This is part of the reason America is struggling as a superpower: our nationalists don’t give a fig about the nationalism of anyone else. American conservatives sometimes say that unlike American liberals, who believe in surrendering power to global institutions, they believe in the nation as the sole legitimate source of authority in international affairs. And that’s true when defending our nation’s prerogatives. Had news broken that Germany was tapping our president’s cell phone, Limbaugh would be musing about fire-bombing Dresden again. But the American right is indifferent, if not hostile, to non-Americans defending their nation’s honor. NSA spying on foreign leaders is only the latest example. In Colorado, they’re now issuing drone-hunting licenses so Americans can shoot down any airborne spy planes that trespass their property. And yet there’s scarcely any sympathy on the right for the Pakistanis and Yemenis who are upset that the U.S. sends drones over their countries, though those drones regularly kill people.

This isn’t American “exceptionalism”—the belief that the U.S. is fundamentally different, and better, than other nations. It’s what the international relations scholar John Ruggie has called (PDF) American “exemptionalism”—the belief that America need not play by everyone else’s rules. The notion isn’t completely absurd. As a superpower, which many smaller countries look to for protection, the U.S. does have special burdens that may sometimes require a special freedom of action. It’s easy for Belgium to say it won’t take military action without United Nations approval. It’s harder for the U.S., the country that gets disproportionately blamed if a Security Council deadlock prevents it from stopping genocide or protecting an ally from harm.