Baraka_Guru

It's nice little bundle of truth, but it doesn't go into a number of factors that lead up to the numbers. But if you like bottom lines, then there's this: "Canada also trails the USA in cancer survival: for men 61% USA, 58% Canada, for women 57% USA, 53% Canada." That's "trailing," yes, but if this were a competition, then Canada's still "in the game." But if you go beyond the summarizations, you get different pictures. How many families had their finances ruined by cancer in the U.S. vs. Canada? Do we want to go into that?

There are other factors as well, that could be read into this. Canada has a more sparse population density, and so you get problems in remote areas and finding adequate help in time. There are several other factors as well, but if you want to focus on the bottom line, I'll take Canada's care over the U.S.'s If I ever get cancer or heart disease, I won't be able to afford treatment on my own.

Find all the articles you want. The U.S. has a great health care track record; that's great. But it costs a fortune compared to other systems and 30,000,000 haven't had access at all. (That's a population about the size of Canada, btw.) It's great system, yes. Awesome. (Congratulations, even?) But it's geared towards those with nice jobs or a lot of money.

Okay, I know what exceptional means....

...but what Tocqueville means by American Exceptionalism is different. It's a specific usage of the word to make it a specific term and idea. But it's an idea of the past. It's stale. It leads to questions such as, what about Canadian Exceptionalism? Chinese Exceptionalism? EU Exceptionalism?

We are all so exceptional! It's like postmodernism never happened, when, in fact, it did. And I will even acknowledge that postmodernism is dead and gone. It died on 9/11. You'd think that if the zombie of American Exceptionalism were still shifting around that it would have finally died then as well.

Who's living in the "wonderful world"? You believe in American Exceptionalism. If America were so exceptional, you'd think it would be able to provide for a basic human right to all of its citizens. Health care isn't "free," but neither is "freedom."

So the more I think of it, the more I see American Exceptionalism as an old idea to describe a new phenomenon that was America. That's in the past. What's exceptional about America now isn't the same as what was exceptional then. This is why I have a problem with the term.

I have no idea in what capacity you're using that term. Maybe you could explain. American Exceptionalism is so awesome that it should prevent universal health care from happening? I don't get it.

You'd think that since America can afford such a ruinously expense, wasteful, and ineffectual military apparatus that they could afford to give access to health care. Maybe the two are at odds?

I agree the America is exceptional, but I take that as being exceptionally good and bad.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot