Despite all our present problems and challenges, aggravated by so many daunting divisions, how awed, thrilled, and grateful our Founding Fathers would be to see just how extraordinarily well our republic has done over the last quarter-millennium. They were not sure if we could even survive as a nation at all, and we have certainly suffered through many terrible trials of economic depression, political and social upheaval, wars, world wars, a Cold War, and even a War Between the States.
Yet, guided by our religious faith, the American Declaration of Independence, and our U.S. Constitution, we have not only survived but thrived more than any country in history, dominating the world today like no nation ever before. We are just four percent of the world’s people, but we have a gigantic impact on the rest of this planet. Economically, though we are but one of not quite 200 nations, we make up about a fourth of the world’s economy. Most U.S. dollars are abroad; in fact, about 30 nations and colonies use it as official currency. The rest of the world hopes our economy does well because we are their top export market.
The notion that the world’s second economic power, China, will soon economically surpass us is absurd. As of 2026, China has about 450 airports. But, with less than one-fourth her population, the U.S. has 19,700. With not quite 42,000 airports on the whole planet, that means almost half are American. The U.S. per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2024 was a little under $67,000; in China, just over $13,000. Even our poorest state, Mississippi, has a higher GDP than the United Kingdom, France, Italy, or Spain. In fact, most Americans are in the top one percent of the world’s income-earners.
Politically, no country has remotely our pull. No major United Nations operation occurs without our leadership. Indeed, we can even successfully defy the U.N., like we did earlier this year with military operations in Venezuela and Iran. Militarily, we are the most powerful nation by far. We spend more money on defense than the total GDP of most of the rest of the world combined. We spend more each year just on our 17 intelligence agencies than every other nation spends on its entire military, except for Russia and China. But add up the defense budgets of Russia and China, and ours is more than double the total – way more. China has two aircraft carriers, but we have 11 – you do the math. Both of theirs are diesel. Ours are all nuclear.
A huge global influence we have is our popular culture which has long been our top dollar export: movies, TV programs, the internet, music, Coca-Cola, blue jeans, fast food, etc. In 1986, the French Marxist, Regis Debray, predicted we would win the Cold War because “There is more power in rock music, videos, blue jeans, fast food, news networks, and TV satellites than in the entire Red Army.” Indeed, in 1998 former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was reduced to being a pitchman for Pizza Hut. Chinese children crave a McDonald’s Monster Burger (a double cheeseburger). When one of my sweet Xiaoyan’s little cousins was asked why he liked it so much, he replied, “It’s delicious!” And who caters many Chinese weddings? KFC. But our ideas remain our greatest influence: freedom, equality, democracy, private property, justice, and altruism. As Lady Margaret Thatcher understood, “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.” While our West European allies continue to restrict their citizens’ most basic speech rights, Americans still enjoy more free expression than any people in history because, like our Founding Fathers and the brave patriots who won our nation’s liberty, we know that all our rights come from God, and our Constitution guarantees that our government must respect and protect them. As Senator Robert Kennedy noted, we Americans are the descendants of the greatest political revolutionaries in history because, as the British-American Christopher Hitchens observed, the American Revolution is the only one that still inspires.
No other nation has created a society where everyone enjoys so many rights – and equally. By far the safest country in which to be any kind of minority is America where minority rights are guaranteed to equal those of any majority because our Constitution protects the individual rights of all U.S. citizens – equally. Even a homeless man’s vote counts equally to that of a multi-billionaire or a president.
No other nation has as strong a system of courts as America where judges are sworn to uphold every part of the Constitution, no matter how unpopular it may be at the moment. No other land’s Founding Fathers did as much as ours to constitutionally guarantee that everyone accused of a crime would get maximum due process to try to prevent any innocent person from going to jail. Plus our private property rights are constitutionally guaranteed to better protect our freedoms and the opportunity to succeed.
No nation has a tradition of altruism that can remotely rival ours. We helped save the world from tyranny by liberating “a suffering humanity” in not one but two world wars and then during a Cold War and right up to the present day. Nor has any nation given so much military, economic, technological, and philanthropic help to the rest of the world. Our nation’s Judeo-Christian commitment to the sacred value of every child of God was beautifully shown yet again in April of this year when we deployed 155 aircraft to rescue a single American military officer who had to eject from his plane over enemy-occupied Iran.
And no country’s citizens have the democratic might of Americans to determine our destiny via elections at the national, state, and local levels. We are so committed to democracy that voters not only get to choose between the various political party nominees for each elective office, but we even get to pick all the nominees of our chosen party. No wonder folks all over the world not allowed to vote in any election will vote with their feet to come to America, “the New Jerusalem,” “the New Promised Land,” that “shining city on a hill.” From 1620 to 1858, 388,000 black Africans were brought to the present-day U.S. on slave ships. But, just since 2000, 3.2 million black African immigrants have freely chosen to move here because, as a Nigerian told me, America “is the closest to a perfect country” due to all its great opportunities. In fact, the average median home income of Nigerian-Americans is over $5,000 higher than the average American’s. This is just one of the very many reasons why immigration involving America is all one way.
With all our bountiful blessings, we should recall how the Book of Luke instructs that “For those unto much has been given, much is required.” Sir Winston Churchill, the prime minister who led the United Kingdom to victory over Hitler in WWII, echoed this when he proclaimed that “The price of greatness is responsibility.” Precisely because we Americans live in the most free, democratic, rich, powerful, and blessed nation in history, we must use our might wisely, justly, and always morally, here and abroad.
Of course, despite all our liberty, government still has a huge impact on almost every aspect of our lives. Our elected public officials decide how much freedom we have regarding speech, the press, religion, assembly, protests, guns, birth control, abortion, homosexual rights, speed limits, smoking, alcohol, marijuana and other drugs, immigration, and on and on. Government makes and enforces the laws – and decides which laws will be enforced the most.
Look at just the enormous economic impact of government on all our lives via taxes, government jobs, government contracts, regulations, spending, interest rates, loans, education, and thousands of other public policies.
Ultimately, our federal government determines war and peace and can draft men to fight and die for the U.S., and 1.3 million Americans have made the final sacrifice for our freedom, giving their lives from the War for American Independence to the war in Iran. But local government may have an even bigger, more direct, and meaningful impact on our lives regarding the quality of schools, the police department, sheriff’s department, fire department, public hospitals, the cleanliness of our streets, trash pick-up, recycling, sewage, the water supply, zoning and noise ordinances, alcohol sales, and so much more.
But, as Americans, we can ultimately be in control of our government if we choose to keep up with what it is doing, contact our elected officials and the news media, protest for our beliefs, and vote. Please recall that free democratic societies are always the exception and ever under assault from enemies without and within. The Irish statesman Edmund Burke noted that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Often the main foes of freedom are the folks who most fervently seek to save or protect us, and liberty has perhaps never faced as many or more powerful enemies in the U.S. as today. We have lost an enormous amount of our economic freedom via spiralling taxes and government regulations – and to think we fought a revolution largely over a three-cent-a-pound tax on tea. News flash: Britain’s King George III never taxed, regulated, or policed us remotely as much as “Fedzilla” (hat tip to Ted Nugent) does today.
Witness our growing national nanny state cracking down on personal freedoms. Did we really need the 2020-21 lockdowns over the Corona Virus? Some Democratic governors and mayors even banned church attendance. Look at the “hate speech” movement, especially on college and now even grade school campuses. Now almost all states have “hate crimes” laws — paging George Orwell’s 1984. How scared so many Americans have become even to be honest in public regarding any controversial issue in light of all the many reputations, careers, friends, and even families lost due to “cancel culture.”
Have no doubt, more than ever before, today’s leftists are waging war against all of our sacred Judeo-Christian values and the traditions of America’s Founding Fathers. As President Barack Obama boasted, they seek nothing less than “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into a secular socialist superstate. We are engaged in a struggle for no less than the destiny and very soul of America — and the whole free world. Nothing less than Western Judeo-Christian civilization itself is at stake.
But, inspired by our faith, Constitution, and history, we can see to it that, to paraphrase William Faulkner, America “will not merely endure, but prevail.” However united by a common cause we are, it is as dedicated, hard-working individuals that we will either protect or lose what the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. hailed as “the sacred heritage of our nation.” Just as Christ commands each of us to be a good servant of the Lord, so Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan’s favorite president, understood that “Duty is not collective; it is personal.” And, as General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson declared, “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s.” And every single one of us has a far greater impact on others than we will ever know.
Many years ago, at the funeral of an 80-year-old WWII veteran, in lieu of a eulogy, the pastor asked the departed’s friends to come forward and share how Sandy Head had positively impacted their lives. I knew Sandy as a brother volunteer at Athens, Georgia’s Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, but I had no idea what an amazing life that man led, touching so many lives in so many helpful ways. One after another, people spoke of how “Sandy gave me a place to stay when I went through a rough patch in my marriage,” “Sandy did this for me,” “Sandy did that.” I sat there mesmerized, not even knowing most of these folks from Adam, because it turned out that this little-known gentleman, who we will never read about in a history book, had immeasurably enriched the lives of an enormous number of people. Truly, his really was a wonderful life. And what felt like the fastest church service of my life lasted almost two hours. When the final mourner sat down, the minister said, “You see, you see? Every single one of us is a role model – for better or worse – in everything we do and everything we don’t, in everything we say, and everything we leave unsaid. Yes, we all impact far more people than we will ever realize – for better or worse.”
So may all of us grateful for our American heritage stand tall with confidence and good cheer, rejoicing to be part of such a heroic people, flawed sinners like everyone but, as William Faulkner told us, “You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.” And when our detractors insult or ridicule us, recall that a far better judge of your character than who your friends are, is who are your enemies. If you are doing right, you should relish every one of them, and I am glad to report that I believe traditional Americans have all the right enemies. And to be one of the four percent of the world’s people who are American, as well as one of the two percent with a college degree, and healthy to boot, we are the most blessed folks ever to walk this planet.
So let us utilize our record opportunities to the fullest and never forget we are Americans. Work hard to promote our values and recall, as the Canadian painter Greg Murphy observed: “The day no one is using you is the day you are useless.” Let us be grateful to be needed. Finally, may we recall what President Kennedy taught us:
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it…. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.
May God continue to bless the United States of America, and may we always be worthy of His blessing.
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