In recent conversations about my last newsletters, the subject of what is happening to the very fabric of American culture seems to come up quite often. My response has been, based on the research I have done over the past decade or so, that the progressives have pursued the destruction of what has made America great. Many of the conversations have been quite intimate and complicated. However, I know what the American strengths are. Unfortunately, the progressives, following the fundamental precepts of Marxism, have been insidiously attacking these strengths for nearly two centuries now.
As most of you know, I am a Russell Kirk acolyte. His basic precepts, laid out in his many writings, lead one to certain conclusions about how unique the American experience really is in world history. There has never been any nation ever constituted like our nation—NEVER. The strengths of America are:
• Individual Liberty: This implies that every human born into the world is imbued with the unalienable right to be free. It is the natural state of being. Given free will, one can choose the path one takes. One is not inhibited or constrained. One can, based on one’s own abilities, achieve whatever one wants. Every individual is born with different skills, abilities, powers and thoughts. In America, regardless of station in life, one can do whatever he or she wants to do.
• Traditional nuclear family: The fundamental societal building block in America (and the world) is the family built upon a man, a woman and whatever children might be brought into the world by that couple. In that family, the children are given strong role models upon which their early education will be based. In the early history of the nation, that first set of educational lessons came from perhaps the only book in the house—the Bible.
• The primacy of faith: Contrary to what might be popular in the press today, America is still a religious nation. Our fellow citizens, for the most part, still believe in a Supreme Being, consider themselves spiritual and still want to believe that the end of life is simply a point of transition. For those of us who are Christians (nearly all Americans), we know that the afterlife is far greater than even the best life lived on earth. Individuals living in liberty, forming nuclear families, are now eager to return to the pews in our buildings we call churches.
• Voluntary association in communities: We join organizations like unions (guilds), professional associations, civic groups, PTOs, etc., because we want to, not because we have to. Our voluntary communities keep us from depending on government to satisfy our basic needs.
Progressives, through government coercion, take away our liberties every time legislatures pass laws that allow unelected bureaucrats to write rules. These rules restrict our ability to make choices, thus tightening the handcuffs put on our wrists by government. Progressives destroy the family through stealing our children and indoctrinating them in our deeply flawed public school systems. Progressives keep God out of the town square, even though this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Progressives assault our communities through laws and rules that destroy those institutions of which we want to be a part.
The actions of the progressives can be abated by one fundamental tenet of mortal and moral existence on this planet. Based on Biblical teachings passed on to our Founders, governments are formed to serve the demands and desires of the people who constitute those governments. Those people elect prudent magistrates who will serve at the behest of those represented from communities in a jurisdiction. This natural formation of governments formed by men and women is called Popular Sovereignty. Governments serve the people, not the other way around. The fact that our governments have gotten that backwards is on us. Think about it.
Why have things gotten so cockeyed? We have not engaged our elected officials on boards, commissions, state legislatures and our nationally elected federal officials. Be silent no more.
Priorities
Our priorities, even given what I have written here, is to make sure Donald Trump is reelected as president and that republicans hold the senate. These must be foremost in everything we do this cycle. If one engages in helping do anything, those efforts must be focused on these priorities.
If we do not get DJT back in the White House, we are stuck with an totally repugnant president in Joe Biden and the powers that will be behind him (Soros, etc.). If we get the president back in DC and lose the senate, we will never get another judge or appointed official placed during the ensuing four years of the administration. At stake? POTUS may very well be able to appoint an additional three supreme court justices during the next term.
We may have to hold our noses to vote for some of the senate candidates, but we must hold fast to what we worked so hard to gain in 2014. The possible combinations of which party holds what ought to give all of us pause. Do your part. Do One More Thing.
Sam Clovis was raised in Kansas and attended the United States Air Force Academy, serving for 25 years on active duty as a fighter pilot. He retired as a Colonel and the Inspector General of NORAD and the United States Space Command.
Sam served as a Fellow at the Homeland Security Institute, contributing in national preparedness and immigration policy. He recently served as a tenured full professor of economics at Morningside College.
Sam has a BS from the Academy, an MBA from Golden Gate University and a doctorate from the University of Alabama. He served as national co-chair and chief policy advisor for the Trump for President Campaign, was a policy director during the transition period and served as the Senior White House Advisor to the US Department of Agriculture. He currently lives in rural Iowa.
