In response to your article "Republicans restore spirit of American Dream" (Forum, Aug. 30):

To the Editor:

There are assumptions in your recent piece that need to be addressed and debunked with facts. The first is the article's premise that when a Republican candidate talks about renewing the American Dream, it insinuates an unrealistic, cult-like fantasy that America can escape any recession or depression no matter what.

There is no Republican who hasn't been utterly dismal about the current $14.5 trillion national debt, the credit rating downgrade and the $53 trillion of unfunded liabilities in Medicare, Medicaid and social security that plagues every single person in this country. American exceptionalism is not purely about its superior economics—actually, it's a term that makes a greater reference to America's unique principles of liberty, free speech and opportunity, all of which are principles that admittedly support free market capitalism by their own terms. This is something that President Barack Obama has discredited in his "apology" tour all across the world, dismissing America's story as a nation born on liberty, free markets and limited government in favor of a disillusioned narrative about the original sin of slavery and inequality.

Now that unemployment is at about 9 percent and, when considering underemployment, the number is closer to 20 percent, people are sick and tired of the president and liberals continuing to spend frivolously rather than ease up regulations/lower taxes and allow business owners to grow their business, hire more people and create permanent jobs.

The fervor that Michele Bachmann draws from her speeches on American exceptionalism is not some blind, hick "religious" awe from the American people, but their acknowledgment of the basic economic principles that made our country prosper in the past, making us the strongest free economic power in only the 200-some years it's existed.

Considering that Obama's Keynesian economics have dragged the country to historically unprecedented debt, with the first 19 months of his office seeing debt rise by more than all the American money ever spent from George Washington to Ronald Reagan (which is money that was earned by everyday people and then squandered by incompetent politicians) abyssmal GDP growth of less than 1 percent, and an astounding loss/lack of job gains, it's no wonder that most people, unemployed or underemployed, would be emboldened by the truth and wisdom of Bachmann's words.

Believing in American exceptionalism is not blind faith, but intellectually honest admissions of the lessons of history and economics, an understanding that most Republicans know will determine whether our country recovers.

—Mary-Alice Perdichizzi '12

Editor's note: The writer is the founder of the Brandeis Tea Party