Volume III, Issue X
Still First in Freedom to Many in this World
The ‘other’ weekly news magazine is celebrating... er, I mean reporting that America is in decline. I say the ‘reports of her death are greatly exaggerated.’
When the thirteen colonies broke away from England in 1776 they were no world power, yet the Constitutional government they hammered out in the naiscant days of the United States was to become a light for the rest of the world.
True, we no longer possess the tallest building and the strongest economy. Our young people are woefully undereducated in the story of America’s foundations... but those foundations are still to be found, and in many cases they are amazingly strong.
Only about a third of our original citizens favored the Revolution. Another third were Tories and the rest didn’t care. The percentages haven’t changed all that much in recent years. Witness the Tea Party movement. It is substantial, yet there is still a firmly entrenched liberal faction that resists them in our halls of government. Political campaigns are largely targeted at the ‘undecided’ voters... that really don’t care enough to educate themselves and form their own opinions.
The great nation that De Toqueville observed in the Nineteenth Century was no world power, but she allowed the influence of Faith and Virtue to mold her people in ways that would serve her well in difficult days. She was not untouched by sin. Human slavery was institutionalized and events like the removal of the Cherokee Nation are dark chapters in our national conscience, but the values that are our foundations tell us that these chapters are repugnant.
In the 1860’s, our nation was almost destroyed by a vicious Civil War. We survived that period and entered the Twentieth Century. A number of our major cities burned completely to the ground in the first decade of that century. We found the will and means to rebuild them. The ‘Cities Beautiful’ Movement gave us great icons of Classical architecture. The ‘White Fleet’ circumnavigated the world.
Ordinary American boys grew up during the Depression and planted the flag on Mt. Suribachi. General Marshall led the rebuilding of the great cities of Europe.
The sixties brought new challenges as American cities burned and students questioned not only authority, but our foundations as well. Today a lot of these radicals are professors at those same universities. These elites would squander the hard-won peace and prosperity given to them by their fathers. They fail to see the tempering effects of Faith and Virtue. Professing belief in the innate goodness of man, they seek to emasculate America in the mistaken belief that that will allow for the evolution of world societies. The failures of National Socialism and Communism remain unheeded by these thinkers. Still, the Tea Party movement underscores the fact that there is a large group of Americans who have not bought in to their ideas.
These are the leaders of the ‘leaderless movement.’ They are the ones who will look to Faith and Virtue for the perilous days ahead.
The hands planting the flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
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