WHAT IS AMERICA?
That question was seemingly answered by founding father Benjamin Franklin when he told fledgling Americans then that America was:
A REPUBLIC-IF YOU CAN KEEP IT!
Perhaps we were a Republic then, but is America a Republic now? And perhaps more importantly, will America be a Republic in the future? And even more important than that, will America survive for the long term as the land of the brave and the free, the land where true freedom lives? Will it?
We were at the beginning and seemingly now, seemingly so, were a country, a nation, a people founded upon a:
CONSTITUTION
A magnificent, principled country with clear values, strong morals founded upon a Judeo-Christian ethic, building a lifestyle founded upon the Rule of Law with an incredible faith in the strength of our country and its future. We were ready to sacrifice, whether in war, for the good of others, our fellow men and certainly our fellow Americans. We welcomed immigrants to our shores. In fact, all of us, every American citizen with the exception of Native Americans came from immigrants themselves. We took pleasure in welcoming the persecuted, the forlorn, the exiles and those who sought opportunity and a better way of life. We welcomed them to America so that they could become:
AMERICANS
We believed in a melting pot where differences were dissolved all the while cultural and ethnic characteristics were preserved. No matter our differences, and they were always there, we became one, one nation, indivisible UNDER GOD, constantly in the pursuit of those greatest of concepts:
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE
For all.
We protected and preserved democracy. The individual was critical, never to be trampled by a majority. The rights of all were protected and our Constitutional freedoms, our Bill of Rights well-defined and expanded. It was good to be an American, in fact it was the best citizenship in the world, perhaps in all of history. We were a nation under God, blessed by God, always with abundant opportunity for those pursuing their dreams and willing to work, really work to make them happen.
BUT, that was America then. Is that America today? And, are we the people, the American people of today, cut of the same cloth as our fathers and our forefathers. Are we?
Perhaps America began to change, fundamentally change in 1992 when William Jefferson Clinton, Governor of Arkansas was elected President of the United States. That election seemed to mark the beginning of fundamental changes in America. America had before that epochal election been generally politically conservative although always with liberal political undertones. The millennials came upon us as did GenX, Y and Z and it seemed as though the values and morals of America began to change with them, becoming ever more secular and unconcerned with the America of old, truly unconcerned with its history, especially Constitutional history. Supreme Court decisions changed. Constitutional principles and legislation and the Rule of Law were generously and liberally interpreted. All things political became more organic, flexible and changing, current rather than Constitutional. Activist judges became the norm. Congress seemed to become more aggressive and politically divided. Rancor and argumentation replaced dialogue and discourse. House defied Senate and legislative consensus became difficult if not impossible. It seemed as though America stalled, perhaps even to the point of questioning its very own identity. Who were we, as a people and what did we believe, so many seemed to say. Was it time for change, fundamental change in our great country, our values, our ethics, even our morality. Was it time to rethink and restructure? An aggressive, often angry determined minority thought so. And then came something which in and of itself changed America:
THE ACTIVIST PRESIDENT
Presidential power began to grow in 1992. President Clinton began to gradually, even subtly expand the power of the President and Executive Orders, some reasonable and necessary, became the norm. When Congress failed to act, the President filled the void. Agencies became empowered, often implementing policies, rules and regulations without restraint. Significant legislative control began to increase and freedoms, once thought absolute and inalienable, granted by the Almighty himself began to be eroded and constitutionally reinterpreted. We the people, accustomed to our freedoms and the opportunities they offered, slowly began to realize that America was changing, constantly changing, moving away from its moorings, its history, the fundamentals of its glorious past and changing, fundamentally changing in so many ways. So much so that right-thinking Americans began anew to ask the most fundamental question of all:
WHAT IS AMERICA?
Perhaps so many began to realize that the Republic given to us by our forefathers and our Constitution was something we might not be able to keep after all. Millions saw America as becoming something different, perhaps totally different, and considerably less than it was. What exactly was this CHANGE, these constant changes politically, legislatively, culturally and religiously which were happening to America. Were they for the good and did we the people, the majority agree? What was happening in America since 1992, the Clinton era, and then Bush, and then finally the most activist President perhaps America has ever had, Obama-what was happening to America? It was in fact changing, radically changing and the fundamental political question to be asked was:
SHOULD THIS CHANGING AMERICA CHANGE BACK?
The answer to that question seemed to come loud and clear in November 2016. America, federalist at the core voted to CHANGE BACK, President, Senate, House of Representatives and Supreme Court. And so the battle for the heart and soul of America began in earnest, a country deeply divided, angry, without dialogue or discourse and in many cases without respect for our fellow Americans. The day of compromise and accommodation was over. We the people became US AND THEM. Civility and accommodation were replaced by right and wrong, our way or the highway. Winning, being right was all that mattered and the chasm dividing Americans seemed to widen every day. We were becoming two Americans, the one conservative, the other liberal. And ne’er the twain shall meet. It seems as though America is that way today and may very well be that way for the long term.
Since at or about 1992, some 25 years ago, fundamental change began to occur. There began the age of POST CONVENTIONALISM. That is, the past, the historical American past began to have lesser value and meaning, if any at all. Our morals and values founded upon Judeo-Christian ethics gave way to a moral relativism. Absolutes were attacked and done away with. There were no standards for right and wrong as before. They were replaced by an ever-growing situation ethics, things right or wrong at the time or for me, but without universal application. Religions of all kinds were on the wane, as was spiritual vitality. Judges, especially the old line denominations were in decline. Christianity and its principles once clear, objective and even absolute became reinterpreted, watered down and in some cases virtually meaningless. It was the beginning of the POST CHRISTIAN ERA in America, as so clearly and glibly stated by Barack Hussein Obama. America he told us in 2008 and for the next eight years was no longer a CHRISTIAN NATION. America was now religiously diverse whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or even cults whatever they believed. Judeo-Christian ethics and values were suspect and subject to change. America had become PROGRESSIVE, organic, moving forward to a new day and age untethered, no longer anchored to its past. In fact, the history of America was being rewritten, deconstructed and changed in so many ways. A whole new educational system, a COMMON CORE, uniform and fundamentally different way of education prevailed, federal government controlled. Forces were at work everywhere changing, eroding, eliminating the traditional, the conservative and at a breathtaking pace overwhelming to millions of Americans. What, we the people asked, what was happening to America after Clinton, and a stagnant but changing Bush eight years, and then with an overpowering, aggressive Obama eight years, what was happening to America? Perhaps we became conscious once again of the wisdom of Ronald Reagan who reminded us that freedoms, the bedrock of our country, our Constitutional freedoms once lost were:
LOST FOREVER
We saw that as the Bill of Rights was changed, amended, and most importantly, reinterpreted by an activist judicial system and a Supreme Court. We witnessed a firm establishment of abortion rights, Roe v. Wade hanging over our heads. Marriage changed. Alternative lifestyles advanced. Free speech was curtailed and the CHANGERS were more concerned with HATE SPEECH than Freedom of Speech.
And of course the battle ensued against religion, and especially Judeo-Christian religions. Politicians and especially judges sought to limit religion, excise it from the public square, consign it to the four walls of a church or synagogue. Radicals and progressives sought to change the actual wording of the First Amendment of the Constitution itself, changing Freedom of Religion to Freedom of Worship. The motivation was evident and Americans began to rebel, especially Christians and Jews. Witness and testimony soon became hate speech and restrictions and prohibitions sprang up everywhere, the marketplace the workplace and even the public square. Keep your beliefs to yourself or run the risk of being labeled hate monger (hate speech) or trampling upon the feelings, the sensitivities of some other. Believe what you want, but watch your words.
Even the freedom to worship and witness within the walls of the church was threatened. Pastors and religious leaders were forbidden to politicize, take positions on political or cultural issues, and were absolutely forbidden to endorse political candidates. That was so because of the JOHNSON AMENDMENT, legally there but never enforced until now. The last eight years saw the Obama Administration and its rogue and biased IRS seek to enforce the restriction on religious speech or at least threaten religious leaders with a possibility of the removal of tax-exemption or even the filing of criminal charges.
Watch your words or watch the coming of all brand new restrictions pastors and rabbis, even within your very own House of Worship.
America as it liberalized and became more progressive became at the same time all the more divided. Angry argumentation replaced dialogue and discourse. A whole new generation, sensitive overly so, different, entitled, and often without respect or appreciation for traditional America arose. What was once indivisible became readily divisible. Rights once thought inalienable became flexible, without guarantee and even without Constitutional protection. We the people entered an age of:
ANYTHING GOES
Where patriotism gave way to globalism, where Democracy began to be replaced by socialism, and where America and we the people were told we are no longer exceptional, no longer different or unique, no more so than any other peoples or nations in the world. Our fierce pride in ourselves and our country was attacked, confronted and a leveling off began to occur. Diversity, ethnicities, culturalities prevailed and the radical changes in America continued one after another and in all areas of this great country. Small wonder that millions began to ask in earnest:
WHAT IS AMERICA?
WHO ARE WE AS A PEOPLE AND WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?
We the people wrestle with a whole new construct for our great country and we are forced to wrestle with issues, redefine them and ourselves as never before. So, my fellow Americans:
WHERE ARE WE?
POST TRUTH. We the people live in a day and age which some have called the POST TRUTH ERA. That means that the old absolute standards of right and wrong are gone, or at least compromised an eroded. The definitions of good and evil have changed. The expedient has replaced the fundamental. There really is no truth for what may have been perceived as such one day is different the next. We the people saw that clearly in Obama, changing stories, fabricating, words used as merely as a means to an end. Whatever seemed right at the time produced the words, fact or fiction, necessary at the time. In fact, the words of Pilate of old became a moral-less mantra of the times:
WHAT IS TRUTH?
There really was none, absolutely so we were told in the decade of Obama and we became accustomed to a moral relativism, situation ethics. We began to expect a LIE and not the truth. There was no such thing as hard fact, but rather spin, individual interpretation and the truth was eroded for it never seemed to be the whole truth, all of it, or nothing but the truth, so many things added in. We witnessed a media once objective now so biased, subjective, with political, social and cultural aims which color the information produced. Objectivity has given way to slant and bias. We now know as Americans that we are subject to:
FAKE NEWS
Without fact or truth and made up by those with personal objectives to be gained. We live in the day and age of Saul Alinsky, the radical neonist, bent on destruction of all things who told his disciples to do and say what had to be done, then deny both, delay any action to correct, obfuscate or confuse as much as possible, and then litigate to further delay and reconstruct a whole new set of judicial allies. So much of America is really not sure what is right, what is truth, what is fact and most importantly, what to believe. The old Judeo-Christian commandment of:
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS
Is over and done with.
THE POST CHRISTIAN ERA. Religion is on the wane. True spirituality has been compromised in so many ways. Real Christianity, MERE CHRISTIANITY as C.S. Lewis termed it has given way to an aggressive secularism, its very own tenets eroded or even ridiculed. The Jews, the givers of the Ten Commandments, now face some of the most virulent anti-Semitism ever. We witness the growth, impact and influence of Islam the world over and even in America. We now face an antagonistic, angry and aggressive secularism, atheism, demanding at all times an America a new FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. Anything and everything religious should be kept from the public square, the marketplace, the business world and even society at large. It is indeed in many ways the post-Christian era, the post Judeo-Christian, the post religious era ever in American history. There is now an ever-growing fight-back, a good thing, where those who believe in the First Amendment rights of Freedom of Religion are standing up, counterattacking, litigating and resisting. But secular and atheistic forces continue to ramp up, are well funded and determined to make permanent the post-Christian era in America. There is a certain fear, uncertainty, and deep concern on the part of spiritual people with these seemingly ever-growing changes. The FIGHT-BACK is on. The knockout punch was delivered November 8, 2016 when Americans TRUMPED the Clintons and turned to a new leader. This man, this President, has promised to restore Christianity, the Judeo-Christian to its rightful place in America.
POST CONSERVATIVE. We now witness the most aggressive attacks and assaults on conservatism ever. Conservatives are labeled racist, homophobes, xenophobes, and hatemongers among many others. Conservatives come from a traditional era, an old American era with old and outdated values, principles and morals. Conservatives are sexist, seen as having little regard for the new feminist rights, including and especially abortion.
The new liberalism, the radical PROGRESSIVISM wants conservatives and everything conservative out of the way, disengaged from the political process. They seek, led by the maniacal George Soros, his money and his thinking, radical social reform, in fact a new order and a total redistribution of power in America. Conservatives they say are reactionary and liberals want to discard or several erode the influence of conservative or traditional values. The modern day liberal, perhaps more appropriately so radical, has produced a new conservative awareness, a sense of fight-back, sending the message to the liberals that the conservative America of old will never go away. The war is on without compromise and America will either lean conservative or liberal, one or the other.
POST CONSTITUTION. Our Supreme Court, with justices like Scalia, firmly believed in the Constitution absolute. The Constitution was the law and was to be interpreted under the principles of originalism and textualism. The Constitution meant what it said and ought not to be interpreted by activist judges. Now it is. Justices like Scalia believed in the Bill of Rights, the freedoms granted and demanded that the people rise up and protect those rights any way possible.
Most importantly, the Constitution concerned with the concepts of check and balance provided America with the political structure and philosophy of:
FEDERALISM
Power would emanate from the bottom up, not top down. The people would live in communities, townships, boroughs, and counties, and finally states where local laws, rules and regulations could be different, but fully Constitutional, and reflect the lifestyle demands of individuals and geographic areas. The township, county and state in which the individual lived was all-important, even more important than the federal government. The radical approach of the liberal movement would change that so that power is concentrated at and closed down from the federal government. America would be ruled by 545 individuals in the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the President, preempting local hegemony and demanding a uniformity, a complete control factor which the Constitution abhors. But the radicals, the Alinsky-ites, the liberals, the socialists are determined to effectuate those changes, those power changes and take away the right of the common man to live as and where he does under the protection of his state. Now comes the fight back from the states, and even the counties and townships, and of course the people where life and living really begin. The fight is on. America is at war politically and philosophically and ne’er the twain, the conservative or liberal shall meet.
ANTI CAPITALISM. The movement against capitalism ramps up. Capitalism is defined as greed at work. Radicals, changers, want redistribution of wealth, property and even opportunity. They the radicals want a leveling off, a newly defined equality for all no matter the work ethic or ability. They the liberals promote a new entitlement so that one who succeeds and perhaps extremely so has a new corresponding obligation and duty to one who has not. Share the wealth no matter how it has been produced comes now the new ethic. We witnessed the revival of socialism, even to some extent communism itself. Today’s society is not really about individual rights and freedoms but society at large. One can pursue the American Dream and the opportunity which exists, but not to any extreme. A new sense of collectivism will prevail and capitalism as we know it will be strictly controlled or in some cases done away with. The success of such a movement will radically change the core, the structure, the meaning of America. That produces yet its own FIGHT-BACK. Americans, real Americans will not live in a dry, dull, lifeless socialistic state. The majority of we the people will not be told by others how to live, how hard to work, what opportunities to pursue, how well they should be educated and most importantly what they can earn and enjoy. The battle is on and there may be no end to the conflict.
So, my fellow Americans, I ask the question again:
WHAT IS AMERICA?
WHAT DO WE BELIEVE?
HOW DO WE WANT TO LIVE?
The fight is on and the fight back is itself on as well. The battle is for the heart and soul of America. The CHANGE we have witnessed in the past decade has eroded our strength, our confidence, our trust, our camaraderie, our commonality, our very will itself. The old America, the historical America, the Constitutional America has been threatened, aggressively changed and those who wish to preserve it have been intimidated and even themselves threatened. IN this America, you and I, we the people have no choice but to engage and participate. Our lives will be radically changed if we don’t. We now have a new leader, one who promises to:
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
Perhaps he will or perhaps he will because we will. We are a special nation, my fellow Americans. We are:
EXCEPTIONAL
We are. We have a way of life, an ability to live, opportunities and freedoms which no other nation has. Our nation is a world leader. We are strong in defense, commerce, opportunities, individualities and freedoms. We can not let any of that been taken away from us. We must resist any kind of radical or aggressive liberal change. We must protect our way of life, our Constitutional foundation and there must, THERE MUST be a renewed and revived patriotism, even if that means as Thomas Jefferson once told us that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of the patriots. We must stand-up for America, fight back, protect and defend for our sake, our generation, but every bit as much so for the next generation, our children and grandchildren. We must leave to them the America we have known and loved:
WE MUST!
So, what do you want America to be? What do you believe is right? What will you do in order to protect and defend what you believe? You can not withdraw. You must participate. rise to the challenge my fellow americans and you and i should stand with our president and all who believe as we do that it is our duty, OUR DUTY to:
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!