The End of the Shuttle, the End of Exceptionalism

The End of the Shuttle, the End of Exceptionalism

The final flight of America’s space shuttle does not simply represent the end of an era. The successful landing of the Atlantis signaled an undeniable indicator of the beginning of the end of American exceptionalism.

The belief in the United States of America as an exceptional nation long pre-dated the Atlantis. Indeed, it long preceded President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s 1961 Special Address to Congress in which he pledged to send a man to the moon and return him safely within the decade was just the capstone of our exceptionalism.

In that speech, JFK called for a national commitment from “every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant . . . that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”

We accomplished that goal a year early in 1969. America’s incomparable feat not only put the U.S.S.R. on notice that we were in the space race but that we were far in the lead and planned to stay there.

As momentous as the Apollo 11 lunar landing was, it merely represented a footnote to our exceptionalism.

Apollo 11 and our subsequent achievements accented what Americans had known for almost two centuries, that this nation had accomplished more in 200 years than any other country in the history of the planet, that we had become the richest, most powerful, most influential, the most free, most innovative, and most productive country ever to grace the Earth.

Long before 1969, most Americans were well aware that the United States was “different” in the best sense from the rest of the world. We had and have our flaws but among boundless other benefits, our nation offered every citizen opportunities and potentialities denied to even the most free of European countries. We had achieved more in a scant few centuries than Europeans had accomplished in hundreds.

We had gone to the moon and back, our horizons were unlimited, we were exceptional.

American exceptionalism ended on Thursday, July 21st, 2011, as per the design of President Barack Hussein Obama . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5060)