Pat Buchanan: People worldwide ‘are sick of hearing’ talk of American exceptionalism

dailycaller.com ^ | September 15, 2013

[Ben Ficklin]

Do you think that you have economic freedom when you buy your car and/or gasoline from an oligopoly?

[Nowhere Man]

I've been thinking about this and I think Pat is somewhat right. I know he's a paleo-conservative, I'm more of a paleo-libertarian but I understand and agree with him on most things. We are, or were an exceptional country. It takes the people to work at it to keep it that way. However, by letting in and breeding more takers than makers, we have ceased to be that nation. Also, the contrasts of the Cold War kept us in line as well and we do not have that anymore.

I keep thinking back to 1982/83 when I was in high school. I had two German teachers, Frau W, who was born in the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk in Poland), she was German. She remembers the Nazis marching in and taking over. My other teacher, Herr B., taught me a lot too. I remember he said that "America is a special place, we have freedoms most people would want. However, he said, there are forces that would take it away and from within if we are not careful." He remembers taking a class over to Germany in 1979 that included a trip to East Germany. It was a true eye-opener.

I thought about this and about this time back in 1983, I asked my question just for craps and giggles, "what if the US became the USSR and the USSR became the US. What if we ever became the Evil Empire? What if the Russians ever had to stop us?" I think I'm seeing the answers and consequences to my thought experiment. This is the time I wish I wasn't right. If you came to me in 1983 and told us the truth of the world we have experienced from 1990 to 2013, especially the later years, I would have laughed in your face but in the back of my head, when I think of Herr B's concerns as my own, I would be scared stiff for our future.

Herr B. passed on in 1993 but I think he'd be very upset at this world the way it is turning out. Mom and his sister talk a bit so I'm sure I'd be talking to him is he was till alive. I'd love to ask him on his take as I ask him "what now?"

WE used to be exceptional, but as on now, we are not or on our way to not being exceptional. We really jumped the shark for sure, but perhaps we can jump back.