"HOLDREN: There has been a strain of what many people call “US
exceptionalism” in the United States, the notion that the United
States is so big, so important, so powerful, so technologically
advanced that it can and should do what it wants. I think this strain
is misguided.

Q: Will Americans need to reduce their living standards?

HOLDREN: I think ultimately that the rate of growth of material
consumption is going to have to come down, and there’s going to have
to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume, in terms of
energy and material resources, in order to leave room for people who
are poor to become more prosperous."

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Gd8zSUSU6U

One can oppose America’s role on the world stage from either the Right
or the Left, and challenge the notion of American exceptionalism
itself — but it helps to start off by knowing what it is.

American exceptionalism has nothing to do with our size or our
technological prowess. Exceptionalism springs from the nature of our
nation’s birth, historical leadership in personal freedom (notable
exceptions: slavery and post-Civil War Jim Crow) and especially the
role America inherited in the 20th century as the guarantor of Western
security and international shipping.

Moron.