Why America is in fact exceptional

Neo-neocon has a nice post that starts from that sad bit of condescension from BP's chairman to the effect that "We care about the small people." As Neo points out, chairman Svanberg "may speak English, but he doesn’t speak American, and he let slip a Europeanism. That part of the world has traditionally been, and still is, far more hierarchical and class-ridden than we in this country."

That is, America, from the nature of its founding, is the nation of the emergent individual, each one of whom resists being submerged in the "masses" or the "people", of whatever size -- much to the continual consternation and frustration of the various segments of alienated elites.