It's not just Americans who know "a more star-spangled way of looking at the world" is necessary for America's freedom and prosperity (if not outright survival).
A German economist, writing in Der Spiegel, makes the same argument in a compelling way.
In Obama's Misguided Policies: America Has Become Too European, Thomas Straubhaar wonderfully zeroes in on the pillars of American exceptionalism -- the pillars to which we must return or die! For example:
A firm belief in the individual's ability, ideas, courage, will and a reliance on one's own resources brought the US to the top.
The individual's pursuit of happiness was seen as the crucial foundation for the well-being of society, rather than the benevolent state which cares for its subjects -- and certainly not the welfare state . . ..
Both the behavior of the American government and the Federal Reserve makes one thing clear: They do not see the solution to the US's economic woes in a return to traditional American virtues.
Obama is not calling for the unleashing of market forces, as Ronald Reagan once did during an equally critical period in the early 1980s.
On the contrary: Obama, driven by his own convictions and advised by economists who believe in government intervention, has taken a path that leads far away from those things that catapulted America to the top of the world in the past century.
The highest commandment of the American worldview was always to maximize individual freedoms and minimize government influence. It was an approach that was highly successful.
According to that rule, self-directed action would remain the rule and government intervention the unpopular exception. But that is no longer the case.
The opposite strategy, one that seeks to treat the American patient with more government, is risky -- because it does not fit in with America's image of itself.
But what is good for Europe and Germany does not automatically work for the US. The settlers of the New World rejected everything, which included throwing out anything with a semblance of state authority. They fled Europe to find freedom.
The sole shared goal of the settlers was to obtain individual freedom and live independently, which included the freedom to say what they wanted, believe what they wanted and write what they wanted. The state was seen as a way to facilitate this goal.
The state should not interfere in people's lives, aside from securing freedom, peace and security. Economic prosperity was seen as the responsibility of the individual.
No its revival is long overdue.