American Exceptionalism

Once, America was a nation that others looked up to and admired. There were many who wished to emulate our success and many who sought to come to our shores to establish a better life, but those days are waning. Our people are obsessed with mediocrity and abhor righteous behavior in favor of stunts that are designed to seek attention. We no longer correct students with red ink because that hurts their feelings. We celebrate the women in our society at the expense of the men and leave males in the ditch while we place our daughters on pedestals and worse, we subscribe to Marxist ideology as if we were born to it. Or do we?

In the past months Americans have stood up and said "No more." The left would have you believe that it is because these people are no more than corporate shills who are paid to show up and protest, but the truth is infinitely more noble than that. It is that the average American has finally had enough of mediocrity and has cast off the fabled promises of the left for something of real value: freedom.

By affirming individual liberty Americans also affirm the exceptionalism that America has been known for overseas. One cannot claim dependence upon another and in the same breath extol their greatness. This is because the path to a better life is denied to those who cannot stand on their own two feet and survive. By staking a claim to individual freedom we say that we are done with mediocrity and seek something better, something greater. It is that fire that drives us to excel and to rise to the top of humanity's achievements.

If a slave is treated poorly, he has a right to complain about such treatment. But if he is treated well then he still has the complaint that another is limiting his potential and that is the reason that slavery is abhorrent to decent men. If the slave performs well and if the slave always acts with his master's best interest in mind he can never actualize his potential because his desire to perform for the master will always be secondary to his greater desire to perform for himself. Yet there are people who will virtually sell themselves into slavery to a government that will tell them what to think, what to eat, and how to live. Without realizing it these people are darkening their horizons and those of their children because they seek to make themselves dependent upon the dull grey stones of government and that path can never lead to exceptionalism.

The greatness of a people can only ever be attained by a people who stand together as individuals united by common values. Our strength comes from a citizen population that is comprised of individuals who are blessed with individual liberty and act based upon shared values and morality. We seek independence and recognize that dependency makes us slaves to another whether we wish it or not because independence leads to strength and dependence leads to weakness both of the body and of the soul. The dependent do not take action, but rather carry out the will of another.

Reagan's shining city upon the hill was built by free men who understood the severe price of dependency paid by the wills of lesser men. It was built to offer hope to those who lived under the boot of tyranny as beacon of what could be. The election of corrupt politicians and the investiture of Marxists and Maoists at the highest level of government has worked steadily to tear down that symbol of freedom. They do so because it threatens their accumulated power. When a man rules other men who are dependent upon him he gains power over them and the beacon of freedom is a direct threat to that power. This also explains the left's love of mediocrity.

Mediocrity keeps men upon a level playing field where all suffer equally and nobody works anymore than they absolutely have to. The people who live there are filled with boredom, apathy, and ill will toward themselves and their government, but they don't know what to do about any of it. That was life in Soviet Russia and in many of her former provinces it is little better than it was where communism has survived.

Where was greatness in the Soviet gulags? Where was it in the Soviet provinces? The entire system was held together by fear, dependency, and restrictions on personal liberty. When Gorbachev removed fear from the equation the entire system collapsed under its own weight. Yet the progressives would see a similar system here and would destroy capitalism brick by brick. Such a path will not return us to greatness nor will it ease the burdens of the lower classes because such a system murders hope.

We have been lied to. By the President, by Congress, and by our political parties and they did so with the blessings of the press who cheered them on. Our system is broken, our politicians are corrupt, and our government has turned to tyranny in dictating to the public what we must purchase. Our founders would never have stood for such lunacy. They revolted over a tax on tea and yet we are forced to submit to a tyranny who seeks to beggar us and to dictate to us how to live? I think not.

The much maligned TEA parties give me hope for the future. The insane, power mad left call them bigots and rednecks, I call them patriots. If the political waters are murky it is only because the DNC and the press has been stirring the bottom in order to slow down the momentum away from a Marxist government and if they are not careful the hornets nest that they have disturbed may seek them out for vengeance.

Therefore it is the resurgence of individual autonomy that has rekindled my faith in American exceptionalism. As a free and independent people we can once again work toward excellence in the pursuit of our individual dreams. Let us remain free and return collectivism to the dust bin of history where it belongs.

Live Free or Die