America is NOT a great because we are special, nor because we are mighty.
We became great because we culturally embraced a set of moral principles and civic virtues that allowed for maximum personal freedom and opportunity.
Our wise founders formed an innovative new government that promoted and protected these principles.
As a nation, we flourished and became the envy of the world because we largely shared and lived by these great principles. Foreigners coined the term “American Exceptionalism” to describe the uniqueness of America from all the other nations in the history of the world.
These virtues were well summarized by Charles Murray in his book “American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History”. He lists the following as the elements of what he refers to as “civic culture”:
The Elements of an Exceptional Culture
from “American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History” by Charles Murray
Murray later transitions and states what is becoming increasingly obvious to any rational person – that as a whole, Americans no longer value these very elements which made us exceptional. He says:
“American exceptionalism refers to qualities that were first observed in the opening century of our history. There’s no reason why they necessarily still apply today. The extent to which they still apply is an empirical question.”
Tragically, we are indeed rapidly and exponentially abandoning the principles and ideas that made us great.
The result is that this great nation is slowly, but surely being conquered, not so much from foreign enemies, but from the inside out. Our national soul is dying, and the liberties and freedoms we take for granted are rapidly diminishing with each passing year.
Curiously, there seems to be precious little being done to turn our culture around before we reach the point of no return. There seems to be a great deal of pessimism, defeatism and fatalism among those who should be fighting mad about what is happening to our nation.
There are a myriad of skirmishes that are being fought, but these are mostly just dealing with the fruit from the tree, rather than getting down to the root cause of the problem.
There is one vital truth that we absolutely must rediscover and restore to our national soul or our demise is certain.
Over the past several decades, our prevailing cultural norm has shifted from a general acceptance of a Judeo-Christian worldview, to a secular, “god-free” ideology. Under the guise of “science”, we have exchanged our historical acceptance of objective moral standards and reliance upon “natural law”, for moral relativism and an animalistic, “survival-of-the-fittest” worldview. As a nation, we are becoming increasingly calloused, cynical and less civil with each passing day.
Our institutions of higher education have become indoctrination centers where our leaders of tomorrow are not learning the timeless principles necessary for personal success which made America the greatest nation on the earth, but instead are being immersed in the core principles and ideals of secularism, atheism, collectivism, and a naturalist worldview that leaves no room for objective moral standards. Relativism, post-modernism and multiculturalism are philosophies that are widely embraced by younger Americans.
All of these philosophies stand in diametric opposition to a worldview that is based on absolute moral standards, which a majority of older Americans embrace. Thus, America is fundamentally changing at an exponential rate as cultural influence and political and economic power shifts to the next generation who hold vastly different moral values and less civil virtues than those who have gone before us.
The plain truth is that if we do not make a dramatic change of course, and soon, it is inevitable that this great experiment in liberty and personal freedom will have run its course and we shall fall, just as the once-mighty Roman Empire, which collapsed from their own lack of civil virtue.
Our mission is clear. Someone has to begin changing the worldview of America, restoring the undeniable connection between morals, civil virtue and freedom in the minds of the people, particularly the younger generations. We must act quickly and decisively before it’s too late. We must never surrender in our struggle, no matter how hopeless it appears to be. We owe it to the generations past, present and future.
Won’t you join us in this noble effort? If not us, who? If not now, when?