Posted on 09/15/2013 8:24:57 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan offered a counterintuitive reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putins op-ed in The New York Times last week, saying that other countries are sick of hearing Americans calling themselves exceptional.
Buchanan, author of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? argued that Putin echoed what Obama and many Americans had said with regards to the United States as the worlds exceptional superpower.
From the hysterical reaction in this city [Washington, D.C.] to Putins op-ed piece, he put this one right down the smokestack, Buchanan said on s broadcast of The McLaughlin Group. What he did is he keyed off what Obama said on exceptionalism and he countered it with an argument which people all over the world believe. They are sick of hearing Americans talk about we are the indispensable nation, as Madeline Albright said. We see further than ours, thats why we can use force. We are the sheriff of the world, we are first, we are leaders. Hes not only appealing to the people of the world, he is appealing to that half of the United States to whom Barack Obama himself was appealing. So, I think he hit home.
Yeah, we probably should stop singing the national anthem, too. Some people are tired of hearing it, don’t believe it and even find it offensive.
We probably should stop cheering our team because the other team is tired of hearing it. Or maybe your team is not doing good—throw down your pom-poms and walk off the field. Release yourself from that humiliation and disgust.
Maybe we shouldn’t have -in God we trust- on our money, because some people don’t want to read or hear about God.
Maybe we should all globally hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Let’s not even have nations or borders. We can have one global ruling body.
We don’t want anyone tired-out or offended by national pride. We will have world pride. Everybody will be just the same, we will outlaw anything that constitutes difference.
Complete equality, so much so that nobody competes. No more embarrassment when your team isn’t doing well...because we won’t have teams. It will be beautiful.
And if we go to the space station...we have to hitchhike with the Russians.
The money that was going toward the shuttles had to be switched over to food stamps, welfare, Section 8 housing, SSI, SSDI “crazy checks”, illegal alien education, health care, and imprisonment, galas for government bureaucracies, etc.
Ubama had no choice.
Of course he had no choice. What the heck was I thinkin’.
But those were White guys, old school. It’s new school now, sir!
Agreed.
When America turns to a state of abject moral depravity, turn our once-great economy into that of a third-world backwater and quash constitution freedoms by the day because “everyone else is doing it,” what again is the exceptional part?
The Bill of Rights is the one and only exceptional aspect of America. Individual rights over the State. Unfortunately, our own goverment has been busy trying to find ways around it for over 100 years.
It’s best to avoid TALKING of American Exceptionalism; it should be simply DEMONSTRATED. Note that there was no issue of American Exceptionalism until Obama began demonstrating the lack of it, and then started talking about it to cover up his weaknesses.
“But living off past achievements is not exceptional. Instead of talking about it all the time, we need to be exceptional and nothing will NEED to be said.”
Well said!
To people today, our landing on the moon is akin to the old folks talking about The Great War when I was a kid.
It WAS a big deal, but exactly relevant to today’s audience.
Really Pat? Where do they hear about American Exceptionalism? Their media? Unless you listen to “right wing” talk radio, you don’t hear about American Exceptionalism. I think Bill Murray in “Stripes” had a great speecch on American Exceptionalism.
SCREW THEM
The problem is, a discussion of the subject goes beyond the scope of a chat room like FR. You need to write a 5000 word essay on the subject.
First, you would have to determine if it is based on a single characteristic or a multitude of characteristics, some that were present in the beginning, and others that were added over time.
Some say it is our Puritan roots which can be broken into 2.
Delayed gratification, which we revere, while we frown on instant gratification. Secondly, the Shining City on the Hill was Puritan founding principle which came from the Sermon on the Mount, though we are not exactly sure who wrote that.
And others could point to our educational system. In the shift from an ag economy to an industrial economy, the educational system we developed played a big role in the nations success. Some people are uncomfortable with this subject because our educational system is highly socialistic, or it might not be adequate as we shift into an information technology economy.
You could go on and on and on and on. Some of these characteristics can be on the fringe: Exceptionalism could be based on hybrid vigor which is the result of a highly hybridized population. I always thought that I was very exceptional person because my father was a Vermont Yankee and my mother was a Mississippi Belle, and I grew up on the bunch grass prairies of west Texas. Nature and nurture.
Here is my 5000 word essay about American exceptionalism.
freedom
But I do take exception to calling him an anti-Semite.
That is just methodology that NeoCons such as yourself use to marginalize him and others because of his foreign policy views. Similarly, you have a hard time calling people like Henry Kissinger a anti-Semite, so you NeoCons call him a self-loathing, or self-hating Jew.
You are full of bullcrap.
Or the freedom of riding around in your car with the radio turned up loud.
I am really saddened that you do not know what freedom is.
Its about the fact that you see freedom as a slogan. And because of that, you are easily manipulated.
You are it appears trying to make many assumptions about me, because I say “freedom” and you by your responses seem to not understand “freedom”.
Good day.
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