From Ginny Grimsley, hawking appearances by some wannabe expert looking to make bank (ironic, I know) on a “thoughtful” consideration of Putin’s warning about the dangers of American Exceptionalism:
Good Morning,
The idea that all men are created equal is a founding principle of the United States. So, is the belief in American exceptionalism inherently contradictory – or even dangerous? Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently thinks so; in his recent New York Times op-ed he wrote that American exceptionalism is “extremely dangerous” and that “we must not forget that God created us equal.”
“Our national identity does face a fundamental dilemma today; on the one hand, our Constitution has stood for a progressive stance on individual rights, and we have become the world leader, in part, by embracing a sense of fairness for all,” says Wade Fransson, author of “The People of the Sign,” business executive, and former minister. Wade was in Leningrad in 1991 during a coup by hard-line communists, which included the kidnapping of Mikhail Gorbachov. Boris Yeltsin then came into power, signaling the end of the Soviet Union. “I am not a supporter of Putin, but I share in a sentiment that has been brought up in the media about this issue – that Russia plays chess and America plays monopoly.”
Wade is available immediately for interview via phone or email if you’re interested - just let me know!
Thanks,
Ginny
My reply:
Wade doesn't understand the concept of American Exceptionalism -- fairness for all comes in the form of a stable rule of law and equality of opportunity, and the "progressive stance" on individual rights, inasmuch as it has used the Constitution as cover for continuous legal revisions, has only served to weaken and bastardize American exceptionalism, not strengthen it, creating from the original idea of a cohesive whole the re-introduction of tribalism and class warfare, with equality of outcome and uniformity its individual-diminishing ends -- so interviewing him would be something of a waste of time.
Frankly, I detest those who swarm to radical chic and who throw out lines like "Russia plays chess and America plays monopoly.” Because even were that true -- and it isn't -- the former Soviet Union evidently landed on Boardwalk, and both it and Park Place had hotels firmly planted on them.
So, you know: checkmate, commies.
Mrs. Palin weighs in.
I denounce myself as weightest.
“stood for a progressive stance” . . .
. . . is a clever new way of saying “crawls on its hand and knees, infant-like”, awaiting Mommy and Daddy’s approval. But we shouldn’t let on, for the children might be alarmed.
“Those who say that all cultures are equal never explain why the results of those cultures are so grossly unequal.” and “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
Both by Dr. Thomas Sowell, whose farts have more intellectual prowess than our all our current leaders (and a certain pikachu wannabe I could think of) combined.
While the Wade Franssons of the world pretend to care about this country, what they really care about is a reality they wish to construct. Given their control over the education system, it’s not difficult to see that they are succeeding, one first grader at a time.
To be fair, Drum, they don’t believe all cultures are equal. Obviously, white, Christianist gun owners who believe in things like traditional marriage and family need to be purged from the body politic because they’re really evil.
Ask anyone who spouts the “Russia plays chess and America plays monopoly” trope about Garry Kasparov.
heh. Ya mean, without mentioning the loopy Deep Blue incidents, charles?
Obviously, white, Christianist gun owners who believe in things like traditional marriage and family need to be purged from the body politic because they’re really evil.
I am the Lord Thy Government, and I am a Jealous God.
Thou Shalt Speake of No Other Gods before Me.
Thou Shalt Pay Thy Taxes and Keep thy Lip Zipped About It, lest I visit thee with plagues of Bureaucrats, Who Sharl Give you a Rectal Probing you won’t soon Forget.
Thou Shalt Honor Thy House and Thy Senate all the Days of thy Life, and there sharl be trickle down benefits from the Bureaucrats on High.
One need only take a peek at the carnage Mandela and his regime have brought to South Africa to long for the governance of De Klerk and stability.
So, no: all men are not created equal. Africa is a template for bad governance and vicious peoples from coast to coast and tip to tail.
Yes. It is a sad but true that most of the former colonial regimes, everywhere, though Africa is worst, were far better off under colonialism than they are now.
Of course, some blame the problems ON colonialism, overlooking the fact that these places had been unmitigated hellholes for many centuries before the colonizers came along.
There are some things that can legitimately be blamed that on colonialism (e.g., sticking tribes that hate each other into arbitrary “nations”, as we see in much of Africa and places like Iraq) but on the whole things were better then than they are now. Interestingly, the ones that are the best of a bad lot are almost uniformly former British colonies. South Africa is bad, but not Rwanda-level bad.
I expect China to take up the White Man’s Burden in the near future. Pleasant thought.
It’d be nice to shift the blame to the Yellow Man. One begins to feel like Sisyphus at times.
In a sense though. colonialism is to blame. Or rather, a political form of mercantilism.
That is, Western nations imported African raw materials for use in their universities and exported back to Africa a bunch of fucking marxists who didn’t know the first damn thing about producing anything of value to anyone except other marxists.
Sort of. Africa has been colonized since the 16th century, if not earlier. Back when the Pope divided the globe in half between the Portuguese and the Spanish, there were ports of call on the horn of Africa and up the coast to the Indian Ocean.
Colonization really took off with the Dutch East India Company and the British trying to conquer the world by Empire building wherever they could plant a flag.
Whenever I read or hear that line about “they play chess and we play _____,” I remember Captain Kirk in “The Corbomite Maneuver.”
So, you know: checkmate, commies.
– This should be the standard response every time a Progressive anywhere opens their mouths for any reason.
– They’ve earned it.
Obama plays poker by going all in and then folding, every time.
He likes to think he’s James Bond. He’s really Maxwell Smart.
Would you believe Jimmy Bond?