The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Posted on 11/19/2011 7:53:18 AM PST by 68skylark
Is America exceptional among nations? Are we, as a country and a people and a culture, set apart and better than others? Are we, indeed, the “shining city upon a hill” that Ronald Reagan described? Are we “chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world” as George W. Bush said?
According to a report issued on Thursday by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, when Americans were asked if they agreed with the statement “our people are not perfect but our culture is superior to others,” only 49 percent agreed. That’s down from 60 percent in 2002, the first time that Pew asked the question.
Perhaps even more striking was that, among young people (those ages 18 to 29), the percentage of Americans who believed that their culture was superior was lower than young citizens of Germany, Spain and Britain.
Even if you put aside the somewhat loaded terminology of cultural superiority, Americans simply don’t seem to feel very positive about America at the moment. A Time Magazine/Abt SRBI poll conducted last month found that 71 percent of Americans believed that our position in the world has been on the decline in the past few years.
And an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted earlier this month found that most Americans believed that we aren’t simply going through tough times as a nation but are at “the start of a longer-term decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world.”
We are settling into a dangerous national pessimism. We must answer the big questions. Was our nation’s greatness about having God or having grit? Is exceptionalism an anointing or an ethos?...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I like the brevity. And I like parts of the content.
This is my favorite: "You choose greatness; it doesn’t choose you." I think others have said something similar: Decline (like greatness) is a choice -- there's no need for this country to decline unless that's what we choose.
But unfortunately, the article ends with the usual liberal balderdash -- he says we need to spend (or "invest") boatloads of money with liberal voting blocs like construction unions and teacher unions. All that spending (with kickbacks to liberal politicians) is going to make America great again. Good luck with that.
Yeah, exceptional for having messed up the best country on the planet
Nations decline when socialism become the dominant ideology. Britain, France, Germany, and now us.
Socialism destroyed the British Empire.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
“socialism” is a code word for totalitarianism, dictators that want to profit off of others promote “socialism” to get control and rob and murder the populace for their own gain. Let’s not have any delusions about what is happening.
Once Obama and the rest of the f**king libs are out in 2012, we will be the great nation we always have been. This is an NY Slimes article, who gives a rip what they say?
Of course only 49 per cent agree. They see daily their foreign-born president and his destructive party actively
trying to dismantle the essence and power of a great nation and a great people, and substitute his programs and banditry. If the American people will throw their will behind the effort to again be exceptional and not fearful of this big-earred foreigner, we will again be on the way to an exceptional nation. And Obamas enablers such as the Times, should take warning, Sometimes a great number of wounds are inflicted after the battle.
Baraq Obama has declared war on American Exceptionalism. His animosity towards that is what drives him and his entire Administration. His goal is to knock America a few rungs down the ladder so that the rest of the world can be on equal terms with the United States.
My first reaction?
That the NY Times is no longer an exceptional newspaper.
So I guess that makes them part of the “decline” problem, eh, what?
Mr. Blow and his ilk are successfully ruining our nation and culture.
Still need to see Barry’s original BC. He also needs to explain how he comes to hold a SS# issued in Connecticut in ‘77, a state he’d never been to. Not to mention his college grades, senior thesis, and passport records under seal.
Apparently he lived in the foreign dorm at Occidential, Muslim cooking and all that.
Isn’t the media the least interested?
This should not come as a surprise considering the DemonRAT plantation has been working overtime for decades striving for a majority tipping point of hyphenated “Americans”.
Young people are skulls full of mush, indoctrinated into believing that all viewpoints are equal while at the same time all “conservative” viewpoints are ridiculed.
They are not “Americans”, they are “occupiers of America”.
It's not a wonder that less than half of “occupants” believe our culture is not superior — they are all walking around with a chip on their shoulders believing that they are owed a living while not owning any responsibility for their own or others welfare.
Liberals have been working hard on this goal for decades, and it hasn't been an easy goal for them to accomplish.
We must come to understand the role of so-called "progressives" (which, as I have pointed out over and over again on FR in the past few years, constitute the most regressive force in America) in erasing the Founders' ideas of Creator-endowed individual liberty and rewriting America's history textbooks with counterfeit ideas which are antithetical to freedom and opportunity for individuals.
The "unique idea" underlying America's form of self-government under an enduring written Constitution was one which recognized a Creator-people-government relationship. So-called "progressives" have sought to replace it with a government-over-people idea which enslaves and oppresses individuals and allows a political class to trample on the Creator-endowed (therefore, unalienable) rights and liberties of others in the society.
The following is excerpted from a series entitled, "Lessons on Liberty," by La Vaughn G. Lewis, Co-Editor, "Our Ageless Constitution" & "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty." The "Lesson" contrasts the Founders' Ideas of Liberty," which they intended to be taught to rising generations, with the Counterfeit Ideas being promoted in the so-called "public schools" of America for decades.
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” (Jefferson - 1774)
“Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” (John Adams - 1775)
“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (Alexander Hamilton)
“Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first and the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.” (Dwight Eisenhower)
“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)
“…it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor….”(George Washington)
"Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society, and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance." - James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance)
“Now the virtue which had been infused into the Constitution…and was to give it…the stability and duration to which it was destined, was no other than…those abstract principles…proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the self-evident truths of the…unalienable rights of man…the…sovereignty of the people, always subordinate to a rule of right and wrong, and always responsible to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rightful exercise of that sovereign…power.” (John Quincy Adams, on the occasion of The Jubilee of the Constitution - 1839)
"Today, across our nation, we see consequences of decades of gross neglect and outright censorship of the Founders’ ideas from textbooks and from our public discourse. We have allowed counterfeit ideas to dominate the public square, and the Founders’ principles have been crowded out. Unwittingly, many teachers and other unknowing officials have participated in the agenda of an unelected mind-controlling elite whose tyrannical actions have robbed generations of Americans from reading or studying the ideas that made America free. Like termites, they have eroded our foundations as effectively as if they had burned the books. Yet, not once have they been willing to call it by its rightful name—censorship. Once, in America, stifling ideas about the Creator and Creator-endowed liberty was considered unthinkable. . . .
"The ideas of liberty must be passed on from generation to generation if liberty is to survive. These ideas, when they are allowed to be examined freely, will prevail, because their appeal is to reason and to the love for liberty that is deep in the human heart. John Adams warned: “The people of America now have the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number…if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven.”
“The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism.” (Karl Marx)
Our thinking is enlightened “in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural.” (John Dewey, father of ‘progressive education’ and 1st President of American Humanist Society)
“…democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions.” (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)
“…the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay.” (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)
“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially a faith in the prayer-hearing God, who is assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973)
“…the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward elimination of religious superstition.” (Paul Blanshard, The Humanist, March-April, 1976)
“It [the Nat’l. Education Association’s publication list] includes the delegitimizing of all authority save that of the state, the degradation of traditional morality and the encouragement of citizens in general and children in particular to despise the rules and customs that make their society a functional democracy. The NEA is drifting into exceedingly dangerous waters, and probably carrying more than a few teachers and pupils with it.” (Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ass’t. Sec. Of Education & Prof. Of Education & Public Policy, Vanderbilt Univ., 1982)
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“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.” (Abraham Lincoln)
Apparently most people don’t understand the definition of “American Exceptionalism” and rest entirely on the definition of exception.
“American exceptionalism does not mean that Americans are better than others or that America is the greatest country ever. Nor does it imply that the rules don’t apply to America. American exceptionalism is a verifiable claim about the different principles on which the country stands. And what it implies is that America has a responsibility to stand for liberty both at home and abroad.”
The bottom line is what is exceptional about America is its founding on the belief that rights come from God, not the state. This is exceptional and unique in the world.
Our problems run much deeper then just Obama and the libs. As a culture we have turned to government to answer all the big issues...even though the best answers to the big issues belong in the areas of family and church.
I think this op-ed is crap. Leftists like the writer hate the notion of American exceptionalism when it is any way associated with the transcendent. They only like it when it’s associated with the State. The op-ed is really just a veiled assertion of leftist historical materialism, which is in direct opposition to the classical American belief in natural law and God-given rights — i.e. things that transcend human will and the power of the State.
Notice how he ties the notion of exceptionalism-as-annointing to recent Republican presidents, Reagan and Bush 43, while ignoring the fact that similar things were expressed by Lincoln, the Founders, and even Democrats of not too long ago. This is revisionism. It tries to portray this view of exceptionalism as a recent abberation when it’s actually a traditional part of the American self understanding.
To me government IS the problem. Smaller is better when it comes to government.
And unfortunately a lot of Americans no longer turn to God when the hard times come but instead turn to the state.
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