So to avert the derailing of another thread, I'd like discuss American Exceptionalism.
First, what is American exceptionalism? It's the believe that America embodies some particular human ideals (usually freedom, opportunity, rights of man), and that America is thus not like other countries. Some Americans believe this is actually a religious identity - that America is favoured by God. Others point to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution as unique documents in human history.
I tend to see it as the "it can't happen here" syndrome. That the U.S. can do stupid, dangerous, and cruel things and have it be OK because we are America. It is the worst kind of magical thinking.
How many Americans here believe the U.S. is uniquely free, has unique opportunities, etc., and how widespread is the notion among Americans at large?
My SWAG on this is that lots and lots of Americans feel that this is true. If not most (and I'd think most), at least a big, big minority.
Is it true that America is unlike other nations in embodying universal ideals, particularly freedom in speech and politics, and in economic opportunity?
Yes and no. We have more freedom of speech than most places, even other Western democracies, for the moment. We have both more and less political freedom than other western democracies. We basically have two meaningful choices in any election cycle, and it is expensive as hell to deal in initiatives a lot of the time, and you can't really do that on the Federal level. Of course, we also don't have a rigid and largely closed party structure that you see in some of the parliamentary democracies. Unfortunately, I see a lot of the political liberty we do have as vulnerable for a variety of reasons. On the economic front, I don't know what class mobility is like in Europe at the moment, but I know it is getting more difficult, and more downward here.
How does the widely held belief in American exceptionalism among Americans affect America's relations with the rest of the world?
Again, a total SWAG, but I think it pisses people off. Some European countries have already played the games we have been playing a hundred years ago and more and know how this ends, and we won't listen.
Also, I don't think any claims that we are the good guys are going to resonate real well in most of Central America. I know if I were Iranian, and was old enough to remember how the Shah ended up in power, the fact that the U.S. calls itself a force for Democracy would piss me off as much as what happened to my country. Same with Chile, or Nicaragua, or Guatamala, or a shit ton of other countries we have done shitty things to over the course of the last hundred years.