Growls

Four items I read yesterday point to two disparate ways of looking at America’s future on this Fourth of July.

In his weekly column posted at National Review Online, Mark Steyn wonders what’s left of the Founding vision. He notes that while “dozens of countries” have ‘Independence Days,’ “in America ‘Independence’ seemed as much a statement about the character of a people as a designation of jurisdictional status.”However, he goes on to show that slowly America’s self-reliant citizenry has acceded to Big Government, and concludes:

“. . . it’s not republican in any sense the Founders would recognize . . . For the rest, it ought to be a source of shame to today’s Americans that this will be the first generation in U.S. history to bequeath its children the certainty of poorer, meaner lives — if not a broader decay into a fetid swamp divided between a well-connected Latin American–style elite enjoying their waivers and a vast downwardly mobile morass. On Independence Day 2011, debt-ridden America is now dependent, not on far-off kings but on global bond and currency markets, which fulfill the same role the cliff edge does in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. At some point, Wile looks down and realizes he’s outrun solid ground. You know what happens next.

“That’s all folks!”

A second essay comes from the Hoover Institution’s “defining ideas” series. William Damon, a senior fellow and member of the Virtues of a Free Society Task Force at Hoover, writes about "American Amnesia," saying: “Young people in this country are failing civics, which is a crisis for the nation.” Damon is concerned because: “A free society requires an informed and virtuous citizenry.” He explains:

“For the past ten years, our research team at Stanford has interviewed broad cross-sections of American youth about what U. S. citizenship means to them. Here is one high school student's reply, not atypical: "We just had (American citizenship) the other day in history. I forget what it was." Another student told us that "being American is not really special….I don’t find being an American citizen very important." Another replied, "I don’t want to belong to any country. It just feels like you are obligated to this country. I don’t like the whole thing of citizen...I don’t like that whole thing. It’s like, citizen, no citizen; it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like to be a good citizen—I don’t know, I don’t want to be a citizen...it’s stupid to me."

“Such statements reflect more than an ignorance of citizenship—though they may provide us with clues about the source of students' present-day lack of knowledge. Beyond not knowing what U.S. citizenship entails, many young Americans today are not motivated to learn about how to become a fully engaged citizen of their country. They simply do not care about their status as American citizens. Notions such as civic virtue, civic duty, or devotion to their country mean little to them. This is not true of all young people today—there are exceptions in virtually every community—but it accurately describes a growing trend that encompasses a large portion of our younger generation.”

In the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, however, Walter Russell Mead, professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College and editor-in-chief of the American Interest, writes in an essay entitled, “The Future Still Belongs to America" ($) saying, “This century will throw challenges at everyone. The U.S. is better positioned to adapt than China, Europe or the Arab world.” Essentially, Mead argues:

“But what is unique about the United States is not our problems. Every major country in the world today faces extraordinary challenges—and the 21st century will throw more at us. Yet looking toward the tumultuous century ahead, no country is better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities or manage the dangers than the United States.”

Finally, in a Heritage Foundation First Principles” essay entitled “Independence Forever: Why America Celebrates the Fourth of July” Matthew Spalding writes:

“The Fourth of July is a great opportunity to renew our dedication to the principles of liberty and equality enshrined in what Thomas Jefferson called "the declaratory charter of our rights."

“As a practical matter, the Declaration of Independence publicly announced to the world the unanimous decision of the American colonies to declare themselves free and independent states, absolved from any allegiance to Great Britain. But its greater meaning-then as well as now-is as a statement of the conditions of legitimate political authority and the proper ends of government, and its proclamation of a new ground of political rule in the sovereignty of the people. "If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence," wrote the great historian Samuel Eliot Morrison, "it would have been worthwhile."

Spalding includes a dozen or so quotations about the Declaration of Independence as well as some notes about the signers of the Declaration. A few quotations on the Declaration of Independence:

“The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.”

~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, September 12, 1821

“Independence Forever.”

~ John Adams, toast for the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826

“I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

~ Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" July 5, 1852

“Today, 186 years later, that Declaration whose yellowing parchment and fading, almost illegible lines I saw in the past week in the National Archives in Washington is still a revolutionary document. To read it today is to hear a trumpet call. For that Declaration unleashed not merely a revolution against the British, but a revolution in human affairs. . . . The theory of independence is as old as man himself, and it was not invented in this hall. But it was in this hall that the theory became a practice; that the word went out to all, in Thomas Jefferson's phrase, that "the God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." And today this Nation-conceived in revolution, nurtured in liberty, maturing in independence-has no intention of abdicating its leadership in that worldwide movement for independence to any nation or society committed to systematic human oppression.”

~ John F. Kennedy, address at Independence Hall, July 4, 1962

It is always difficult to argue against Mark Steyn. Adding in the arguments made by William Damon, and the future certainly looks bleak. However, as Walter Russell Mead said, America has big problems, but more importantly, America has a history provided by the Founders that enables us to build on a strong foundation. If it has been awhile since reading the Declaration of Independence, you will want to read all of Matthew Spalding's First Principles essay.