You've Got To Fight For Your Right to be Confident
- In short, his solution to the great moral crisis of the country is this: chin up.
- He does provide some good reasons for optimism, for just rubbing some dirt in the nation's wounds and walking it off.
- Carter talks up the nation's great history. He remembers how the country put a man on the moon. That was a stellar idea—an accomplishment out of this world, literally.
- He remembers how the generation before survived the Great Depression and beat the Nazis. (Oh yeah, that was pretty awesome, wasn't it?)
- He argues for sacrifice, for going with less, for using less. He calls every act of conservation an act of patriotism.
- He regards this sacrifice as harkening back to original American values, and views it as a solution, as the only alternative to the purposelessness of consumerism.
- Sounds good, right?
- Oh yeah, except for that whole sacrifice and going with less part…