July 4 1776.

So what is the thing about the USA?

Allan Bloom deals with this to some degree and certainly Dr Kelley Ross, Michael Huemer and Steven Dutch are relevant to this issue. It does not seem simple to answer. For the libertarian thing seems right in some ways but not exactly. [As Steven Dutch pointed out.]

See Robert Scruton for his very nice critique on the really nutty left wing thinkers that for some odd reason gained good but undeserved reputations.

I go with Allan Bloom on this issue to say that it has not been resolved. As he puts it in his book there is this direct confrontation between Enlightenment and Anti Enlightenment which just has come to a head in this generation and there does not seem to be any resolution.

[Why Allan Bloom does not mention the possibility that it is a kind of dialectical process that you see in Hegel is not clear to me. He obviously has a lot of respect for Hegel and Kant and yet leaves both out of his analysis.]

The USA certainly excels in so many important areas that it is impossible to make a list. STEM comes to mind. But the odd thing is there is no Mozart or Handel. Why? Is this part of the issue that Hegel brings up -- this process of dialectics?



Hobhouse mentions that the church is also a human institution that is as prone to flaw as government is. But they deal with different areas and different issues that sometimes intersect. So what makes America great is the balance between these two poles.






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