Shelby Steele In Todays WSJ (he nails it)

[rushmc 18]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576532623176115558.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By SHELBY STEELE

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama's character, today's left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there.

Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.

Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.

Anti-exceptionalism has clearly shaped his "leading from behind" profile abroad—an offer of self-effacement to offset the presumed American evil of swaggering cowboyism. Once in office his "hope and change" campaign slogan came to look like the "hope" of overcoming American exceptionalism and "change" away from it.

So, in Mr. Obama, America gained a president with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.

But then again, the American people did elect him. Clearly Americans were looking for a new kind of exceptionalism in him (a black president would show America to have achieved near perfect social mobility). But were they also looking for—in Mr. Obama—an assault on America's bedrock exceptionalism of military, economic and cultural pre-eminence?

American exceptionalism is, among other things, the result of a difficult rigor: the use of individual initiative as the engine of development within a society that strives to ensure individual freedom through the rule of law. Over time a society like this will become great. This is how—despite all our flagrant shortcomings and self-betrayals—America evolved into an exceptional nation.

Yet today America is fighting in a number of Muslim countries, and that number is as likely to rise as to fall. Our exceptionalism saddles us with overwhelming burdens. The entire world comes to our door when there is real trouble, and every day we spill blood and treasure in foreign lands—even as anti-Americanism plays around the world like a hit record.

At home the values that made us exceptional have been smeared with derision. Individual initiative and individual responsibility—the very engines of our exceptionalism—now carry a stigma of hypocrisy. For centuries America made sure that no amount of initiative would lift minorities and women. So in liberal quarters today—where historical shames are made to define the present—these values are seen as little more than the cynical remnants of a bygone era. Talk of "merit" or "a competition of excellence" in the admissions office of any Ivy League university today, and then stand by for the howls of incredulous laughter.

Our national exceptionalism both burdens and defames us, yet it remains our fate. We make others anxious, envious, resentful, admiring and sometimes hate-driven. There's a reason al Qaeda operatives targeted the U.S. on 9/11 and not, say, Buenos Aires. They wanted to enrich their act of evil with the gravitas of American exceptionalism. They wanted to steal our thunder.

So we Americans cannot help but feel some ambivalence toward our singularity in the world—with its draining entanglements abroad, the selfless demands it makes on both our military and our taxpayers, and all the false charges of imperial hubris it incurs. Therefore it is not surprising that America developed a liberalism—a political left—that took issue with our exceptionalism. It is a left that has no more fervent mission than to recast our greatness as the product of racism, imperialism and unbridled capitalism.

But this leaves the left mired in an absurdity: It seeks to trade the burdens of greatness for the relief of mediocrity. When greatness fades, when a nation contracts to a middling place in the world, then the world in fact no longer knocks on its door. (Think of England or France after empire.) To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline—as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.

Since the '60s we have enfeebled our public education system even as our wealth has expanded. Moral and cultural relativism now obscure individual responsibility. We are uninspired in the wars we fight, calculating our withdrawal even before we begin—and then we fight with a self-conscious, almost bureaucratic minimalism that makes the wars interminable.

America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?

As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.

Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[jclalor 12]

I guess since this is written by a black man, it must be true.

[rushmc 18]

Quote

I guess since this is written by a black man, it must be true.

I don't know about that
But is sure takes away your ability to call him a racist

sucks huh

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DSE 3]

Quote

I guess since this is written by a black man, it must be true.

Stolen from the WSJ.

Ooops, forgot...it's copy "right" not "copy "left."

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Quote

I guess since this is written by a black man, it must be true.

Stolen from the WSJ.

Ooops, forgot...it's copy "right" not "copy "left."

Any comment to the content?

Edited to add

From anyone?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DSE 3]

Nope, I'm still too reading other writings by this guy that aren't stolen from another website. Seems he needs to be "other guy" for most everything, so to this point...his view is the one that sells the best to any opposition on any subject.
I do find it amusing that the "right" voice of DZ.com deems it OK to steal.
Or maybe you missed the copyright notice on the WSJ page.

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Nope, I'm still too reading other writings by this guy that aren't stolen from another website. Seems he needs to be "other guy" for most everything, so to this point...his view is the one that sells the best to any opposition on any subject.
I do find it amusing that the "right" voice of DZ.com deems it OK to steal.
Or maybe you missed the copyright notice on the WSJ page.

Credits were given
So steeling?

Funny shit
but the truth this hard to refute

So

Attack the source



So I will tribute your post to being a drive by one

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DSE 3]

Quote

Quote

Nope, I'm still too reading other writings by this guy that aren't stolen from another website. Seems he needs to be "other guy" for most everything, so to this point...his view is the one that sells the best to any opposition on any subject.
I do find it amusing that the "right" voice of DZ.com deems it OK to steal.
Or maybe you missed the copyright notice on the WSJ page.

Credits were given
So steeling?

Funny shit
but the truth this hard to refute

So

Attack the source



So I will tribute your post to being a drive by one

Credits don't satisfy copyright law. Like stealing a candy bar but saying "I got this from 7-11."
I've just spent the last 45 minutes reading various articles by Steele. An educated man, who likes taking to the white man as a black man.
In this rant you posted, he doesn't say ANYTHING about what Obama has done or hasn't done. It's just a spew of "this guy is a leftist who hates America and I need to explain why."
Not one word about accomplishment or specific failure.
Just a redneck with a shingle, AFAIC. Just cuz it's in the Wall Street Journal (whose readers Obama had the audacity to criticize) doesn't make it any more credible.

[rushmc 18]

I posted a rant?

Compared to what? Yours?




Now

Tell me where the writer is wrong?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

BTY

I bet you say the same about Clarence Thomas




don't you

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DSE 3]

Quote

BTY

I bet you say the same about Clarence Thomas




don't you

Nope, in fact I kinda like Clarence Thomas, met him when my elder brother was clerking for Justice Phillips. who was next in line had Thomas not been confirmed.

Thomas hasn't made his living attacking other people for their lack of dedication to their color or culture.
Steele does a good job of that. It's unfortunate that some folks are ign'ernt enuff to believe his rants.
Then again, there are racialists (there's a cute word fer ya) that seem to think that if you don't like one person of color, you don't like any of em'.

[rushmc 18]

So does how your last statement in your post relate to your reply or to me?

Oh

Never mind


I already know

Now

Yet again

How do you reply to the content? (regardless of your attack on me and the writer)

You know, that which you have yet to address and debunk

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[DSE 3]

Duhh...I did respond to the content above. Read again?

Was kinda specific in case you missed it.

You suggested I didn't like Clarence Thomas; I explained I do like him.

Believe it or not, there are actually people (honest to God, I swear) that function in this world thinking for themselves, not following some party line. Liberals (gasp) that own firearms and Conservatives (the horror) that believe in social responsibility.
Hard to imagine, but true.

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Duhh...I did respond to the content above. Read again?

Was kinda specific in case you missed it.

You suggested I didn't like Clarence Thomas; I explained I do like him.

Believe it or not, there are actually people (honest to God, I swear) that function in this world thinking for themselves, not following some party line. Liberals (gasp) that own firearms and Conservatives (the horror) that believe in social responsibility.
Hard to imagine, but true.

The irony meter just exploded

now

comment to the article content
Not my post(s)

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Andy9o8 0]

I'm waiting for you to realize you're banging your head against the wall.
Go ahead; say something else logical and coherent. See what gets tossed back.

'Scuze me, I gotta go floss.

[hwt 0]

"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
— Thomas Jefferson

Only candidate running that would fix this mess is Ron Paul...

[Trafficdiver 8]

Funny how everyone is attacking you and the author and the copyrights and everything else without critiquing the content of the article.

You know why.

Fear.

The truth about Obama hurts.

[freethefly 6]

Quote

Liberals (gasp) that own firearms and Conservatives (the horror) that believe in social responsibility.

We're the ones who have a foot on both sides of the line.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[DSE 3]

Quote

I'm waiting for you to realize you're banging your head against the wall.
Go ahead; say something else logical and coherent. See what gets tossed back.

'Scuze me, I gotta go floss.

I've already realized. I'm just not SC material, 'cause I can't pick one side and blindly cling to it.
Comments made specifically about the article went unread, because the agenda is more important than the message. It's that kind of radicalism that gives racists the Christian Right Fruitcakes a bad name.
I keep forgetting this kind of stupidity exists outside of Hollywood; it's not something I see in normal people.
I gotta go clean my weapons, it's my night to protect the Planned Parenthood Clinic from nut jobs.

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Funny how everyone is attacking you and the author and the copyrights and everything else without critiquing the content of the article.

You know why.

Fear.

The truth about Obama hurts.

I know
And then they claim they have commented keeping themselves (in their own mind) feeling superior.

Steele hits a home run

Every line in every pharagraph

Funny how some Obamamites come out to play when the chozen one is detailed so correctly

I gotta say I really love the feet on both sides of the fence line

They gotta love themselves

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[SkyDekker 1,129]

Quote

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama's character, today's left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there.

No basis in fact, not provable and pure opinion.

Quote

Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.

No basis in fact, not provable and more akin to "party speech"

Quote

Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.

No examples to back up his claims

Quote

Anti-exceptionalism has clearly shaped his "leading from behind" profile abroad—an offer of self-effacement to offset the presumed American evil of swaggering cowboyism. Once in office his "hope and change" campaign slogan came to look like the "hope" of overcoming American exceptionalism and "change" away from it.

So, in Mr. Obama, America gained a president with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.

More claims without evidence. Starting to become clear he is pandering to a defined audience.

It is an opinion piece, which people are entitles to write. Unfortunately he is not backing up his opinions with examples and as such, this would be teh time I would stop reading the article.

[rushmc 18]

Of course it is an opinion pieice


That is what an op ed is

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[SkyDekker 1,129]

But his opinion is not backed up by any examples, just vague generalizations which certain groups will swallow as gospel.

On top of that, and I didn't put this in my first post since I didn';t instantly want to get accused of attacking the author, but Steele is somewhat known to let his (written) opinion be guided more by what sells than thought.

[rushmc 18]

Quote

But his opinion is not backed up by any examples, just vague generalizations which certain groups will swallow as gospel.

On top of that, and I didn't put this in my first post since I didn';t instantly want to get accused of attacking the author, but Steele is somewhat known to let his (written) opinion be guided more by what sells than thought.

Everyone you lefties disagree with gets the same label and treatment

Thanks for playing

BTW

He IS right on the money about your hero

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[SkyDekker 1,129]

Quote

Everyone you lefties disagree with gets the same label and treatment

I can understand labelling people who disagree with facts. But, have a harder time understanding the labelling of everybody who disagrees with an opinion.