Prickly City by Scott Stantis for July 31, 2012

A government run space program is no different than any other government subsidized enterprise. True pioneers don’t need the government to pay their bills.

Per US News & World Report, Obama has mentioned ‘American exceptionalism’ more than Bush did. (Jan. 2011)

You guys. Stop *#%% at each other and incorporate, start a biz, hire some people. Edison did it, Jobs did it, you’re both still part of the problem. Are YOU both deaf and dumb or is it just one of the two?

Whenever I hear someone bring up “American Exceptionalism” I am reminded of Pavel Andreievich Chekov on Star Trek going on about Mother Russia.

Yet another demonstration that Prickly City, which purports to be fair and balanced, is actually just Fox News in cartoon form. Obama talks about American exceptionalism all the time, but he is referring to our liberty, our opportunity, our common dreams, and not just our military might and the development of Tang.

I think they used to call that “Manifest destiny”.

Cool inventions, new heights, exceptionalism… but to what end? You may think those are ends in themselves; others think they’re not nearly worth the diversion from other programs.

the concept of “American exceptionalism” = foolish. Dismantling the space program = also foolish. Everything about this cartoon and the ensuing comment debate = highly irritating.

Because that nincompoop, Bush, destroyed our economy and threw us into debt, we have no money for anything anymore. Just imagine the interest on 16 billion dollars alone could have financed a trip to Mars!

If Obama wasn’t throwing down over a trillion in deficit every year, we wouldn’t have to pay all that interest either. I gotta admit this comic strip does make the point that America is sliding towards mediocrity if it isn’t already there.

Obama actually has mentioned it…and more than once. What he HASN’T mentioned is the false notion that America’s ‘exceptionalism’ is from god.

I find American exceptionalism (which Obama HAS mentioned, Carmen!) to be a pretty childish conceit. Any exceptionalism just rubs me the wrong way.

Yes, America is an exceptional country, one that in many ways we are blessed to live in. I would never dispute that. But trying to claim that any of this MEANS something cosmically significant, as many of the proponents of American Exceptionalism™® seem to do, just seems silly and naive to me. Also, the way it often comes out, pretty darned arrogant.