davesp64

There are those who wave the flag and throw out the term ‘American Exceptionalism’ with abandon. They claim that the president does not believe in it and that he lacks patriotism and does not understand what it means to be an American. But what does the term mean?

Sometimes I think that those who talk about it the most believe in it the least. Because if American Exceptionalism means that this country affords its citizens with an environment within which they can create and accomplish great things, why do they insist that new ideas will not work and that we must stick with the old ways?

The struggle over what form of energy will fuel our cars, run our industries, and heat and cool our homes is the best example of how unexceptional these people think America is. Or perhaps it illustrates just the opposite and how much these folks fear it.

As with most issues, the love of money is at the heart of the matter. Oil, gas, and coal provide huge profits to those who own the rights to exploit them. Alternative forms of energy would threaten those profits, so research and development of those sources of power must be stifled. The concept of climate change, which is the impetus for the envelopment of such forms of energy, must be debunked. The shills for the oil and coal barons must decry how it cannot be done out of one side of their mouths while touting American Exceptionalism out of the other.

At the turn of the 19th century, it was exceptional Americans who developed the internal combustion engine and the electricity generating power plants that drove the demand for oil and coal. If those same entrepreneurs were alive today, I doubt they would see our energy producing methods as the be all and end all, never to become as outmoded as the horse-and-buggy. No, they would be at the forefront of developing new sources of energy and producing them cheaply and efficiently. And the horse traders and buggy makers who insisted that the automobile would never replace the horse would be the coal and oil barons of today.