Husband * father * engineer * writer * guitar player * smart ass "Freedom of speech: more important than your feelings." Justin Amash is my spirit animal
Citizen of the World
Joined July 2016
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This. So much this.
I’ve always found people who bristle at “American exceptionalism” kind of… weird. Not because I lack self-awareness — I’ve spent my career cataloging every way this country fails to live up to its own rules. But that’s exactly why I love it so damn much. We built a system designed to be shamed by its own founding documents, and it still delivered one of the most spectacular, world-altering runs in human history. A genuine force for human flourishing.
I also found the argument against American exceptionalism to be historically illiterate. Here’s a sample of what we were first at:
• The first large-scale democratic republic in human history — not a city-state, not a monarchy with a parliament bolted on, but a bold continental experiment in self-rule, popular sovereignty, and ordered liberty.
• A written Constitution (1789) with separation of powers and checks & balances — still the oldest national constitution in force anywhere.
• The Bill of Rights (1791): the first time a nation wrote “the government cannot touch these” into supreme law and actually meant it. A dare the world copied — from later rights charters to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Public land-grant universities and mass higher education (Morrill Act), opening college to ordinary people no aristocracy would have let near the gates. (but don’t get me started about what happened after we started. Massively federally funding it.)
• Kitty Hawk, 1903 — first controlled powered flight.
• The Moon, 1969 — still the only ones who’ve been there.
• The world’s largest economy since ~1890, powering unprecedented prosperity through grit and genius.
• The assembly line, skyscraper, transistor, personal computer, ARPANET — the backbone of the modern world.
• Telephone, phonograph, GPS — connecting and powering daily life.
• Surgical anesthesia, polio vaccine — saving and transforming millions of lives.
• Jazz, blues, rock ‘n’ roll — brand new American art forms that conquered the globe.
• Hollywood’s dreams, blue jeans, bourbon, and a culture so open a kid like me could devour sushi, burritos, stuffed cabbage, and tabouli in the same week and rightfully think of it all as American.
That’s the part that fills me with genuine love and pride: not just the power or the wins, but the appetite for freedom, creativity, and reinvention. The audacity to say “We the People” and keep trying to live up to it.
What do you love most about this truly exceptional country? 🇺🇸
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So a Paraguay player gets a red card for covering his own mouth while speaking? That has to be the stupidest rule I have ever heard of.
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It is sad (and dangerous) that so many economic illiterates hold the highest positions of power in our government.
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The net effect of all renewables from an economic standpoint is to add incremental cost to power generation, i.e. consumers pay more. That's it. @AlexEpstein
And the net effect on the planet is giant landfills full of toxic solar panels and used batteries.
Texas built 8 of the 10 largest solar projects in the US last year.
And that's not because Texas rolls out the red carpet for renewables.
It's because solar is winning on cost.
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Somehow this genius thinks the Dept of Education educates our children. It's a bloated, meaningless bureaucracy that has caused our standard of education to go DOWN since 1979.
Closing the Department of Education would be a grave mistake. Education is vital for our children’s future and the nation’s progress. We need leaders who prioritize learning, not undermine it.
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How do I turn off this stupid filter?
Just show me everything and *I* will determine if it is offensive.
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