[Ben Ficklin]

On one hand there are those who say that US exceptionalism is based on Puritanism traced back to the Sermon on the Mount.

OTOH, there are others who say otherwise. One such would be those market economists who say ownership is the basis.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Obama doubts BOTH American and Christian exceptionalism. He takes it much wider in his criticism of our civilization. But the American Framers and Founders did understand themselves to be part of a Judaeo-Christian moral and spiritual tradition which places freedom from statism in God-given rights and a tradition of morality and ethical principles. Pat Boone touched on this in his article about Obama's gaffes yesterday, on whether the U.S. is a Christian nation:

Pat Boone: "You studied law at Harvard, didn’t you, sir? You taught constitutional law in Chicago? Did you never read the statement of John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court and an author of the landmark Federalist Papers, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers — and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation — to select and prefer Christians for their rulers”?

In your studies, you surely must have read the decision of the Supreme Court in 1892: “Our lives and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.” - Obama Sounds Like President Without a Country.

Take that away and they start down the path to tyranny, relativism, or jihad. Quite possibly all three with the One's policies.