What Really Makes the United States 🇺🇸 Great and Exceptional?

This question has been turning in my mind for a while: what really makes the United States 🇺🇸 Great and exceptional to other nations on Earth? Let try to find objective answers to this question.

Is it the US economy? There is no doubt that the American experiment has made the most vibrant economy since the 20th century. With its $20 trillion of annual GDP, the United States 🇺🇸 is currently the first global powerhouse economy in the World. But before America becoming this powerful economy, the British Empire was in such position before its collapsing. And before the British Empire, it is China 🇨🇳 that was for almost one millenium the biggest economy in the world after the collapsing of the Roman Empire. China 🇨🇳, under a communist party lead of the government has accomplished in 4 decades the economic and social progress that a liberal government lead in the United States 🇺🇸 achieved in 2 centuries. Of course innovations in technologies are in part the explanation beyond the difference of rythmes of progress in the two countries. However factual evidence shows that economy is not what makes America exceptional and Great as nation.

Is it the military mighty that makes America’s Greatness and Exceptionalism? There is no doubt that America is nowadays the most powerful military on Earth. Its military expenses and budget are higher to the sum of those of first ten powerful nations including China 🇨🇳, Russia 🇷🇺 and others. However compared to the fire power, Russia 🇷🇺 is almost the equal of the United States 🇺🇸 in their military capacities… This means that each of both Russia 🇷🇺 and China 🇨🇳 military can achieve the same and equal results with the United States 🇺🇸 military although the difference of their budgets. During the Cold War, the United States and Russia 🇷🇺 were almost equal superpowers. Before the Cold War, in term of military supremacy; ceteris paribus, the current situation of the United States 🇺🇸 is far less beyond of the military supremacy that either the Roman Empire, or the Alexander the Great one, or the Ancient Egypt one under the 18th dynasty, which each of them enjoyed. Historically as currently, the military mighty of the United States 🇺🇸 is not an exception.

So what is left that can make America an exceptional Great nation on earth? Let try its political system! The United States 🇺🇸 is a republic and democracy. Western European nations, Canada 🇨🇦, Australia 🇦🇺, New Zealand 🇳🇿, Japan 🇯🇵 and more recently many Eastern Europe countries are democracies and/or republics too. So being either a democracy or a republic is not an exception nowadays. Other nations out of Europe and North America are now developing their own experiments of constitutional democracies and/or republics. Ancient Greece too was a democracy experiment and the Ancient Rome was a Republic before being turned into an empire. Being either a democracy or a republic as opposed to monarchy is not an exception in the history of nations.

We have few left as factual evidence to demonstrate the Greatness and Exceptionalism of the United States 🇺🇸! Unless we go far in the Founding Ideas and Principles of America, which were forged in the American Revolution Experiment. These Foundational Ideas and Principles that make People Equal with Unalienable Rights above the Government are in their historic context the feature of the American Exception and Greatness.

Now that we agree on the fact that the historic context of the foundation of the United States 🇺🇸 makes this nation a great exception among nations; let try to find where this Founding Ideas and Principles come from. All Founding Fathers of the United States 🇺🇸 have a great credit in the birth of America. However two of them have shaped what the United States 🇺🇸 has become as both the political and economic experiments: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

Without Alexander Hamilton, the United States 🇺🇸 government and economy wouldn’t certainly be what they are nowadays. It is his work under the lead of George Washington that shaped and structured the functioning of both the US government and economy as we know them today. By the way, Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant who came to the United States 🇺🇸 as a student… For the legal colonial government of the day at that time, Hamilton was simply a criminal taking part in a revolution against the institutional order and its laws. He would have been executed with all other Founding Fathers if they didn’t win the revolution war against the British Empire… So the American experiment is the outcome of actions of illegals who were rebels against the government in expressing their rage over tyranny and despotism from the system… This is the first feature of the Greatness and Exception of America as nation.

Thomas Jefferson is beyond any doubt the most inspiring Founding Father. The Declaration of Independence, which summarizes the Founding Principles and Ideas of the United States 🇺🇸, was the outcome of Jefferson writings. However it is worth of asking where did come his inspiration? Before Thomas Jefferson, it is hard to find any intellectual mind or philosophy developed within the North America colonies, which would have inspired him. Only in Europe, we can find at that time the Enlightenment ideas and philosophy movements of the 18th century to inspire Jefferson.

Although the Founding Principles and Ideas of America are exceptional in their historic context; it is however in Europe where they were developed by philosophers such as Locke, Hume, Kant, etc. And “the highest ideals of Locke, Hume and Kant were first proposed more than a century earlier by an Ethiopian in a cave”: the 17th-century Ethiopian philosopher Zera Yacob (1599–1692). This shows that although the Founding Principles and Ideas of the United States 🇺🇸 are exceptional in their historic context; they are intrinsically Universal from the Law of Nature, which was already known and experienced by thinkers outside of America before its foundation.

Before Zera Yacob in Africa and the Enlightenment philosophy in Europe, it is the Magna Carta in the Middle Age that inspired the idea of limiting the power of the government on individuals with the institution of a constitution in the British Kingdom. However the Magna Carta was just like the “Jus Gentis” under the Ancient Rome in the Antiquity, which codified the rule of law in the Rome Republic.

Now the question: what is the primary inspiration of the Founding Ideas and Principles of the United States 🇺🇸? Some think that it is the Christian religion, which derives from Judaism. However, one could easily find that both religions are centered around the 10 commandments from Moses Law, which Jesus Christ summarizes in the Rule of Love of God and Humans. It is hard to make even any correlation between the Foundational Principles and Ideas of the United States 🇺🇸 and any religion; even if these Principles and Ideas allow the Freedom of religion.

So where come these Founding Ideas and Principles of the United States 🇺🇸? The first explicit affirmation that states that all human beings are created equal and have Unalienable Rights granted by their Creator comes from the Akhenaton Revolution in the Ancient Egypt. Before this Revolution, there is no known religion and no known philosophy that explicitly state such affirmation.

You certainly know that the Founding Fathers of the United States 🇺🇸 evoke “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” to legitimate the independence, the foundation, the constitution and the legal system of the United States 🇺🇸. What you may not be aware is probably the fact that “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” come from the Concept and Principles of MAAT, which is the Morale Equivalence Standard above any human system of laws and rules! The reason why the Founding Fathers evoke this Morale. Equivalence Standard to oppose King George, his legitimacy and his authority on them and the United States after breaking Such Morale Equivalence Standard.

Never forget that there is Justice above mankind laws! Do you know why the Allegory of Justice in almost every culture is made of a woman figure? It comes from MAAT, of course!

The next time you think about the Greatness and Exceptionalism of the United States 🇺🇸; never forget how Universal to the mankind civilization such Greatness and Exceptionalism belong. The United States 🇺🇸 as a human experiment is the continuity of the Human Universal Civilization, which has been shaped by every nation and every culture. We should embrasse each other as brothers and sisters of the same Human Race. Ideas have no colour, no status and no citizenship! They belong to the Human Spirit, which awakens in each of us in our diversity…

It is not a random fact that the Declaration of Independence states clearly that “All men (Humans) are created Equal”! It doesn’t say that only Americans are exceptionally created equal to make America Great! America is Great and Exceptional when it Lights the Universal Principles and Ideas of the mankind Civilization. America becomes barbaric when it loses such Enlightenment Role. There have been moments of such barbarism: the slavery is one of them. What makes America even Great and Exceptional; it is when brave Americans sacrifice their lives to end such moments of barbarism and restore the Integrity and the Moral Standing of its Founding Principles and Ideas like either during the civil and secession war or during the fight for the civil rights…