The American Dream is Dying
and it's up to us to save itIn 1776, our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and honor to what promised to be the most exceptional nation the world had ever seen. It was unique in many ways, but particularly in its founding. While many nations are founded out of necessity, dynastic turmoil, exploration, or other causes, the United States of America was founded because of an ideal.
This ideal has rippled through time and space to create a tsunami of freedom, human progression, and a new understanding of the place of man and government in society.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, they declared, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
These were entirely new ideas—at least, entirely new in how they were articulated. If you look closely, you can see the threads of these ideas woven through the Bible, Shakespeare, and many of the other works that influenced the Founders.
But this beautiful legacy of unalienable rights and deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed that was passed down from generation to generation is dying.
Consider the state we find ourselves in today—both socially and politically.
Rising censorship, futile elections, a rapidly expanding government that keeps growing no matter who is in power, an exploding national deficit, increased regulation in every aspect of our lives, and a government that treats their citizens with nothing short of disdain is not the legacy the Founders intended for us.
Looking at the trends in society, culture, academia, politics, and basically everything else, it might be easy to assume that this legacy isn’t just dying, it’s stone cold dead and long buried. America is in a steady decline, and “an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an equal and opposite force,” to paraphrase Newton’s first law.
And while that is a deeply gloomy verdict, it also offers hope. America’s condemnation is also her salvation: America is in a steady decline, and will remain in decline… unless acted upon by a counterforce.
But we can’t do it alone.
Ronald Reagan said, “freedom is never more than one generation from extinction,” and that is undoubtedly true. Will we be the generation that will lose it all—lose our freedom, lose the legacy—or will we restore this fragile legacy to its former glory?
This doesn’t have to be the end. In fact, this could be just the beginning. We invite you to join us in restoring this legacy, “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” pledging “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
