I take all that talk about being a shining city on a hill as part of the civic (non-secular) religion of America. You can say it and it does hopefully guide people to better normative directions. I think the existence of a thuggish element is always going to be there among any society. The squeal like a pig hillbillies of "Deliverance" were not thinking on the importance to society of the hydro-electric power that dam that was about to flood their farmland would bring. They just wanted to rape Ned Beatty. Americans want to buy into the good story and not the bad. Unfortunately, a lot of thugs are feeding more and more hillbillies with notions these days.