America 250: Revolution & Restoration

Happy 250th birthday, America! Today is a day worth celebrating. I've just returned from a small-town parade, where friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens turned out in droves to commemorate this historic anniversary. Many thanks to the parade planners who put in countless hours over the past two years to bring our community together in such a memorable fashion. It's refreshing to witness excitement about our shared heritage when, so often, it feels like we are bitterly divided. America's threats come from within, not without. America's is a heritage of ideology, not ethnicity - beliefs, not blood. The ideas that made America an unparalleled engine of human freedom, progress, and flourishing have been under siege almost since the Founding itself.

These ideas were, by and large, not unique and novel. The American founders scoured writings on moral and political philosophy spanning millennia and brilliantly united them to create the social and political structures that made America the greatest nation on earth. That's not to say that ideas immediately translated into reality or that the Founders themselves perfectly embodied the ideals they professed. Ideas take decades, even generations, to assimilate. But behavior follows belief, and eventually becomes culture. The chart below shows where those ideas appeared throughout history, and specifically the civilizations the founders drew them from. On the rightmost side of the chart are four ideological movements since the Founding that have attacked and discredited those ideas. Familiarity with the ideas that made America great is the only way to detect when they are being threatened. How well can you articulate and defend them? To what degree have the ideas of the four later ideological movements influenced your own thinking and perspective on society and governance? If America is to survive for another 250 years, and more importantly, remain a bastion of freedom and opportunity, it will be because its people are diligent in their study, vigilant in their stewardship, and intentional in their citizenship. Take a moment on this day of celebration to reflect on the heritage we've all inherited, and renew your commitment to the unglamorous work of wrestling with and discussing the ideas that make or break every civilization, including ours. And if you have a child approaching voting age, consider how prepared they are to articulate these ideas and vote accordingly.