American Exceptionalism

Driving along the Montauk Highway on Long Island yesterday, I was arrested by the image below, painted on the side of a deli in Brookhaven. For years, I've been trying to think of a cogent way to explain the concept of "American exceptionalism." This image illustrates it quite well. Presumably the artist and the building owner have only the best intentions, but as a citizen of both the United States and the wider world, I find the message to be quite mixed. Read contrasting views from Howard Zinn, the American Enterprise Institute, and Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia seems to be covering all the bases on this, better than any other source I could find).