It may be my ignorance, but the history of the USA i know starts with the massacre of indigenous people, then goes to the massacre of black people, then the massacre of mexicans, the massacre of communists, then the massacre of vietnamese ppl, then iraqs and afhgans, and so on. Where is the part that inspires the idea that the USA has such great values?
But they were founded on the idea of the liberty of men… as long as they are white, protestant, male land-owners…
Not really that liberal, compared to what the people they colonized were doing, before the europeans arrived.
You left out a bit. We also fought the British, and the Confederacy, and the Spanish, and the Kaiser, and the Nazis, and Imperial Japan.
America’s history is complicated, and full of atrocities, like the history of nearly every major nation.
The values he’s referring to in the comic are the core principles espoused in the founding documents. The idea of one nation with liberty and justice for all. At no point in history have those ideas been fully realized, but striving to meet those ideals is what America means to the Captain, not some borders on a map or colors on a flag.
“American exceptionalism is when you think that America, a country founded on a handful of documents, relates to the ideals expressed in those documents.”
I’ll offer a cautionary note on that take. We really need to meet our heroes, in this case our founding fathers, and frame their words and mindset in the time they said what they did. Those “ideals” revolved around landed white males and not the sugar-coated “I can not tell a lie” history we got in 4th grade.
Those ideals are largely enlightenment-era ideals which still resonate today.
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights & previleges, if by decency & propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
- George Washington
Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?—Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!
- Ben Franklin
It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.
- John Jay
The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent?
- Alexander Hamilton
The Founding Fathers were deeply imperfect men who were, in many ways, products of their time. But as far as ideals and not specific policy positions go, they’re worth the naming.
I don’t know, it seems pretty great to have a rebuttal that half-baked edgelords can’t formulate an answer to.
Oh look… American Exceptionalism and American Innocence all rolled up into one ubermensch-style Objectivist “super hero” character.
History teaches us what US “ideals” truly are and always have been - and all the “soft power” the US can conjure won’t be able to paint over it ever again.
“Objectivism is when an antifascist nazi-killer says that a nation which fails to embody ideals of equality is trash.”
If objectivism was how you describe it I’d be an objectivist.
In Captain America #180 (December 1974) Rogers becomes disillusioned with the United States government, when he discovers that a high ranking government official (heavily hinted to be the then President of the United States Richard Nixon) is the leader of the terrorist organization known as the Secret Empire.
Rogers then decides to abandon his Captain America identity, feeling that he cannot continue to serve America after this latest discovery has shattered his faith in the nation’s status. However, a confrontation with Hawkeye (disguised as the Golden Archer) forces Rogers to realize that he cannot abandon a life of heroism, and he subsequently takes on the name “Nomad” (as it means “man without a country”) adopting a new dark blue and yellow uniform with no patriotic markings on it at all.
This identity is short-lived, with Rogers maintaining it for a mere four issues of the comic to varying degrees of success; he even trips over his own cape at one point. At the conclusion of Captain America #184 (April 1975) Rogers returns to the role of Captain America when he realizes that he could champion America’s ideals without blindly supporting its government.
Steve Rogers has never blindly supported the American government.
Sounds like pinko commie talk. Am I right?
While he blithely conflates nations with states as if that’s the only natural arrangement.
(To be fair I do not expect comic book writers to understand those kinds of differences)
