An Exceptional Nation Sometimes We Are Not

J. Edgar Hoover sent this to MLK Jr. 

I love living in America. We enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, free speech, countless entertainment options, a better job market than we get credit for, a minimum wage most would die for, housing options, and all the other luxuries of our nation. In short, the United States of America is an incredible nation, the best nation, and I love it here. With that said, such an exceptional nation is not exceptional by birth-right. It's exceptional for doing exceptional things. Today, two stories really drove home to me how low our lows can be.

First, was this story on J. Edgar Hoover trying to get Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself:

The New York Times Magazine on Tuesday published an uncensored copy of the 1964 letter, which Yale historian Beverly Gage stumbled upon in the National Archives. Here's Gage on the letter's origins:

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received this letter, nearly 50 years ago, he quietly informed friends that someone wanted him to kill himself — and he thought he knew who that someone was. Despite its half-baked prose, self-conscious amateurism and other attempts at misdirection, King was certain the letter had come from the F.B.I. Its infamous director, J. Edgar Hoover, made no secret of his desire to see King discredited. A little more than a decade later, the Senate’s Church Committee on intelligence overreach confirmed King’s suspicion.

The letter repeatedly calls King a "fraud" and makes reference to what is possibly a recording that accompanied the letter, purporting to show evidence of "all your adulterous acts, your sexual orgies extending far into the past."

Has there ever been a more vile, disgusting human being to serve this country than the former FBI Director? I don't know. He's certainly not a good example of our nation being exceptional.

Then, there's this story of the UN Committee on Torture investigating us:

At the start of a two-day hearing, Alessio Bruni of Italy, one of the panel's chief investigators, told the high-level U.S. delegation that it must answer for alleged violations ranging from CIA rendition at so-called black sites to police brutality and Guantanamo Bay conditions. He asked what concrete measures have been taken to implement President Barack Obama's "clear" directives against torture.

A day earlier, the committee took private testimony from death penalty experts, anti-torture activists, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Murat Kurnaz and the parents of Michael Brown, the victim in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting case that has riveted a nation. A decision is expected later this month about whether Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, will face criminal charges for fatally shooting Brown, 18, who was black and unarmed.

Former detainee Kurnaz and Brown's father, Michael Brown Sr., were scheduled to speak to reporters at the United Nations in Geneva later Wednesday.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, which has 10 independent experts, is responsible for reviewing the records of all 156 U.N. member countries that have ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which also prohibits all "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Mary McLeod, the State Department's acting legal adviser, conceded the U.S. record since the 9/11 attacks "did not always live up to our own values," including those it is obliged to uphold under the treaty, which took effect in 1987. The United States signed on to the treaty in 1988 and ratified it in 1994.

What can I say America- sometimes it's not beautiful.