These are stressful days as we rapidly approach November 8th. We experience hope and fear as we read the daily news and hear the latest poll. Now more than ever we need to plant our feet on solid ground. We need to pray for those who represent us at every level, those who hope to and those who will cast votes on Election Day.
55 years ago Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Yet a few weeks ago, a newly release survey found that only 55 percent of millennials believe Communism ever was or is still a problem. This and other observations, both anecdotal and measured, reveal our country has wandered far from the ideals of our Founding Fathers and the principles of republicanism.
In 1788, Noah Webster said, “Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country; he should lisp the praise of liberty, and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen, who have wrought a revolution in her favor.”
That the United States now boasts a citizenry devoid of understanding the principles this nation embodied at its founding, is not simply an inconvenience to be explained when someone isn’t sympathetic to the Republican Party. It is instead, the revelation that the very foundation of our existence has been undermined as time and neglect did its often silent, but dangerous work.
On the centennial of the signing of the Constitution, President James Garfield said, “Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress… If the next centennial does not find us a great nation … it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”
As we listen to our speaker and candidates, let us evaluate their thoughts and promises as if we are the guardians of liberty.
Because we are.
(UCRC Chairman’s comments at our Fall Dinner.)