“Views from the Edge” is not partisan. We couldn’t care less who owns the ideas. It’s the ideas themselves we care about. Our intent is to unpack the deeper philosophical and religious convictions embedded, like Pavlov’s bell, in our speech and public policy.

Whenever we salivate at the mere hint of the conviction of national superiority or privilege, Socrates is whispering from off-stage. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“Truthout” granted permission to re-publish “The Measure of a Nation” Challenges Illusions of American Superiority (Sunday, 07 October 2012).“Book Review: Author Howard Steven Friedman compared the US with 13 competing countries on health, education, infant mortality, life expectancy and other critical social and economic indicators. He found only one in which America excels: producing billionaires.

“In his book, ‘No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,’ Mitt Romney laid his cards on the table: ‘I’m one of those who believe America is destined to remain as it has been since the birth of the Republic – the brightest hope of the world.’

“Obama’s reluctance to acknowledge America’s manifest moral and economic superiority is for Romney a telltale of his essential foreignness. ‘American prosperity is fully dependent upon having an opportunity society – I don’t think President Obama understands that,’ he told the Republican Jewish Coalition last Pearl Harbor Day. ‘I don’t think he understands why our economy is the most successful in the world. I don’t think he understands America.’

Click HERE for the entire piece.

The idea of “the Chosen,” otherwise described on “Views from the Edge” as “Exceptionalism,” is perhaps the deepest, least examined conviction of the long history of the United States of America. The misapplication of the biblical call to Abraham is pernicious.It leads to mischief and war. Every citizen of whatever country is responsible to love that country and to engage it in a lover’s quarrel. The notion of national superiority is not love. It’s an illusion.