What makes a country exceptional? One of the main distinguishing features causing exceptionalism is the huge increase in freedoms provided to Americans.
If America was exceptional, we would have the following:
- the ability for each person to rise as far as their talent and efforts take them;
- we would have certain Constitutional guarantees, such as defined in the Bill of Rights;
- we would have the right to work at or not work at any livelihood that we chose;
- we live under the rule of law.
Because of those basic attributes of America, America could be said to be exceptional, because each citizen is sovereign, and the government serves the citizens.
But today America is not exceptional. We are gradually moving towards the government being sovereign, with the freedoms and privileges enjoyed by the citizens being decided by the government.
This is so because of the erosion of all elements listed above:
- rather than only being limited by talents and efforts, citizens are now limited by the welfare state, which has made them dependent serfs, who care more for “free stuff” than “free opportunity”;
- the Bill of Rights is being eroded at every turn, where free speech is commonly denied, such as at college campuses, where conformity to the liberal agenda is practically mandatory, and in public meeting places, where thugs shout down and coerce, where the right to bear arms is now severely threatened, freedom of religion is denied on the basis of other “rights” such as the “right” to free contraception;
- workers rights are infringed by quasi-government extortion (that is, compulsory union dues);
- the rule of law is being replaced by the rule of authority, whereby Executive Orders and bureaucratic regulation, which are now under the whims “mini-dictators”, as in the case of the EPA saying in effect, “your property is on a wetland and we are seizing your rights.”
These are just the high points. So when Obama says America is not exceptional, you can see what he intends. While it may have once been exceptional, his goal is to make it no better than the other states which are somewhere else on the spectrum of freedom and tyranny.