ran 2.7 miles
In an article by Mark Whittington, he examines the “Obama Doctrine”. What is behind his conviction to refuse to embrace the exceptionalism that America has earned and desires to maintain?
Following our president’s unimpressive and ineffectual response to the current Libyan Civil War, as one example, it seems his passive policy on foreign affairs manifests itself from a unique and unsettling view of America; one that finds strength in weakness. He believes America has been too prideful, has “Shown arrogance”, a phrase he’s used, and needs to be humbled.
While campaigning, Obama shunned the idea of American exceptionalism. He seems to believe that America throws its weight around when it should instead sit idly by rather than attempting to make the world in its own image.
Regarding Libya, another president would have had battleships off the coast of Libya as soon as possible. But that action would have contradicted his defeatist attitude because being the first international country to show up would have displayed way too much power in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Even canceling the U.S. Space Program is suggestive of America disinheriting its superiority. Whittington suggests that “Too much chest thumping arrogance, rubbing the world’s nose into American technological superiority” would be far too immodest.
Other countries welcome our new strategy of humility and they are laughing at us. When Obama does make a demand or gently pose a threat, there is little force behind his words and even less in the ears that receive them.
1,554.6 miles to go.
- Minnesota was the thirty-second state to join the union on May 11, 1858, one year before Oregon and eight years after California.
- Population, as of 2009, is 5,266,214.
- Senators are Al Franken (D) and Amy Klobuchar (D).
- Representatives are Timothy Walz (D), John Kline (R), Erik Paulsen (R), Betty McCollum (D), Keith Ellison (D), Michele Bachmann (R), Collin Peterson (D) and Chip Cravaack (R).
- Minnesota has ten electoral votes. Pieced together from part of the original United States, land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and land attained from Great Britain in 1818, the state voted Republican from 1860 through the onset of the Great Depression, except for 1912 (Theodore Roosevelt). From 1932 onward, Minnesota has voted Democratic except for 1972 (Richard Nixon). In 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 10%.
In an article by Mark Whittington, he examines the “Obama Doctrine”. What is behind his conviction to refuse to embrace the exceptionalism that America has earned and desires to maintain?
Following our president’s unimpressive and ineffectual response to the current Libyan Civil War, as one example, it seems his passive policy on foreign affairs manifests itself from a unique and unsettling view of America; one that finds strength in weakness. He believes America has been too prideful, has “Shown arrogance”, a phrase he’s used, and needs to be humbled.
While campaigning, Obama shunned the idea of American exceptionalism. He seems to believe that America throws its weight around when it should instead sit idly by rather than attempting to make the world in its own image.
Regarding Libya, another president would have had battleships off the coast of Libya as soon as possible. But that action would have contradicted his defeatist attitude because being the first international country to show up would have displayed way too much power in the eyes of the rest of the world.
Even canceling the U.S. Space Program is suggestive of America disinheriting its superiority. Whittington suggests that “Too much chest thumping arrogance, rubbing the world’s nose into American technological superiority” would be far too immodest.
Other countries welcome our new strategy of humility and they are laughing at us. When Obama does make a demand or gently pose a threat, there is little force behind his words and even less in the ears that receive them.
1,554.6 miles to go.
What also makes our country look weak are those constantly trying to make the president look weak. Obama graduated Harvard law school with magna cum laude and later becomes president. Being a child of a single parent, this is what American exceptionalism is all about.
ReplyDeleteThe president is being briefed 3 times a day about Libya and the white house is "not taking any options off the table" which includes military intervention. For some, the president can do no right. If he is eating breakfast, people they say he should be working. A healthy, constructive criticism of the president is undermined by constant negative spin on every action the president takes.
Jason S.
Thanks for the comment, Jason. I feel constant criticism is far more effective than remaining silent against ideas that I believe are self-destructive for our nation. And I don't feel I am "trying to make the president look weak". He does a substantial job of that on his own. Regarding Harvard and his childhood, I could care less whether he graduated from Harvard, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a technical school or from nowhere at all. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has no college degree and he is doing a great job. If American exceptionalism is defined by whether someone can get into, pay for and graduate from Harvard, one of the most expensive schools in America, then I would have no interest in how shallow the definition of our exceptionalism was. Our exceptionalism lies in being the one country on Earth where freedom and free enterprise thrive at an unchallenged level. Obama has had over two years to define who he is and he has established where he stands. He is not going to change his spots. Socializing health care, which has been proven to fail elsewhere, his previous stimulus packages (printing monopoly money) based on Keynesian economics, socialistic by nature and proven to fail elsewhere, and his inactions regarding immigration and our borders are the only reasons I need to fully convict myself to run as many miles and to type as many words as I can before November 6, 2012. As a final note, undermining and negatively spinning news and criticism of Barack Obama is only one interpretation of this blog. I view what I am doing as an attempt to make others aware of the direction this nation is heading. And in my opinion, as well as 50-plus% of the rest of this country we are heading toward an unexceptional economic state, in which communistic tenets start emerging here and there, and eventually everywhere, ultimately failing.
ReplyDeleteFor example, the budget stalemate we face right now is absolutely ridiculous. The right wants to cut the deficit, with alarming reason, and the left will not even meet them half way. GOP governors are trying to save their states by weakening the unions while liberals are fleeing from the solution. And on top of everything that is wrong in this country, Obama passed his health care law, which the majority of states are vigorously fighting off because of how expensive and crippling it is.
If this is undermining and spinning then label me an underminer and spinner.
If health insurance costs for a family were about $100 per month rather than $1,000 per month I would say that that the free market is working. Let me ask you this: is public school socialism? How many of us would be able to afford the cost of Tulane or Vanderbilt? Most us have our education because the taxpayer has subsidized it for us. Conservatives are being selective socialists throwing rocks in a glass house.
ReplyDeleteLet me also comment of how much of an "outstanding" job Bush did on immigration. When Bush said that Mexicans were doing the jobs that Americans didn't want to do I was flabbergasted. I think we agree that we don't want illegal immigrants here taking our jobs and taxing our services but the direction the nation is heading in this regard has not changed since previous presidents.
I don't know much about the stimulus funds but I do check the Dow Jones Industrial Average every day. The DJIA was 7949 when Obama started and right now it is at 12169.
I look at the Wisconsin fiasco and I think that we should put a salary cap every single government job to $99,999 including senators, judges, diplomats, commissioners... all of them.
I think the same people who gave Bush slack to be "the Decider" look to Obama's every move with hatred.
Those are some very good and arguable points. Regarding my position as portrayed on this blog, I have never paid much attention to politics until the past few years because I always looked at politics as a circus. I was a late bloomer in developing political opinions and I was equally disappointed in republicans and democrats. Where this country is right now is an unfortunate sum of many different decades, republicans, and democrats. Health Care is a mess and certainly needs fixing, but Obama went from one polar extreme to another. And his extreme happens to be the plan that has failed already in so many other countries.
ReplyDeleteAre public schools socialism? They are subsidized by the government because we all intuitively agree that educating our youth is extremely important to the well-being of America's future. Public schools are not free enterprise, in which products are being manufactured at certain costs and being sold at another in a competitive setting that drives down costs to the consumer and encourages quality of that product. Again, health care is a mess that has taken advantage of us all to some degree with its costs, but to socialize it is a costly and failed plan. And I see no correlation between tax money going to schools, policemen and firemen, as being comparable to our government socializing our health care system. Health care is a business. Public schools are not.
Immigration? Obama is just as unimpressive on this issue as other presidents, but because he happens to be the man in the seat right now, yes, he is going to be scrutinized for his inactions. I don't credit Bush or any other president for being more concerned and there is no reason to stop pressing the issue just because our presidents refuse to ackowledge it.
If the rapidly fluctuating stock market is all you need to be content then it should not bother you to know that when Obama prints monoploy money and pumps it into our economy to no proportional effect, putting our deficit even higher, empowering China and many other countries who all have a strong desire to be the new world currency holder instead of America, it weakens our credibility and our status as world leader. If exceptionalism is not something you are interested in then it should not bother you when the American dollar loses its worth and we are passing yen around. Check the stock market then.
I agree on the Wisconsin fiasco. Across the board, politicians should not make the large sums of money they do and they should have strict term limits so they cannot make a career out of it.
I haven't paid attention to politics until recently either. I respect your views. There is definitely a lot of fixing that needs to happen. I disagree that Obama went to an extreme in the sense that health care will now be socialized. People will be taxed for not having health insurance but this is a middle ground compromise. There isn't going to be a public option and the health providers and insurance providers will be private. Public schools certainly aren't a business but private schools are, and they coexist just fine with the public schools.
ReplyDeleteI don't know much about the monopoly money issue. I do know we owe China 1.2 trillion. Japan 900 Billion. Speaking of exceptionalism,we haven't exported more than we've imported since 1975 (Obama was 14). When we talk about exceptionalism it's time to look in the mirror and stop blaming the government. At the same time we need to streamline government jobs and spending. And the stock market isn't rapidly fluctuating. It has been rising at a steady pace for the last 2 years.