Posted on 09/15/2013 5:14:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
It’s a sad day for the United States when the president of any other country, but especially Russia, can outmaneuver our president and successfully claim the moral high ground on anything. But that’s exactly what happened thanks to President Obama's feckless “foreign policy by gaffe” – if you can even it call it policy – toward Syria in recent weeks.
But in the course of seizing that high ground, Vladimir Putin got a couple of things wrong.
He wrote a column in The New York Times Wednesday that concluded, “My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Contrary to Putin's prose, American exceptionalism is not based on “policies” but the principles upon which our nation was founded. For what it’s worth, President Obama misunderstands this too, but the thought of a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB invoking God and citing the Declaration of Independence is beyond ironic. Yet aside from what Putin gets wrong, he gets one thing right, if only by accident.
When Putin wrote, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation,” he was, dare I say it, right.
Our nation is exceptional, but you, me and every other American – we’re not exceptional simply because we are American, even though we, more than any other people on Earth, have the opportunity to become exceptional through our actions.
This concept of individual exceptionalism simply through the act of existing is the greatest threat to American exceptionalism we face today.
We are raising a generation of people to believe they are special, that like every child in Lake Wobegon they’re all “above average.” Of course that’s not only impossible, it’s dangerous.
This “participation ribbon generation” being raised by helicopter parents who have coddled their children to the point of removing scores, statistics and standings from sports, will, if reality doesn’t set in, breed into the future an attitude of entitlement more damaging than any chemical weapon. In short, it will bring about the end of American exceptionalism from within.
A story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal makes clear the first members of participation ribbon generation are entering the workforce, and it isn’t pretty. An ever-growing percentage of the few recent college graduates who can find work in this economy are exhibiting a disturbing trend – bringing their parents on job interviews and involving them in their adult working life.
President Reagan famously said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Today, self-esteem has replaced achievement, and children are becoming more and more insulated from the realities of life, such as failure, disappointment, losing, etc. Conversely, they’re also being insulated from success, accomplishment, winning and the rest. This trend will soon grow to the point children could grow up never having won or lost, failed or succeeded, and never felt the highs and lows or learned the lessons of either.
A few weeks ago the CBC Radio ran a parody piece about a soccer league that was removing the ball because "We want our children to grow up learning that sport is not about competition, rather it's about using your imagination. If you imagine you're good at soccer, then, you are." It was originally not seen as parody because, well, society has gotten to the point that it’s totally believable. How long until we have an “activity” (not a sport because that implies competition) called “Imagination Ball” where the rules are what you make them and everybody wins? It can’t be long…
We’re teaching children they are exceptional because they are, which is wrong. What we should teach them is that, as Americans, they have the best opportunity to do something exceptional – at least for now. But it’s going to take a lot of hard work, wins and losses., successes and failures and, above all, dedication.
Vladimir Putin was correct in one respect, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional” simply for being. Steve Jobs wasn’t born exceptional, but he certainly did exceptional things while he was alive. The same is true for Barack Obama, and everyone else you’ve ever heard of. We’re losing that which drives us, the desire to be exceptional and do exceptional things, and replacing it with entitlement through insulation from reality. Without strife there is no accomplishment, without failure how do you measure success? If we don’t stop this trend of coddling and enveloping kids in emotional bubble wrap, American exceptionalism may only be one generation away from extinction.
“We are raising a generation of people to believe they are special, that like every child in Lake Wobegon they’re all “above average.” Of course that’s not only impossible, it’s dangerous.
This “participation ribbon generation” being raised by helicopter parents who have coddled their children to the point of removing scores, statistics and standings from sports, will, if reality doesn’t set in, breed into the future an attitude of entitlement more damaging than any chemical weapon. In short, it will bring about the end of American exceptionalism from within.”
We are already there.
> Today, self-esteem has replaced achievement, and children are becoming more and more insulated from the realities of life, such as failure, disappointment, losing, etc. Conversely, they’re also being insulated from success, accomplishment, winning and the rest. This trend will soon grow to the point children could grow up never having won or lost, failed or succeeded, and never felt the highs and lows or learned the lessons of either.
And life is going to be a beotch when mommy and daddy lose all their savings and jobs because of this president and little Johnny or Jessica have to learn how reality and fantasy differ. Its not going to be pretty....
I agree...it's going to be ugly.
Putin, a Russian, with only a very partial grasp of what American Exceptionalism is, is an almost irrelevant source to reference.
One ugly thing about modern life is the desire for Fame. Kids today want that more than anythingthing else. Fame and instant wealth. They do not want to earn it—just have them given it. It is disgraceful to see so many young people with homeless signs almost demanding that “old” people give them money—because they deserve it—for being alive. A number of factors has caused this—the Me Generation, feels good do it—Drugs, sex and rock and Roll, drop out and drop in, everything given with nothing expected. This sort of excetionalism will cause a great fall in this land. The next “Pearl Harbor” will see a generation roll into a fetal position and cry for someone else to step up to the plate.
Pres. Kennedy was naive in 1961 but by October 1962 he learned a lot. He went from tested by the Russians-rookie to a man that can draw and enforce a red line in Cuba.
Obama, after 5 years is still a rookie and will remain so until 2016. I wish it were November 2016 already!
Putin, the Professional, seasoned Chess player, the hunter, the macho Soviet, the manly man or the Russian bear knows what his country's interests are. Obama and his RESET for Softpower tell it all.
Obama is no match and he knows it. Now the whole world knows what half of us knew in 2008, namely, that Obama is all show, no substance but a good Sophist. He (and America) do not stand a chance against real men, exerting their will in a tough world.
Besides his Leftwing background, methinks his adopting Zbignew Brzezinski’s Foreign Policy has destroyed him just as it destroyed Carter in 1979.
I didn’t raise my children to think showing up was all they had to do. They know success and failure. They embrace responsibility and hard work. You know what? They are raising their children the same way. It doesn’t take a village. It takes parental involvement and consistency. Society has had it wrong for a long time. Teach and show your children what’s right and they will thrive.
American exceptionalism is not a difficult concept. It derives from our founding documents. And, it can be stated simply: We received our rights from God not from government.
This was planned well in advance of the false narrative presented recently.
I grew up learning that self-esteem was not given to anyone just because they exist; that it was developed by HOW we developed in life; and if we did not have self-esteem the error, the problem usually was somewhere in ourselves; usually correctable but not if we believed it was not our’s to correct.
Heck, the homosexual movement is an act of kids pimping each other, and gay marriage is about some territorialities. It is going to be ugly, the cannibalization.
Like the gas station robbery, the policy is let go of the money and let the expert government catch the guy. Right, and when the young fail today and rob themselves, their answer is the same: let go, the guberment will fix it - my pot addiction what not.
Result is that we spend trillions on pot rehab programs while beating to homelessness tax payers and blood paying soldiers.
” We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Sure thing, CommiePerson.
By Putin’s argument, a Swiss citizen is equal to a Zimbabwe savage, and a Yemeni is equal to - who??
Sad fact is, Yemeni jokes are the Muslim world’s redneck jokes.
When one part of a 1,400 year old genetic experiment with incest claims another part of that experiment is “inferior”, one may reasonably ask who left the door to the locked ward open.
Not correct. God established the institution of national governance to keep other nations in check, but in His Plan, we are not all equal. As individual believers we are given different spiritual gifts, again not equal. When all people are made equal, there is a loss in freedom.
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