation alright financially and economically because we are blessed with 3000 miles of basically arable land which we can raise monstrous numbers of crops. We’ve got rivers galore, clean water from one end to the other, benign neighbors, and two big oceans. Any fool could make a power out of what we are. So we are not an exceptional nation. What we are is a nation of people who have an exceptional ideology. An exceptional spirit of welcome for bringing anyone from the world into our borders, for developing and making ourselves better everyday, perfecting the order if you will. Building a more perfect union and so forth. That’s what exceptional about us.”
Lawrence Wilkerson understands it is about people and not some abstract concept. He implies that exceptionalism is transient.
Watch the full speech as well as questions and answers here.