What Would Really Make America Great Again?

I don’t think most Americans really know what would make America great again, primarily because they don’t know what made America great in the first place. Neither of our presidential candidates know how to make America great again even though they spout the phrase or something similar many times a day. Kamala Harris wants to turn America into a European style welfare state. Donald Trump wants to remake America into ArgeDntina of the style of Juan Peron. Those countries aren’t so great and Argentina is a perennial basket case.e

Many Americans are ignorant of their history and have no conception of the civic principles that are the foundation of our country. In a recent survey, almost two-thirds of Americans could not pass the naturalization test that immigrants must pass to become citizens. This is also why so many Americans actually believe distortions of history like the 1619 project. This is why they are so vulnerable to any crack-pot conspiracy theory bandied about by some social media influencer (the latest being that the good guys did not win World War Two). Americans are trapped in their identities and cannot see the wider world beyond that constrained vision.

So how did America become great, an exceptional country, one that former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called, ”indispensable.”

First of all, we must understand that the Founders of our country were not conservatives, they were revolutionaries. What’s more, they believed in a radical new philosophy that asserted that the personal liberty of citizens was the most important objective of government. The Scottish Enlightenment (as compared to the French Enlightenment) as described by John Locke and others laid the groundwork for the creation of democratic government based on reason. Adam Smith amplified this philosophy by describing how civil liberty and economic liberty are bound together. These ideas were radical in the eighteenth century and the Founders knew that they were creating something that the world had never seen. As the motto on the Great Seal of the United States proclaims, America is “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” A New Order for the Age.

The new Americans were not subjects of a monarch or emperor but equal citizens of a new society. But citizens, in order to be able to protect their liberties and to take advantage of their economic freedom, must understand the world around them. They must be literate and able to employ rational thought. Alexis de Tocqueville, in his travels to America in the early nineteenth century marveled at the literacy rate of ordinary Americans. French peasants were mostly illiterate. Serfs and peons across the globe were easier to control when they were illiterate. Free people need to be literate. In the 1800s the United States had the highest literacy rate in the world.

During his visit to the United States de Tocqueville also praised the American “art of association.” Ben Franklin was a serial creator of civic organizations creating among others the Library Association of Philadelphia, the Union Fire Company and the University of Philadelphia. Civic organizations are formed for many reasons, some serious, some fun, but civic organizations are the life blood of a free society. There were few civic organizations in France, Spain or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Government monopolized the civic space. Monarchies and dictatorships hate and fear civic organizations, wanting to control all aspects of their subjects lives and fearing the potential of independent associations in fomenting dissent.

But it is not enough to understand philosophic principles, Americans must be able to act on those principles. I believe that the Founders understood that slavery was inconsistent with the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence. But slavery was common around the world, even in the English colonies where slavery was legal until 1834. But the dilemma of our ancestors was that they did not know how to get rid of slavery, many forms of agriculture were dependent on slave labor. People today condemn the Founders for not immediately getting rid of slavery, but it is easy to look back on historical times and apply modern solutions. Right now we are in a horrible mess and we don’t know how to get out of it. Our descendants a hundred years from now might say, oh, those people in the 21st century just had to do this or that and the problem would be solved. The solution our ancestors used to the solve the problem of slavery was to fight a bloody Civil War. Not a great solution but it was the best they could come up with at the time. The United States could not become the great nation that the Founders envisioned while slavery still existed.

American intervention in two world wars and a cold war saved the world from a bleak, oppressive future and delivered many millions of people form the bonds of tyranny. American ideals and principles had truly made America great. The Soviet Union collapsed. China rose and became prosperous. War and violence declined. Child mortality fell. People lived longer. But before America rose to lead a world order that sought peace and prosperity for all the peoples of the world, it had to become internally strong. And internal strength required faithfulness to the ideals and principles set out by the Founders.

For a while it seemed that it was all going to work. But people around the world are different, their cultures are different. Some people do not share America’s universal values, even some people in the United States. Not everybody shared America’s emphasis on personal liberty and economic freedom. Some felt that the common good should outweigh individualism. That equality of outcome should outweigh equality of opportunity. Some felt that unique cultures, histories and religions outweighed the universal values of the Enlightenment.

Just as America has reached its peak of power it has been riven by internal dissent. Our belief in American exceptionalism is now doubted by our own people. Were the Founders wrong? Those assertions may have some validity and should be debated seriously. But we need to realize that acceptance of those beliefs (Trumpism and national conservatism on the right /Marxist thinking and socialism on the left) will not make America great again. It would only make America just like everybody else.

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No amount of welfare checks or subsidies will make America great again. No amount of tax cuts funded by massive amounts of government debt will make the American economy strong again. But who cares? Why should anybody care if America is great. Maybe American exceptionalism is just one big ego trip?

But America was exceptional. The principal concept of John Locke’s enlightenment is the primacy of the individual. As stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, each person is endowed with certain unalienable rights “that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights belong to each individual and governments are instituted to secure those rights. If government does not secure those rights, “it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” Governments do not grant rights to individuals but individuals create government to protect the rights endowed by the Laws of Nature.

People so liberated have the power to control their own lives, ceding only a fraction of that power to government in order to preserve those rights within a civil society. No wonder America was considered the New Order for the Age, such a thing had never occurred before. The cumulative power of all these individuals (multiplied many times over) is what has created all the power and prosperity of America. Every increase of government decreases the liberty of the individual. We do not need to increase the scope of the welfare state, we need to empower people to solve problems they face in life. A safety net is very different than a cradle-to-grave nanny state.

All this power of the American people must be channeled by logic and reason into an ethical foundation for society. Current education in America appears to be little more than a baby-sitting service designed to give children high self-esteem without regard to performance. The reason we pay taxes to educate children is to create productive citizens that can contribute to society. The people inhabiting a civil society need a solid education, not only in STEM, but in history, civics and ethics. They need to be proud of the things America has accomplished while acknowledging the mistakes we have made.  

The growth of government has substituted government bureaucracies for civic organizations. Some claim that government can provide services more efficiently but bureaucracies and the bureaucrats within them begin to serve themselves instead of serving the needs of citizens. Bureaucracies continuously increase in size because the problems are never solved. And with decisions affecting their lives being made in Washington the human capital of citizens is diminished until they eventually lose control of their own fate.

We cannot replicate the conditions that existed at our founding 250 years go. But we can rededicate ourselves to the values and principles that helped our ancestors overcome those conditions and to rise to greatness. It will not be easy. It will require sacrifice. Remember President John F. Kennedy told us, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Don’t vote for somebody just because they promise government benefits paid for by someone else. Don’t vote for someone who promises tax cuts without sacrifice. Vote for someone who believes in the ideals and principles that made America great and is willing to lead the country based on those principles.

We can do it again. It’s up to you.