The Milken Roar

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  • S

    Sammy LawrenceDec 18, 2012 at 11:47 pm

    SHOUMER,
    First I would like to commend you for this provocative piece. Second I would like to address several claims you made. The first pertaining to your statements about “failure”. While failure is certainly a part of a free market economy and is beneficial for growth etc., there are certain areas of life where it is fatal for a person to fail. As we saw in 2008, many hardworking Americans, saving their money, working in the private sector, lost their jobs and all of their retirement. As a result of government intervention (bailout etc.), many, certainly not all, of these individuals were able to save their lively hood.

    In concern for time, and anticipation for our conversations at lunch, I will only touch on one more point. That is the belief that American can spread liberty and freedom across the globe. On paper, it appears that spreading freedom and liberty to the oppressed peoples of the world is just and pushing on saintly. Unfortunately, foreign policy is not executed on paper. While America does have an obligation to those who are in immediate danger (to an extent). Often times American intervention abroad can often lead to unintended results. For example, many argue that invading Iraq allowed Iran to focus its resources towards developing a nuclear weapon rather than protecting itself from its greatest enemy.

    America is however still the most stable country in the world. Despite sharp disagreements and steep, often fiscal, cliffs, we still know that in 2 years every congressman will be up for re-election and in 4 years YOU (Daniel Shoumer) will be able to vote for president. Regardless of who wins we know that the day following the election there will be no revolution and no power rampages by a legislature. God Bless America!

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  • H

    Howard ZinnDec 12, 2012 at 11:58 am

    The most incredible of all the incredible statements in the piece is this: “Before in America, every citizen of the U.S. was treated as equally American, and color was irrelevant to the society.” One doubts that African Americans subjected to Jim Crow and other de jure discrimination would recognize the author’s America. It was the later Senator J.P. Moynihan who said that we’re each entitled to our own opinion, but not to our own facts.

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    • J

      John BoehnerDec 17, 2012 at 7:34 pm

      Mr Zinn,

      I think you are looking at the wrong side of this. Mr Shoumer’s point was that our society today, especially the left-wing treats people differently based on their color. In affirmative action, admission is changed based on the color of people’s skin. That is in fact racism. Mr Shoumer was saying that before, we didn’t take color in mind when making decisions. We shouldn’t treat people differently based on their color. If a republican criticizes any democrat today when they disagree with them, and if the democrat is black, the republican is immediately called a racist. I think that republicans who want to keep America as E Pluribus Unum, take blacks more seriously than democrats who want to divide our country by treating blacks differently in colleges and who refuse to criticize any black if they are doing something wrong.

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  • D

    Dennis GindiDec 11, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    I had an epiphany whilst reflecting upon this beautiful piece of literature. I think that the foremost element of the American Value system is the ability to form ones own opinion of ideal beliefs based on their own moral conflictions within themselves. In god we trust. One of the most controversial statements to be proclaimed as an American value. Skepticism is one of ‘In G-d we trust’s’ most prominent obstructions. As youth rapidly beng swayed rocked and pushed around by the influence of science, it is hard to connect to the beauty of G-dliness. Steven, do we need America to have a stable world? or do we need America’s value system? I feel the confusion between the two is that of, “we cannot imitate the value system, so we will do as you do.” The very humain notion that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder can illude to it being a opinion based article by the amazing Daniel Shoumer rather than a factual statement.

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    • D

      Dennis GindiDec 13, 2012 at 10:52 am

      yeah right.

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  • S

    Steven AshooriDec 6, 2012 at 12:06 pm

    Mr Shoumer,
    I agree with this entirely. America has done the most good in the world and it is entirely based on their values. Our country, as you said, is adopting leftist values with bigger government. Many from the left believe that America is not exceptional and it is morally equivalent as any other country. We need America in order to have a stable world.

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  • G

    Grover NorquistDec 5, 2012 at 2:30 pm

    Well done, Daniel. You’ve made Falwell proud. Your mention of the atrocities of the Holocaust as a means of denigrating peace activists is especially tasteful! You’re correct that the Left propagates European values – values that uphold racist multiculturalism.

    My favorite line: “The only reason I could think of to not to fight evil is to be loved by the world because if you are a strong country, you will never be loved in the world.” Amen, brother. Amen.

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  • J

    J MartinDec 5, 2012 at 12:59 pm

    I suppose that hearing the minimally developed ideas and disturbing prejudices we, as a society, so often visit upon our students is instructive. As a consequence Mr. Shoumer’s editorial is valuable. He is attempting to come to some embrace of the interesting idea of exceptionalism – an idea that either glorifies our democratic “values” or defines us as a profoundly arrogant culture. It is not so important to contend regarding our specialness; rather we might spend more time in serious consideration of the value or “good” (as Mr. S. references repeatedly) we share, model or impose on the rest of the world.

    I for one am grateful for Mr. Shoumer’s providing grist for the critical and informed mill of American Studies Integrated. While we could dismiss his various position, claims, and warmed-over generalizations on the basis of his reference to the Write Brothers, perhaps he intends Wright, or on the basis of the Lumbaughesque absurdities of replacing American apple pie with French pastry and other leaden xenophobic commentary, he provokes some essential and valuable debate, exploration, necessary applied rigor, and “good ole AmurCan shoutin” from the town square. So thank you Daniel for risking an opinion, for expressing that opinion in print, for being willing to take some response, and for focusing your faculty on the long committed hours of work we have to do in order to inject into this type of discussion some seriousness and rationality.

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    • D

      Dennis GindiDec 6, 2012 at 12:12 pm

      Whilst i see your very valid and very conclusive point, I must disagree. America’s value system is impecable. Our mere existence as a nation stands on the notion that we have built our country to believe in certain values. It is as a nation we must encourage and influence our fellow citzens to consent to the following of laws, to be one nation under G-d. Whether or not our society views it to be justifyably correct to recognize such a force, we must agree that if it makes citzens abide by laws and such boundries of society it is a positive force.

      Dennis E. Gindi

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