'76 Blog

  I’m thankful. I’m very thankful. And not just today, Thanksgiving Day, but every day. I grew up in a family with loving parents and siblings. I don’t mean to demean the rest of you, but I’ve got the world’s best wife (some of you are undoubtedly pretty good, but no one can hold a candle to Courtney, the love of my life). We have a home that someday we’ll own, in the great State of Colorado, a state whose abundance of outdoor beauty and recreation gave birth to my entrepreneurial spirit. We live in a land of liberty and opportunity, and for all these things, I’m grateful. Dad worked hard to provide for us, but also instilled a strong work ethic so that we could provide for ourselves. I remember working with Dad after school one day as an 11 year old. We were picking up scraps and trash at a home he was building. A subcontractor stopped to talk to Dad, and I stood idly by and listened for most of an hour. Then it was time to go home. As we got into the van I was foolish enough to remark how easy it was to earn my 50 cents for that last hour. Man, did he lay into me! He said he wasn’t going to pay me for that hour. I complained that I was there to help him, and since he was listening to the subcontractor, I was helping him listen. Dad carefully explained that he pays me to work, and that we each have different jobs. If I expect to get paid, I had better stay busy doing my work. My dad taught me that hard work in this land of opportunity is rewarded. Indeed, the United States of America is the most prosperous nation in history. Even the poorest among us live far better than most of the rest of the world. We owe that to our history of respect for liberty. It is our deeply held belief in liberty that gave us a legal system that protects property rights. Without property rights there is no incentive to create or produce anything more than what it takes to survive. After all, if you can’t enforce your right to own what you produce, why bother? As thankful as I am for all these things, I’m also deeply concerned. Former State Senator John Andrews today told me of the writings of Alexander Tytler: The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always have progressed from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, and from dependence back into bondage. In Senator Andrews’ book “Responsibility Reborn” he says, “You’d have to be dreaming, not to recognize that we have been living in a nation that has for quite a while been somewhere on the declining side of the cycle”. He also points out that the cycle can be reversed. If I didn’t believe that, I would not write these columns. I would not have run for State Representative in 2010. Simply put, I wouldn’t bother. If we don’t renew our respect for liberty, if we don’t restore limits on government that respect property rights, we will continue down that cycle. We have gone from a nation that was built on a rugged entrepreneurial spirit, on self reliance and personal responsibility, and on mutual respect for rights and liberty, to a nation with a culture of dependence that relies on what the government can take from one to give to another. During this season of thanks, let us be grateful for the work of those who established, secured, and protect our freedoms. Let us be mindful of the abundance we enjoy, and how the blessings of liberty created that abundance. And let us commit to not decline into complacency, apathy, and dependence, but embrace the independence and personal responsibility that will ensure the survival of the Republic.   

(Foxnews.com, Sept. 1) Memo to Mark Steyn: America is not the Titanic.  Our decline is not a done deal.  This country can sail through the present storm and into favorable seas again, if enough of us will just man the pumps and not the lifeboats.  In his latest book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, the brilliant and prolific Steyn, a Canadian now living here, warns that the USA is headed for the graveyard of nations unless big changes occur soon.  Can it be so? Plenty of trends and symptoms bear out Mark’s concern over the “impending collapse” of American society. But along with my amen to his alarm, I want to say a sharp nay to any sense of fatalism that Uncle Sam is finished.  No way. It’s true things are grim.  The ennui of the elites, the demographic data, the debt crisis, the downgrade, the stagnant economy the gridlock in Washington, the demonizing of Tea Party reformers, the drift in American foreign policy, the dynamism of China, and the expansionism of Islam all suggest that our nation, like its parent civilization in Europe, may be a sinking ship. Steyn’s introduction to After America refers to his previous bestseller, America Alone, this way: “Last time ‘round, I wrote that Europe was facing a largely self-inflicted perfect storm that threatened the very existence of some of the oldest nation-states in the world. My warning proved so influential that America decided to sign up for the same program but supersized.”  The longer Obama stays, the truer this seems.  Nor would his departure brighten the picture much, for the real problem is less political than spiritual, as Alexander Tytler and John Glubb could attest.  Tytler, an 18th century Scottish thinker, observed that the average age of the world’s great civilizations is about 200 years. They go, he said, “from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, and from dependence back into bondage.” In 1976, Glubb, the British historian and soldier, published The Fate of Nations, his own analysis of the decline syndrome.  He gave a slightly longer lifespan – 250 years – but laid out a life cycle similar to the one portrayed by Tytler, ending with an age of decadence brought on by “selfishness, love of money, and the loss of a sense of duty,”and marked by “defensiveness, pessimism, materialism, frivolity, an influx of foreigners, the welfare state, and the weakening of religion.”  It sounds all too familiar. Indeed both characterizations bear remarkable resemblance to the trajectory of American history. And, if the window for great nations to commit moral and fiscal suicide is about 200 to 250 years, America at age 235 is right in the kill zone.  You’d have to be dreaming not to recognize, as Steyn does, that we live in a nation that has for quite a while been somewhere on the declining side of the cycle. But a pattern isn’t destiny and a trend isn’t irreversible. At the Western Conservative Summit in Denver several weeks ago, it happened that I spoke on the renewal agenda in my new book, Responsibility Reborn, just an hour before Mark Steyn regaled the audience with a chilling yet hilarious riff on the declinist warnings in After America.  But were we at odds? No. Steyn’s inspiring close, invoking the motto of his adopted state of New Hampshire, “Live free or die,” and the defiant spirit of Flight 93, “Let’s roll,” heartened me with the assurance that Mark is no more ready to give up the ship than you and I are.  Both of those rallying cries, like the ten-word keynote of my book, “If it is to be, it is up to me,” remind Americans of the opportunity to control our own destiny through personal responsibility and voluntary initiative. Neither the dependence that Tytler said leads to bondage, nor the denial of duty that Glubb saw as fatal, can be remedied by legislation or elections.  Changing the occupant of the Oval Office won’t suffice to avert the self-inflicted Armageddon that Steyn sees coming.  Nothing short of citizens one by one looking into the abyss and then into the mirror, and vowing “Not on my watch,” will begin to remedy the responsibility deficit and break the entitlement addiction that’s killing us. But break it we can.  America has been here before, remember.  Written off by declinists in the 1970s, she came roaring back in the ‘80s after responsibility was reborn in the heartland.  All of us are crew members on this voyage, not just passengers.  Decline is a choice, as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out.  With everything that’s in me, I choose against it.  How about you? John Andrews, former president of the Colorado Senate and current director of the Centennial Institute, is the author of “Responsibility Reborn: A Citizen’s Guide to the Next American Century” (MT6 Media, 2011).  

(CCU Student) There is something quite profound I have come to recognize within my family dynamics as I enter adulthood and start investigating the truths of our nature, politic, and universe myself.  I have hit a lot of opposition between members to the point of near to complete estrangement.  Disagreements over public policy, political philosophy, morality, religion, creation… etc, have crept their way into our lives creating relational barriers between ones I have known all my life and will always love.  Yet, despite such pronounced dissimilarities and disagreements, when everything hits the fan, when one member of the family completely falls apart, we all hurt with them and come to render aid.  The American family functions in the same way.  I think September 11, 2001 was a great example of that.  In an era of relativity and progressive morality, where the political left and the political right are in constant battle, where debates over social values and morality stream the mainline, all Americans were brought back together as fellow Americans, in the horror of one morning in September 2001.  Now, 10 years later I can still remember where I was and every moment of that day as I saw over and over again the first plane hit… and then the second.  I was sitting in my 6th grade home room class with my peers watching the scenes through a television set that was brought into our classroom by our teacher.  I was only 11 years old, but I remember.  Now we are again back to our old family dynamics, bickering, debating, and even arguing over our intent of going to war post 9/11.  Some even advocating for the rights of the terrorists that have been apprehended in affiliation with the aggressor of the attacks.  The fire for justice that was so strong post 9/11/01 has seemed to simmer down in many Americans hearts.  Yet, with the tenth anniversary of the attack, we must remember the day that will be engrained in the souls of American’s forever, young and old.  Even if we are not prepared to pick up the guns ourselves, remembrance and support is what fuels the love felt between bickering, yet hurting family members.  There is truly a unity in the heart of America that will always burn on the anniversary of the attack.  I say now in hindsight, God bless America for that unity, which brings forth the memory that displays the true heart of America.  May we always remember.

(Centennial Fellow) There is much doom and gloom out there in the economy.  Many say America’s best days are over, and that we will be eclipsed by Europe or China. That just will not happen.  Thirty years ago everyone talked about how America was in decline, that Japan would pass us.  That was until the Reagan administration turned our country back toward free markets (allowing greater innovation and a technological revolution), while Japan hit a glass ceiling (their production possibility frontier).  Europe’s economic problems are currently worse than ours (a deeply embedded culture of socialism and a dismal birthrate).   China will soon hit their glass ceiling, caused by a lack of freedom (they still have a communist bureaucracy) and geographical disadvantages (having only one coast, while Siberia and the Himalayas define their other borders). What we need to do is vote Obama and his ideological cronies out of office, which will happen next year. Then we can turn again to free markets, freeing our economy to soar once again.  This can be done by lowering (if not eliminating) capital gains tax, lowering (if not eliminating) oppressive regulations, and begin drilling once again for oil (in Alaska, off our coasts, anywhere it can be found).  All of these things were done by the Reagan administration in the 80s, the last time our nation rebounded from lethargy. President Obama often claims he “inherited” a bad economy from the Bush administration.  Nonsense!  Financial markets don’t trail after events; they are leading indicators.  They move by expectation of what the future will bring.  The closer Obama got to the White House, the more cash was moved out of markets into someplace where socialist-minded bureaucrats couldn’t seize it, and the more investors panicked about what the economy would look like with an intrusive government pushing a left-wing agenda.  Some may say I am ignoring the housing crisis, but that too was caused by excessive government intrusion. The good news is that America is resilient.  We are a free people who can succeed, if the government doesn’t get in the way and punish the successful while rewarding the indolent.  Socialism has not yet produced the culture of entitlement in America to the degree that it exists in Europe.  We also have great ports on two great oceans, military domination of the seas and air, reasonably stable borders, and a constitution which protects its citizens from government tyranny (if we care to keep it). Don’t sell America short.  We will rebound, if we can move once again to free markets.  The year before Obama became president was a bad time to invest in the market, but the year before his removal will be a great time to get back in.  As investors become more confident in America’s recovery, they will take the money kept in reserve and reinvest it, but only after they regain trust once again in a free America.

America became a nation on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution became law and together are the moral and political foundation of the United States. It is because of our moral and political foundation that we became different from all other nations in the world, the freest and most powerful one with a leadership which listened to God and applied His commandments. This freedom fostered envy especially from immoral socialists around the world. God is the difference between them and us. I grew up under the Nazis and know that it was godlessness which brought Nazi Germany down – the absence of God which produced the atrocities of their government. This nation must not take the same road. Every Socialist in the world is closer to Hitler than to our Founding Fathers. In his 1923 Memorial address, President Calvin Coolidge stated: “There can be no peace with the forces of evil. Peace comes only through the establishment of the supremacy of good.” We as a nation must chose to maintain this supremacy of good. At the beginning of the Declaration of Independence it states: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” It defines that the task of government is to protect these rights of the people and receive their powers from the consent with the governed, who have the right to replace the present government “whenever any form of government becomes destructive to this Ends…” This means, that Almighty God and His commandments were at the heart of the American nation building. According to the American Political Science Review the Bible contributed 34 percent of all direct quotes made by the founders. John Witherspoon was, the only clergyman to sign the Declaration and served on 120 Congressional committees. He was President of Princeton, leader of a New Jersey committee to abolish slavery and taught 9 of the writers of the U.S. Constitution, including James Madison. John Adams described him as “A true son of liberty… but first, he was a son of the Cross”  He told his students, “He is the best friend to American liberty…who is most…active in promotion true and undefiled religion…to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy of this country. “The First Amendment was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values” Ronald Reagan told the Alabama Legislature on March 15, 1982, “it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.”     America with its Constitution and history has the answer for the longing of humanity, it is our strength and our future and has to be taught and discussed in our schools. We must decide to vote for and fight for our freedom, realizing it is the task of all Americans to return God to the center of this nation, or we lose our freedom forever. Witherspoon concluded: “God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable.”  That is the challenge today for America. Hilmar von Campe is president of the National Institute for Truth and Freedom and the author of several books including "Defeating the Totalitarian Lie."  His website is www.voncampe.com  

(Centennial Intern) "The American people, they're very simple people," said Wang Qishan, Vice Premier of China, according to recent news accounts.  Was there a note of condescension in this, coming from a high official of the ancient and self-regarding Middle Kingdom that sees itself superior to all other nations?  Maybe. Regardless, my response to the Vice Premier took shape last weekend, when I had the opportunity of doing what I love most and what continues to be the epitome of honor in my life - - leading our men and women in uniform.  One moment that captures what America means to me as well of millions of other Americans is an image vested in simplicity. It is a story that takes us to the wine country of Western Colorado, specifically Grand Junction. My platoon sergeant (senior most non-commissioned officer in a platoon) and I were driving down a street in Grand Junction next to the farming area of the city. Two farmers, working on their tractor, stopped working and smiled and waved as we passed by. This is one of the several gestures we see during training, whether it is a wave, a smile, or a thumbs up. I believe this is the simplicity Qishan was referring to; however, I am convinced that vested within that simplicity is what makes our nation great. It is, as I like to refer to it as, the greatness of simplicity. It is the values and morals that make this nation what it is today; a bastion for freedom and a vindication of the words inscribed within the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Mr. Qishan, we are simple people who are proud of our simplicity and the greatness within it. It is this aforementioned simplicity, vested within the morals and values that define our nation, which will continue to perpetuate its greatness and its beacon of hope and freedom for the world. It is why I am convinced that even though my generation will face the greatest challenges we have witnessed since World War II; we will also see our greatest triumphs. My unit, the 947th Engineers, Colorado Army National Guard, at work:

I am blessed to be in Colorado but I am most blessed because I have the absolute honor of calling myself an American. My mother and father are my inspiration. My father dreamt of coming to America and conferred with his family about his desire. His sister agreed to sell her gold to purchase a ticket for the young couple to come to America in addition to some spending money - -one hundred dollars. They started their life in the mire of desperation and poverty in one room of a terrible apartment in Brooklyn, New York City, where I was born. Editor: Karthik Venkatraj is completing a John Jay Fellowship, a postgraduate year helping prepare young Americans for public service on biblical foundations, in the tradition of our nation's first Chief Justice and a co-author of the Federalist Papers, John Jay.  We're delighted that he will be interning with us at Centennial Institute this semester and contributing frequently to '76 Blog.  This post responds to my request for Karthik to introduce himself to our readers - John Andrews Eventually, my father found a job in the subways of New York City ferrying x-rays between hospitals and my mother found a job as a nurse’s aide in a busy Manhattan hospital. Ten years later, my father would be graduating from New York University as a PhD in Molecular Biology and my mother would be finishing her M.D. and working at the Oncology Ward in Albert Einstein Hospital.  This position was a far cry from their struggle to make ends meet each month as well as raise a child. Indeed, I can distinctly remember the culmination of a month’s paycheck in a splurge of eight dollars at a run-down Chinese buffet in Brooklyn. Their narrative can be found in no other nation, their ability to succeed can be predicated on no other ideals than those of America. My parents ensured their children were cognizant of their narrative and of the greatness that is our nation; thus, it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise when I raised my right hand to pledge defend our nation against all enemies. In response to the attacks of September 11th, I decided to enlist in the Army National Guard and soon entered the ROTC program at Texas A&M University’s Corps of Cadets in addition to serving within the Texas Army National Guard Armor Squadron. In five years, I would be appointed to serve within the Pentagon under the Bush Administration, travel on a diplomatic mission with the Army to my parent’s homeland of India, study Arabic with the Army in the foothills of the Atlas mountains, serve as an appointee to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and graduate as one of two distinguished military graduates from the largest commissioning program in the nation outside of the service academies. Once again, this narrative would be possible in no other country, within the context of any other ideals than that of our nation. But the ideals that informed and propelled my narrative and that of my parents were not based in the progressive thought dominating our nation’s modern political landscape but hearkens to those debates in the Continental Congress of Philadelphia, in the impassioned petitions of John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison within the Federalist Papers, within the Declaration of Independence, and within the Constitution of 1787. And that is why I am here at Centennial Institute, because I want a better nation for my children and their children, a nation with values and a solid moral compass. I am here because I am convicted that it is the duty of all Americans to preserve our republic and I am very concerned that we are losing that duty. I, like most Americans, do not want to see an America of 2076 as an irrelevant nation that has passed the torch of global leadership to another country but as a nation renewed and convicted in its role as a global leader. Above all, I am a concerned American who wants to foster a revival of the Spirit of 1776 in our nation - - a spirit that created what is now known as the greatest experiment that the world has ever witnessed, that of our democracy. Let us not be naïve to see that our nation has great challenges ahead of her; an enormous deficit that seems insurmountable, a war on multiple fronts with a virulent and violent enemy, failing schools struggling to compete on a global scale, a sluggish economy as well as a rising unemployment rate, a society mired in a degradation of traditional values, and a government unresponsive to common sense approaches. I will stop here because our role is not to merely articulate a litany of issues but to find solutions to them. Indeed, the state of our democracy is predicated on our search. Some may ask: “Where is the Spirit of 1776? Where is our nation going?”  I would answer that the Spirit of 1776 is here: it’s in the coffee shops and diners, it’s in dinnertime conversations of families, it’s in the workers of a coal mine punching in, it’s in the ranches and farms of rural America, in the junior baseball leagues, in our servicemen and women, in the pastors writing their sermon for their Sunday service. In short, the Spirit is in you, it’s in all Americans who love and care for our republic. The way this spirit will manifest and direct our people will determine 2076. Let us not forget the absolute providence that has guided our nation since its conception and to this point in our nation’s history. Let us take solace in the fact that this spirit, properly guided and convicted, in conjunction with providence has and will always lead to miraculous events and glorious beginnings. My name is Karthik Venkatraj and I am a concerned American, analyzing and revering our past but looking at our future. I take solace in the fact that there are millions of Americans like me, who want America to not only see another centennial but to see its best centennial ever. I believe in the inherent goodness and exceptionalism of our nation and its people and I look forward to our progression towards a better America together. As we say in the military, it’s something worth fighting for. Your fellow patriot,Karthik    

(CCU Student) A terrible thing happened in Tucson on Jan. 8.  A crazed man shot and killed six people and injured fourteen, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D, Arizona) and a Federal Judge. Most poignant, of the six murdered, is the story of Christina Taylor, a nine-year-old girl born on September 11th, 2001.  Young Christina was featured in the book, Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11.  By all accounts Christina was a passionate and bright spirit, embodying the hope and promise our country had turned to its youth to provide after those brutal attacks nine years ago. This aspect of the tragedy that occurred in Tucson presents an interesting and important comparison.  The madman of the Tucson shooting wielded a highly lethal handgun in perpetrating his evil endeavor – the terrorists on September 11th carried and used box cutters to slaughter over two thousand US subscribers of the liberty so feared by parts of the world. There has been loaded rhetoric implying lax gun restrictions are to be blamed for this young man’s wickedness.  Moving so quickly to this reactionary and political blame-game often holds ground only in emotional appeals, leaving collected thought and considerations far behind.  The focus should be on grieving for the lost, comforting their families with prayer and seeking justice on behalf of the victims.  There are bad people in our world, who wish to disrupt the peace we work so hard to ensure.  Our only way to combat these evil doers is not the futile attempt to abolish the tools that might be used by the ever-creative lunatic, but instead we should look out for each other, build up individual responsibility and most importantly seek our God’s love, will and justice.  

 If you've somehow been in a Rip Van Winkle sleep and have awakened without knowing what season it is, you might catch on by seeing how niceness is suddenly directing traffic or how smiles surround us wherever we go. (Centennial Fellow) While making my way through a traffic jam the other day, I could not help being impressed by the various driver courtesies. Later, I encountered great gobs of gladness while poking around in a shopping mall. Then, on returning home and scouting out news on the Internet, I bumped into three tales of a giving spree. The stories were about red kettles, the Salvation Army donation containers you see in front of stores with a volunteer ringing a bell or maybe, like a sight I witnessed the other day, a bunch of happy little girls singing carols.  In Louisville, Ky., it's reported, someone dropped a South African Krugerrand worth $1,400 in one red kettle. In Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., the anonymous kettle gift came in the form of cashier checks. The amount was $5,500. It was cashier checks again in Joplin, Mo. There were five, wrapped in $1 bills and signed by Santa Claus. They added up to $100,000. A literary character named Fred, nephew of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," tells his uncle what underlies such acts, saying that Christmas is "a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys." Scrooge, we all know, is a bah, humbug kind of guy and isn't buying any, but then come the visiting ghosts, including that of Jacob Marley, his regretful, dejected, deceased former partner. Trying to buck him up, one online discussion of the story reminds us, Scrooge says to the old fellow that he was after all good at business. The death-refashioned Marley responds with Dickensian eloquence. "Mankind was my business," he cries.. "The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" We all feel that way, don't we, that goodness to others is our business? You don't think so? Adam Smith, who wrote famously, powerfully and lastingly in the 18th century about the power of self-interest to benefit the common welfare in economic affairs, also wrote persuasively and importantly about sympathy for our fellow human beings as a virtually universal sentiment crucial to and forming the core of our morality. We want others to be happy, he says. James Q. Wilson, a superb social scientist of our own era, explores aspects of the idea in "The Moral Sense," arguing that sympathy is a key element in our moral apprehensions, serving as a powerful motivator in some instances, though weak or even absent in others. For most of us, I am convinced, it definitely is there. It is evident as one example in charitable giving that is higher per capita in American than anyplace else in the world, that has been picking up this year after a recessionary decline and that is especially pronounced during this special holy day season.  Even many outside the Christian faith seem to find themselves moved by the story of amazing grace and a humble birth that would bring vast new, loving possibilities into our lives. And with visions of doing unto others dancing in their heads, great numbers slow down in traffic so someone in front of them can change lanes, or drop a few dollars or even many thousands in a red kettle somewhere, scuttling through anonymity any accusation of merely seeking praise. Bah, humbug? No. Joy to the world. Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado and a Centennial Institute Fellow. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.

('76 Contributor) When Mamoru Shigemitsu, the Japanese foreign affairs minister, signed the surrender papers on board the USS Missouri in 1945, the drama of World War II drew to a close.  The end of the war set the stage for another great play – one in Berlin where America would take center stage. Unlike the European continent, the United States emerged from the war physically strong, economically robust --- and in a position of global leadership. As the sole owner of nuclear weapons, it would have been possible to dominate the defeated nations of Germany, Italy and Japan and destroy the malevolent Soviet Union. Instead, America harkened back to the spirit of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. With “malice towards none” our nation helped rebuild a post-war industrial world and launch it into an era of unparalleled prosperity. This decision to act for the good of all – even our enemies – was perhaps the most significant act of benevolence by a victor that the world has ever seen. It demonstrated how exceptional America truly was.  Still, it would be the smoldering Cold War that would force us to seize the stage in Berlin for a command performance. It was not as if we were unprepared. We were, after all, the nation that proclaimed its Manifest Destiny and the one which de Tocqueville in his 1831 Democracy in America saw as uniquely placed to lead the world in “benevolent enterprises.” What was lacking however was our failure to recognize that few other nations ever look beyond their own short-sighted, self-interests. This would cost Europe dearly at the end of the World War II when the United States worked hard to be a team player with even the Soviet Union, often to its disadvantage. In fact, much of the turmoil that became the Cold War was the result of our failure to understand Joseph Stalin and the insatiable communist appetite for territory. From Yalta on, Stalin had fast-talked the allies into post-war concessions as trade-offs for his entry into the war against Japan. The Battle for Berlin had been grueling and in April of 1945, similarly shortsighted U.S. diplomatic accommodations on the battlefield kept U.S. forces out of the city as Soviet forces razed what little remained after allied bombing.  House-to-house street-fighting by the Nazis gave communists all the excuses necessary to further dehumanize the war by raping Berlin’s women and girls, and pillaging its remaining booty. These war crimes were not just premeditated but actually promised to the soldiers as rewards for the bitter campaigns that had preceded Berlin’s “Stunde Null” (Zero Hour).   At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, Harry Truman arrived with more realistic insights on Soviet eastern European expansionism than his predecessor, FDR. The Russians sought at first to retain all of Berlin but Allied Forces used physical leverage over the Soviets in the German states of Thuringia and Saxony to ensure that Berlin would be an open city, governed by four powers in a ruling body known as the Kommandatura. It was with more than some suspicion that agreements regarding the four country occupation zones were crafted and under these conditions that American forces were actually “admitted” to the city.  In the three years following the war’s end, the Russians were obsessed with reparations and followed a two-pronged exploitation of their spoils. On the one hand, their commissars exacted money from current German production activities while on the other, they stripped prime industrial machinery in their zones and shipped it by railcar back to the motherland. In Berlin, it went well beyond economics. It became crystal clear to the Allies that Russia had every intention of transforming the city by stealth into a socialist enclave by using trained agitators, labor thugs, and former Nazi hacks. Resistance by the Allies to the Soviet master plan came slowly at first, but it went from warm to a boil almost overnight through friction within the governing combine. By late spring 1948 the fissure was beyond repair.  A secretly orchestrated tri-party currency reform replaced inflated occupation Reichsmarks with new Allied Deutschemarks. The Russians were furious and they responded predictably by instituting a blockade of all traffic to and from the non-Soviet sectors. They were sure that the allies would have to submit to Soviet demands or surrender control of Berlin. It would have been understandable if Washington had done nothing to stop the Russian land grab. Confronting the Soviet military was not a viable option as our remaining occupation forces were pitifully small -- and the potential for another major war was quite real. So it was in June of 1948 that America’s muscular exceptionalism came of age as President Truman announced the Berlin Airlift as the counter-punch to the Russian siege.  The decision did not come easily. Many urged “Give-Em-Hell-Harry” to sacrifice Berlin in the name of peace.  Fortunately for the citizens of Berlin, the president and his post-war generals were insightful of their enemy and Truman had taken his own full measure of the Russian beast.  The airlift itself was an impossible task. Feeding and providing fuel to a city of some 2 million people with the technology and smaller cargo aircraft of the day was beyond imagining.  But there was the American “x factor” -- brilliant doses of ingenuity that revolutionized air freight management, ground approach radar and air operations. The enormous success of the 11-month air bridge was seen in its numbers: 2.33 million tons of cargo, 277,569 flights, only 101 fatalities and the lifting of the blockade in May of 1949.  But this was no solo task. America led the free world air flotilla but the Royal Air Forces of England, New Zealand, and Australia contributed mightily to these monumental numbers. The book Daring Young Men by Richard Reeves (released earlier this year) is a compelling account of this epic success and a must-read for anyone who wants to understand American courage and leadership in the post-war world. If American exceptionalism was not obvious enough in the Berlin Airlift, it was demonstrated clearly to the whole world in the Marshall Economic Recovery Plan.  Through the Marshall Plan, the United States poured upwards of $100 billion in today’s dollars to rebuild Germany and also Europe’s economy. Never in the course of history had one country taken on the responsibility of rebuilding an entire continent, including both its former enemies and exhausted allies. The plan itself was at its core, foreign policy.  It recognized that freedom in the old world would be doomed if the new world could not breathe economic life and hope into the ashes of war. Russia was also in dire straits but when offered participation in the plan, Stalin could not countenance it.  The Marshall Plan was more than just a “most noble adventure” as Greg Behrman has detailed in his book of the same name; it was the signature foreign policy achievement of its time.  When reinforced militarily with the NATO Treaty executed in 1949, the military-economic umbrella it represented became the catalyst of development and then the emergence of a modern-day Europe. Thirteen years later, in 1961, Europe was back on its feet and surging. In contrast, the Soviet Zone of Germany was in shambles.  It is estimated that some 2.5-3.0 million East Germans had found a way to escape Soviet domination – either by going to West Berlin or transiting through on the way to another free country. Coupled with the ongoing economic counter blockade initiated in response to the airlift, the Democratic Republic of Germany was losing its best minds to freedom and was no more than a third world nation.  Reacting again to the failure of its political system, the Berlin Wall was hastily thrown up on the night of August 13, 1961. For 28 years, an isle of freedom endured in a squalid communist sea because the United States, as the free world’s leader, refused to be bullied by ever-changing masters of the failing Soviet communist state. During that time President Kennedy joined the city with his famous line, “Ich bin ein Berliner” and decades later Ronald Reagan called on Mr. Gorbachev to tear down his wall.  On November 9, 1989 the Berlin wall finally collapsed under the weariness of a dysfunctional political system unable to sustain its own economic promises. If the story of Berlin is the story of the collapse of communism, it is even more the story of America coming of age. The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall serve as benchmarks of the Cold War – a costly economic, military and political struggle which had the highest of nuclear stakes and was won by a free world with the unswerving, courageous leadership of the United States. Today, it is fashionable in some circles to denigrate our nation’s glorious past. We have entered into a time in which the intellectual and political leadership of this country has lost sight of our greatness. There is a clattering gong from the growing ranks of apologists who feel the need to expunge the demons of American greatness past. Many of the liberal, political elite fail to see the blessings they are still enjoying from America’s leadership and instead seek to paint our great benevolence in hues of domination and intimidation. In 2008, Andrew Bacevich in his book, The Limits of Power, called U.S. exceptionalism into question.  He concluded that our exceptionalism had become an unsustainable desire for material wealth.  He saw the Cold War having given rise to the “Long Peace”, followed by an unbridled decade of interventionism, with the beginning of the “Long War” on 9/11.  In essence, Bacevich sees his country with a military industrial complex, picking convenient wars with those who threaten its way of life and the oil pipelines that sustain it. It is a nation that has reached the limits of its power. The opinions of those like Bacevich threaten to destroy the fabric of our nation and can become self-fulfilling prophecies. By attacking our nation’s very ideals, these detractors keep our nation from success and then point to our struggles as proof of their beliefs. How many of our school textbooks weave national guilt into their historical accounts making for a youthful self-loathing that is cancerous to our culture? Granted, there are no great leaders and no great nations that have been perfect. And surely, everyone needs humility to recognize faults and correct them. But there is grave danger in being so fault-focused that we begin to believe our detractors. When we believe what our foes are saying, we lose our ability to lead. And right now, strong leadership is what the free world needs most. As a result, this attempted destruction of American exceptionalism is not a purely domestic issue. It has consequences for the entire world. Exceptionalism recognizes the lonely challenges of leadership, the fundamental rightness and unarguable progress of the western, Judeo-Christian way of life. Moral relativism and post-modern accommodations don’t work when the enemy wages war on a way of life, innocents and children, and against all reason. Since 1776 and the Revolution that followed, our manifest destiny has been to do what is right.  Steeled in the high drama of Cold War crisis and the streets of Berlin, we have proven ourselves worthy of the task. While there may be limits to our national power and its projection, our capacity and resolve to lead the free world cannot be in doubt.  Can the free world afford a U.S. retreat from exceptionalism?  Consider the alternative: a stew of leadership including socialist bullies and third-rate actors like Iran, North Korea, Yemen, and Venezuela, all stirred in a pot by a hapless United Nations.  None of these nations will seek to benefit anyone but themselves even though the only real hope for peace is a world leadership that is characterized by a genuine pursuit of the common good. In this way, American exceptionalism is the last and best bulwark in the fight against terrorism. As in Berlin, the world cannot do without U.S. leadership.  The scream for our continuing exceptionalism is primal and strong, but never louder than from those who would be free.  May God continue to drive and bless American Exceptionalism!