BOEHNER: Well, they — they’ve refused to talk about American exceptionalism. We are different than the rest of the world. Why? Because Americans have — the country was built on an idea that ordinary people could decide what their government looked like and ordinary people could elect their own leaders.
And 235 years ago that was a pretty novel idea. And so we are different. Why is our economy still 20 times the size of China’s? Because Americans have had their freedom to succeed, the freedom to fail. We’ve got more innovators, more entrepreneurs, and that is exceptional but you can’t get the left to talk about it. They don’t — they reject that notion.One of the right's current memes is "American exceptionalism". It's one of the many patriotic tests that the Republicans have championed over the past ten years that say "If you criticize the President (Bush only), you're unAmerican." "If you don't support the wars, you're unAmerican." Of course, stifling opinion by false standards of patriotism is actually unAmerican, but that irony completely escapes them.
The current meme is that if you're not constantly chanting "USA! USA!" and don't have a giant foam finger on your hand at all times which says "America #1" then you're rejecting the idea that Americans are unique. It's just mindless flag-waving with no real substance. It's the bashing of other countries real accomplishments and ignoring their real successes as things we might emulate.
Reality is that there are many ways in which we aren't #1 (healthcare for one). Admitting we have problems in order to solve them is actually the height of patriotism.
John Boehner may know this, but his embracing of the meme makes him a hypocritical asshat.
2 comments:
Not only is he an asshat - he's completely wrong.
China has the second largest GDP in the world, a little less than half of ours, and at historical growth rates, will pass us in about 15 years.
Absolutely right. These jerks are "American exceptionalism" us into a third world country.
China is going to eat our lunch unless we do meaningful things to improve America and that includes getting healthcare costs under control, rebuilding infrastructure, getting Americans working again, stopping regressive taxation, realistically taxing the rich, and reducing military expenditures.
These guys are ONLY interested in cutting government spending (under the cover of suddenly wanting to reduce the deficit) in or to hamstring social and regulatory programs. They've been trying for decades to get rid of much of the government and they've finally stumbled upon something that threatens many of these programs.
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