Obama, American Exceptionalism and Mediocrity
by Mike on Sep.02, 2011, under Political
One of my biggest concerns about the upcoming election is that if President Obama is re-elected, Obamacare gets implemented, the American people lose their sense of responsibility for their own lives, and voila, we are France. Not a pretty scenario. A further blow to the American value system which underpins American Exceptionalism.
Shelby Steele has written an excellent article about Barack Obama’s disdain for American Exceptionalism in the Wall Street Journal. The last couple of paragraphs are quite profound:
America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?
As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.
Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.
Think about this statement – “His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.” That sounds very much exactly like our President. He won’t ask difficult things of the American people because he believes it is government’s role to make our lives easy.
A very interesting read – please take a look.
