Yesterdays radio segment, which I posted, was about the fact that the USA along Liberia and Burma are the only countries yet to fully embrace the metric system. This got me thinking. It was punctuated with the remarkable anecdote about Americas currency, thanks to Jefferson, being the first measure of any kind anywhere in the world to be decimalized. That was one of many early groundbreaking American innovations. What happened? Somehow it seems a part of the dark side of the supposed American exceptionalism has taken hold. That early innovative spirit became calcified and enshrined in a massive conflation of religiosity and superiority complex that has turned a large segment of the population into backward looking dolts. The USA is an outlier in so many ways that are not positive or even modern. From the embrace of guns and capital punishment to the lack of universal healthcare and the unprecedented levels of incarceration and income inequality and on and on. Science and climate change denialism are rampant. So many of these grotesqueries are seen as Great and something to be crowed about by the Right Wing. Exceptional? You betcha. Is the US Constitution some sort of sacred document? Did I mention religiosity? Sigh.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 05:00:19 +0000