Nicholas S. Molinari, Brick, NJ:

Ihasten to endorse the recommendations of the writer of Thursday's Featured Letter about making Congress accountable to the public. I have little hope, however, that the noble principle of Public Service can ever be restored. Instead of public service, virtually all members of Congress exhibit total Self-Service. A Congressional seat is simply an easy road to great and/or greater wealth. Only wealthy individuals have enough resources to run for political office in the first place. How can ordinary citizens expect such legislators to represent them and to protect their legitimate interests? These happily ensconced millionaire-Congressmen/women engage in showmanship as they pretend to work for the good of the nation and of its people. They busy themselves with accumulating ever more cash and perks at the expense of ordinary citizens. WE THE PEOPLE? Forget it! They exempt themselves from the law that prohibits insider trading by the rest of us; they gerrymander shamelessly creating impregnable political dynasties by corralling favorite voters; they accept any and all "contributions" for their reelection campaigns, putting themselves at the service of lobbyists who serve corporations and organizations, like the NRA. They obey the highest bidders! Because they are on several payrolls, it is now time for ordinary citizens and media outlets to start calling these "contributions" by a more accurate name, "bribes." Maybe that will highlight and help to change the corrupted culture of Congress!

Steve Price, Antioch, CA:

Unfortunately, there is nothing exceptional about your story of the honors student who was despised in America because of his race. That has been the rule here, not the exception, since Europeans showed up here to begin building a grand new Civilization on lands taken by force with labor provided by slaves help by force. Like you, I must constantly fight to urge to get into loud public debates with some of my ignorant fellow citizens who take their white superiority as a bedrock "fact" of their existence and who resent any suggestion that injustice continues here in the land of the free. Like you I have learned to bang my head in private. I occasionally give in to the urge to send some article, like yours, to some of my friends who claim to be "conservative", but I invariably wish I had not do so, because the replies cause me so much anguish and despair for my country.

Richard Olson, Herington, KS:

While still a student in elementary school I determined that ubiquitous access to verifiable evidence abounds, and at some point in my lifetime humans would take advantage of this readily available knowledge and leave behind all ill-founded notions rooted in ignorance. I knew nothing then about the power of motivated reasoning and its corrupt spawn, willful ignorance. Unfortunately, the force that willful ignorance generates seems nearly the equal of gravity. I wonder if Homo sapiens will endure long enough to establish whether this deliberate self-inflicted blindness is an affliction that may be overcome by a sufficient majority of the species population to minimize its influence, or is instead systemically perpetual.   

Bethany Chamberlain, Harrisburg, PA:

Your point about how many white people came to America on slave ships is telling. Good point well made.

Harvey H. Guthrie, Fillmore, CA:

Again [the prophet] Amos would be proud of you.

William Forsythe, Brooklyn, NY:

You make a good case for affirmative action. You are also a voice in the wilderness. The country has turned the corner for good -- or bad -- on that. That train has left the station.

Caroline Waters, West Des Moines, IA:

Your essay "Amercian Exceptionalism?" helped me over the hump on affirmative action. Your point about how many white European immigrants came on slave boats did it for me. Thank you so much.

Tracey Martin, Southfield, MI:

America, during my lifetime, was once the greatest nation of this world. Especially when it embraced and finally celebrated "The Greatest." Now it is merely the most powerful. Power equals physical strength, not wisdom nor habit of being usually right. Once we were exceptional because "the common sense of it" persuaded us to forego rule by monarchs and trust We the People to exercise the commonweal judgments necessary to allow us to live free and prosper. Now we are succumbing to government of-by-for the corporation and most of the western world adheres to and espouses democratic values far superior to our lame practices in alleged self-rule. We're even beginning to convert America the Beautiful's splendid national parks into coal mines and stump riddled wastelands. (Couple of asides. I was not aware of any Africans indenturing themselves in exchange for passage to America. Lots of Caucasians, including many women, bound themselves to finite servitude of specified nature in order to live free here. And there was also apprenticeship, a form of bondage to a trade. Also: the needle-in-the-haystack more likely applies to finding constitutional logic or perspicuous reason in recent decisions by Kennedy and Alito, the latter of whom impressed me during his Senate hearing as possessive of an intelligence probably equaling that of a subordinate divorce lawyer.)

John Bennison, Walnut Creek, CA:

Stop beating your head against the wall by assuming we Americans will consistently do what we profess to believe. Contrary to popular assumption, America's "exceptionalism" lies not in its superiority, but the extreme to which we tend to do everything (hence a dysfunctional Congress with entirely opposing views at loggerheads, the blind denial of inherent racism, humanitarian aid in nearly every corner of the globe but own southern border, etc). Chief among our exceptional traits is the hypocrisy with which we so inconsistently honor the ideals we cherish, with extreme contempt and self-loathing.

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

My computer questions "exceptionalism" as a word. It is right to do so, at least with regard to the sad history and present reality of racism in America. Hamilton Fish has called race "the core narrative that tracks the American experience." I share your frustration over the Supreme Court's unconscionable rulings on affirmative action. The depth of racism in America is revealed in the failure of even the best minds and hearts to acknowledge the moral sense of it. In her biography of the Civil War hero and statesman Joshua Chamberlain, Alice Rains Trulock makes this devastating comment, "In some ways, his life paralleled the course of his beloved country: he rallied to save the Union, became a part of ending the slavery he abhorred, was nearly mortally wounded in the fight, and championed the equality of the freedmen. Then, sharing the moral blindness of other good men, he and they failed the former slaves utterly and allowed evil to fall upon them and prevail."

Albert Foster, Dearborn, MI: